Explore cybersecurity through art at new exhibition

Virginia researchers and artists are shaking up the way we see cybersecurity in a new art exhibition, showing how our personal information, images, emotions, and more can be used against us or to create connections.

Funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), the CyberArts 2024 Exhibit is open at the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria until Jan. 19, 2025. The opening reception will be held on Oct. 18 from 6-8 p.m. Registration is required. 

From the smartphones and smart devices that act as personal assistants to safeguarding the nation’s critical infrastructure and supply chains, cybersecurity can be highly personal, said Luiz DaSilva, CCI executive director and the Bradley Professor of Cybersecurity at Virginia Tech.

“The CyberArts Exhibit offers an engaging take on a serious topic,” DaSilva said. “Virginia artists and researchers created an array of insightful projects, which I hope will leave people better informed and inspire future cybersecurity professionals.” 

CCI funded projects from Blue Ridge Community College, George Mason University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and Virginia Tech. Artists, mathematicians, audio engineers, computer science professors, kinetic imaging professors, and more discovered common ground combining art and cybersecurity.

“We want people to be conscious users of cyberspace,” said Agnieszka Miedlar, associate professor of mathematics at Virginia Tech and lead researcher on the Hidden Within project. “We do not need to be experts, but we all need to be aware of benefits and dangers that the cyberworld poses to us.”

The Hidden Within team found inspiration in the ways data can be encrypted and sent via light sources, said Janet Biggs, an artist with the team. The team chose steganography, which can be used to hide digital information in other digital information, and specifically focused on moiré – an effect that happens when two patterns overlap, creating new interference imagery, frequencies, or sound.

The result is a multi-screen art installation that uses synchronized video, objects, and sound. Video features Davian Robinson, a visually impaired dancer who uses echolocation to navigate spaces; nature images shot in the Peruvian headwaters of the Amazon; and the Gregory Guard, the Virginia Tech Corps of Cadets' silent rifle drill team. 

“Cybersecurity is based on perceiving a threat,” Biggs said. “We began thinking of cybersecurity as a tool that reflects on those perceiving the threat as much as on the threat itself. This led us to use imagery that could be interpreted in multiple ways.”

Learn more about the projects

Designing Next-Gen Security Warnings to Mitigate Social Media Misinformation from James Madison University wants to prevent us from skipping cybersecurity alerts. The team is developing new warning designs, in this case specifically for misinformation alerts on social media, incorporating brainwave data to make sure the warnings have your attention. 

Hidden Within from Virginia Tech interprets steganography, which can be used in a cyberattack and involves hiding a message by embedding it within a digital picture or music. The Hidden Within team created a multimedia art installation featuring Dancer Davian Robinson and the Gregory Guard. 

SentimentVoice: Integrating Emotion AI and VR in Performing Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University flips the script on emotion-tracking artificial intelligence (AI) technology, which analyzes emotions based on facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. Our emotions can be used for commercial purposes or surveillance, including creating monitored environments. Instead, this project uses virtual reality and emotion-tracking technology to cultivate empathy and connections based on authentic stories from immigrants in the Richmond community. 

Steal Your Face — Image Recognition of People Captured and Sold Without Their Knowledge from Blue Ridge Community College mirrors technology used by retail stores, law enforcement, and various organizations to track people, prompting us to consider how privacy, consent, and bias are reflected in this project and how you might be tracked. This exhibit is part of a larger CCI-funded project by Blue Ridge Community College, Cyber Insecurity: Exploring Vulnerabilities of Artificial Intelligence Through Visual Art.

UNDELETED from George Mason University will make you think twice about not deleting everything from your smart device before selling it. All those photos, texts, voicemails, and other personal information could end up in the wrong hands or in an art installation. 

Unveiling Invisible Sight from Old Dominion University uses AI, a camera, and a fun cyberpunk avatar of you to show how something as simple as a brightly colored piece of paper can make you disappear, creating a cybersecurity risk. 

The CyberArts Program also funded the interactive theatre performance “This Is Not a Scam!!” based on victim interviews that discuss scams and the strategies to counter them. It was performed on Blacksburg campus and at other locations in the New River Valley.

The Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology provided guidance for the CyberArts exhibit and research program.