Located in a former federal office building, APPLICATION CENTER, WAITING ROOM is an interactive multi-media site installation in which everyone- regardless of race - is subject to profiling. With its stars and stripes decaled service window (seen everywhere after September 11), this Waiting Room/ Salon de Espera can be any waiting room- an Immigration Service branch office, a doctor’s office, or job placement center. Moving through the doorway into the small waiting room triggers the room lights. Walking up to the service window (with sign- in- sheet -name, race, nationality, birthplace) reveals an inner office (desk, computer, chairs, phone, notepads) equipped with 3 monitors connected to remote cameras that record the viewers every movement. Pausing shuts off the room lights, -transforms video images into ghostly, night vision. Looking at the monitors, viewers may wonder to what extent is democracy compatible with surveillance. Viewer responses include: fascination with seeing themselves on tv; interest in exploring the relationship between the video image, lighting, and motion sensor; anxiety over the reference to racial profiling, and the possibility that the door in the inner office leads to an interrogation room or detention cells (following the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act in October 2001, hundreds of individuals were detained and jailed without benefit of trial); interest in this installation as an artistic response to government surveillance and detention following the passage of the Patriot Act (and T.I.A.) after September 11. On the National Mall a few blocks away, hundreds of cameras record the movements of U.S. citizens and visitors alike.