SWAMP (Douglas Easterly and Matt Kenyon)

IED – Improvised Empathetic Device net project, US, 2006

The current U.S. led war in Iraq has suffered enormous casualties, where the toll on civilian lives is vague and many times unreported. The number of U.S. casualties is reported and monitored, many of which are the result of I.E.D.s (improvised explosive devices). Overall, the media coverage of these atrocities is given very little attention, often overshadowed by more personal and spectacular stories, such as child abductions and runaway brides. SWAMP’s I.E.D. project aims to give real and physical presence to the death and violence occurring in the Middle East, by creating direct physical pain from the event of killed soldiers, whose toll and details are silently relegated to small or no print. A Custom software application continuously monitors a web-site (icasualties.org) that updates the accumulation and personal details of slain U.S. soldiers. When new deaths are detected the data is extracted and sent wirelessly to custom hardware installed on the I.E.D. armband.