Mapping measures geography, cultural, and psychological terrain but has alternative roles in the hidden apparatus of influence. I use the traditional classroom pull down map to connect to the context of education, and to critically engage who’s culture (history/memory) is consecrated and who’s is forgotten. For Prison Searches, Google® image search is a collaborator in mapping, graphing, and yielding insight on mediated sociocultural scapes. This tool maps our contemporary visual culture and identity through mediated communication, information aggregation, and the everyday techno sociocultural visual interface. The process plots the shopping and cultural bazaar of our private human experiences that are then translated into behavior data—my intent is to invoke critical inquiry. Prison Searches is about critically engaging with what scholars refer to as the school-to-prison pipeline that places marginalized youth and literacy inequality on the path to incarceration as reflected in the racial disparity within our for profit prisons.

Special thanks to Annemarie Furlong and Sally Crane for their support with this artwork.