RS Components sponsors ‘humansbeingdigital’ art exhibition

The exhibition, featuring work from nine international artists, will allow visitors to experience a range of emotional and physical reactions to artwork that explores the links between humans, machines and technology – both now and in the future. RS, via its DesignSpark community, is working with one of these artists – Nye Thompson – whose installation uses technology to highlight the unsecure nature of millions of security cameras across the world. ‘Open’ feeds, displayed on the gallery wall, raise questions about technology and privacy.

Nye Thompson has long been focusing on the relationship and interface between the ‘real’ embodied world and the virtual one, exploring the way new technology paradigms transform humanity and the social and psychological impact of living in a world of connected objects. She has been sharing her engineering-inspired artwork with the DesignSpark engineering community since 2013. Now this latest installation at The Lowry builds upon her ‘Backdoored’ project, which focuses on the vulnerabilities of the Internet of Things (IoT).

“RS is very excited to be supporting Nye’s continuing work and her new installation at The Lowry,” said Mike Bray, VP of DesignSpark at RS. “We have followed her work with much interest via our DesignSpark engineering community. In addition to our support for Nye, RS is donating a number of Raspberry Pi Premium Display kits, which will be reused after the exhibition to help set up a digital skills lab for youngsters in Salford, Manchester.”

This exhibition is aimed at anyone who has an interest in technology, including engineers, makers and innovators. It looks at the impact of technology and its intentional or unintentional consequences; how it is becoming increasingly integrated into both our working and private lives; and what some of the implications can be as we come to rely on it more and more. Through art, it highlights many of the issues, especially with regard to security, as well as the social impact of increasingly pervasive technology.