Artistic RFID implant project?

edited August 2015 in RFID/NFC
Hi all,

To introduce myself, I'm a London-based artist interested in topics such as body modification, surveillance, security and identity.

I'm hoping to get an RFID implants from Dangerous Things. Most of the uses I've seen for RFID tags have involved unlocking phones, laptops, and doors. While these are undeniably pretty cool, as an artist without a strong background in electronics or programming, I'm more interested in the creative side of things. 

I'm not looking for functional uses of the implant, rather, ways to integrate it into an exhibition. Ideally, I would like for my implant to interact with an installation in a gallery, even if it was something incredibly simple, like opening a series of locked safes. (In my first vision for this project, I wanted to use the RFID chip to interact with visuals and audio made with Max / MSP / Jitter, but soon realised this would be beyond my programming capabilities, and maybe not even possible to do!)

Have any of you ever used your RFID implants to make something creative and weird, rather than functional in an everyday sense? I'd like to spend several months familiarising myself with things like Arduino and basic electronics, but if I find that my goals are outside of my technical abilities, would any of you with more technical skill than me be interested in collaborating?

Any thoughts, answers or comments would be really appreciated!

Thanks,
Aech
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Comments

  • Hey so I had been thinking about your art question and thought hey why not use the RFID to make the art...fields have varying strength and so make it so when you walk through one it triggers a color scheme (digitally) on a screen with the color being random for each thing you walk though.
  • Use it to trigger a speaker also when you enter near an exhibit or something of the sort.
  • I think the problem is that RFIDs are intrinsically very boring. You could activate something with an embedded RFID, but that's just a massively complicated switch. 

    If lots of people have them, you can start doing interesting things - off the top of my head: a "mood ring"-type gem that uses the ID component of an RFID to generate a specific colour for each person. A take on those "love compatibility" fairground tests that allows two implantees to see how similar their serial numbers are. A flashing alarm that detects RFID tags and cries out "biohackers are nearby!" that kind of thing. 

    By itself, an RFID tag is not much more than a number written on a piece of paper. To be honest, I've yet to see anyone do anything remotely interesting with them - functional or otherwise... 

  • That's all they really are is an RFID. Radio Frequency Identification Device.

    You could actually do some fun stuff if enough people had them with say, a streetpass style approach, or allow people to check in at places with their RFID.
  • My phone wont read my RFID only my NFC so choose your standard wisely, they are different.
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