Start here. End somewhere real.
A participatory installation using generative AI, NFC passports, and a live gallery screen. No app download. Bring your phone.
Passport Control
A Media Lab Midwest photographer-actor greets you at the entry station — passport control reimagined as a party. They take your portrait, just like a real passport photo.
Tap the NFC tag. Your photo loads into a secure digital passport on your own phone. Your journey begins.
Three mystery stations.
At each station, tap the card — you won't know which country it is until it happens. A real corporate commercial plays while PrismaLive composites you into the scene. When it ends, your stamp arrives.
No flags to choose from. The system decides which of nine countries you land in — the same way an algorithm once decided what "the world" looked like on your screen, without ever asking you.
Every stamp is yours to keep — a beautiful AI-generated souvenir of the world tour you were sold.
The live gallery screen.
Every AI transformation displays in real time on a large central screen — a constantly updating gallery of Grand Rapids residents placed inside the world.
Visible from beyond the installation walls, the screen draws in new visitors through the spectacle of others being transformed. The piece recruits itself.
Powered by PrismaLive · Aaron Sundman
Congratulations,
Global Citizen.
You are standing in a gallery in Grand Rapids holding pretend photographs of yourself on a fake tour of the world, shot through the lens of corporations that want to sell you something.
Look up from your phone. Look at the other people in the room.
Within a few blocks of where you are standing there are six doors. Behind them are Grand Rapidians who signed their own leases, hired your neighbors, and turned the lights on this morning. Those rooms are real and you can walk to all of them from here.
The brands in those commercials paid for thirty seconds of your attention. The people behind these six doors pay rent on these streets.
Now we invite you to be a LOCAL CITIZEN.
See the Local Passport ↓Grand Rapids is the real trip.
See the six doors below — all owned and operated by real Grand Rapidians, all within walking distance of KCAD.
No threshold, no prize. Collect one stamp or all six. Every stamp is a place you can walk back into tomorrow, which is more than the world tour inside the gallery can offer.
Visit these locations, get a stamp, say hello to your neighbors. They're investing in your community — not in corporate ads that sell you things you don't really need.
Media Lab Midwest
Ritsu Katsumata and Aaron Sundman form a Grand Rapids-based creative technology collaborative whose work sits at the intersection of generative AI, human experience design, and civic engagement.
Japanese-American sound artist and experience designer. Carnegie Hall to CBGB's — scoring silent films, building immersive installations, designing human-centered digital experiences across Dentsu, Wieden+Kennedy, Cornell University, and Ford Motor Company.
Technology evangelist with 30 years in enterprise digital innovation. RFID Business Development Leader at CCL eAgile. Creator of the PrismaLive AI platform.
Get in touch.
ArtPrize 2026
Opens preview week, Sep 12.
ArtPrize runs Sep 17 – Oct 3.
The exhibit stays up through Oct 30.
Woodbridge N. Ferris Building
17 Pearl St NW, Grand Rapids, MI 49503