The Digital Divide (Every LinkNYC in Manhattan), 2018 – ongoing, archival inkjet prints, 13 x 13 inches (33 x 33 cm)
The 1700+ privately-operated LinkNYC kiosks that have been installed throughout New York City since 2014 have reshaped the topology of the city’s streetscape. This spatial transformation signals a new epoch of so-called smart urbanism, integrating a network of sensors, cameras, and communication technologies inside 10-foot stainless steel enclosures owned and operated by Sidewalk Labs, a Google subsidiary. If data is the new gold, then New York City is a giant open-air mine.
LinkNYC – with their offer of free WiFi and device charging, arguably now basic social services as much of contemporary life has migrated online – are provisional meeting points, especially for those on the underprivileged side of a digital divide. Our photographs provide a vantage point that occludes access to the LinkNYC advertising surfaces and communication interfaces. Instead, the kiosks are depicted as vertical forms that frame a view of street activity, people, and conventional forms of commercial activity. Digital Divide considers the complex effects of recent urban transformations, through the prism of this singular development in the surrounding environment of New York City.
