An interactive art installation, Sanctum employs surveillance systems to generate cinematic narratives with social media content that matches the demographic profile of passers-by.

“In an era of status updates, tweets, and check-ins, the geography of public, shared spaces needs to be reconsidered, along with our expectations of privacy in them," say artists James Coupe and Juan Pampin.

Sanctum seeks to investigate the narrative potential of social media while raising important and provocative questions about the conflicting imperatives emerging in our culture as we promote and embrace ever-more-intrusive electronic media, while still cherishing traditional notions of privacy.

From those who choose to participate in the project, Sanctum will actively gather information via sophisticated surveillance and profiling technology and match it with data drawn from social media sites to shape original plausible and implausible fictional narratives.

Coupe and Pampin, both associate professors in UW's DXARTS program, an interdisciplinary degree-granting center designed to support the emergence of a new generation of hybrid artists, were chosen in 2010 from 91 applications who answered an open international call, soliciting proposals for a site-specific project to transform the façade of the museum's main entrance and to engage the UW population and the many visitors who pass by the Henry every day.