In 2017, I started working with Miranda July on an ambitious project commissioned by the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of their The Future Starts Here exhibition. Four large curtains in London were to open and close in real time depending on the actions of Oumarou Idrissa, an Uber driver with insomnia living in Los Angeles.

One curtain needed to open when Oumarou was awake, close when he slept soundly, and jitter when he was asleep but restless. The other three should open and close to indicate activity on his phone; specifically when he used Instagram, WhatsApp, or made himself available to drive with Uber. My job was to find a solution to make this a reality, build the hardware, write the software, make it robust.

To achieve this I used Somfy® motorized curtain rods, a sleep-tracking device placed in Oumarou’s bed, and a bespoke VPN server to monitor outbound traffic from his iPhone (with consent!) The data was sent live to an on-site Raspberry Pi computer, which crunched numbers and controlled the curtains using various APIs.

The original London installation of I’m The President, Baby ran for six months in 2018. The piece was later included as part of New Society — a retrospective of July’s work at Fondazione Prada Osservatorio, Milan — in 2024, this time running from a script of Oumarou’s original activity.

Read the project’s public description and artist statement