Artist Statement

The Leistavian FBI will create an online survey form which allows for the input of multiple cultural identifications. Those that register one main cultural identity will become a control group, while those that register two or more cultural identifications, in particular those with at least one affiliation to a Pacific Rim nation, will be the target group. The form also collects information on attitudes to cultural identification issues. The data will be presented online as statistical summaries, in the installation area as large scale vinyl imagery (non-rectangular, adhered directly to wall, where image component size registers survey responses), and as a projected animation which registers change in survey responses.

The Leistavian Federal Bureau of Information acts as a data gathering and collation unit, providing hard data on cultural issues. At ISEA2006 the Bureau wants to interrogate the hidden by gathering statistics on the culturally invisible of the Pacific Rim: people of multiple and hybrid ethnicity.

The San Jose region and Silicon Valley is now home to diverse cultural groups including Indian, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and to a lesser extent, Polynesian peoples. While these cultures have significant heritages and identity maintained under the conditions of diaspora, this project aims to locate people whose cultural identity falls in-between: Hispanic-Vietnamese, Japanese-Hawaiian or Indian-Chinese for example.

Wherever cultural groups have cohabitated, hybrid individuals have resulted.

• Ian Clothier, New Zealand