Identity Heft is an interactive HTML-based web site that investigates the role of truth, lies and memory in identity. Photographic reproductions of expired ID cards, passports, and other identity documents are arranged in chronological order, each with three statements: one true, one false and one indeterminate. The indeterminate statement links to the next artifact, and in doing so advances the scenario of a biographical half-truth, a theft of reality. Through this navigational device of providing one-third facts, one-third non-facts, and one-third unknown statements, a plausible portrait – albeit a cloudy one – emerges over time.

Identity then, becomes a construction based only partially on experience and memory; it is also fabricated, reinvented and contextual. Identity theft, or ‘heft’ – the enhancement of identity – can happen to us in a malicious way, or happen by us in an affirming way.

self-initiated project | 2004