Exhibit: Communication Device

Year: 2070

Place: Philadelphia 

In the year 2070, an underground resistance group known as United States Against Government, or USAG, stood up for the citizens’ right to privacy. Operating out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the USAG was founded by the local punk scene who recognized the violation of their rights and privacy through personal devices. When the USAG learned that the increasingly authoritarian government was using their phones to track top secret conversations, they switched to high-tech communication devices known as Com-Tek. Com-Tek devices were small earpieces coated in special chemicals and minerals developed to block signals from government interception. Unbeknownst to the users, however, these minerals and chemicals were incredibly harmful to the human body, directly affecting the tympanic membrane. In turn, members of the USAG suffered from long-term hearing loss, tinnitus, and/or severe vertigo. Following the connection made between Com-Tek devices and long-term auricular damage, users of these earpieces began to dispose of these devices in mass quantities. The mass disposal of these earpieces left behind large hills of garbage in high-traffic regions of Philadelphia. As a way of commemorating those impacted by the government privacy breach as well as those affected by Com-Tek devices, residents of Philadelphia and USAG stripped the devices of the signal-blocking coating, removed the signal transmitter, and wove the remaining material into flags. These flags flew over Philadelphia in support of the resistance and participants of the resistance wore these dismantled devices in a broach-like fashion as a way to identify themselves.

Contributors: Atlas Rhine, Dion Ross, Ever Cousins-Brockington, Rylan Fabryk