arren knows how to fake an orgasm. And put it on tape.

Warren installed a recording simulating people having sex in the women’s restroom on the first floor of Lamar Dodd School of Art on Monday as part of a class assignment.

“I feel like sex is a really candid and innocent way to approach issues of privacy,” Warren told The Red & Black. “It’s something everybody can definitely relate to.”

Warren is using the tapes to illuminate the ethics of digital surveillance for an Art-X assignment on public versus private speech.

“I chose [sex] because it’s something incredibly intimate, so when you’re dealing with the gray area between public and private space the best way to approach that would be with something as intimate as sex,” he said.

Warren used a sensor to set off a recording device containing nine minutes of phony conversations and simulated intercourse. As women entered the restroom on Monday, they could hear the discreet voice of a man seemingly trying to seduce an ex-girlfriend. Three minutes later, faint sexual moans grow into the distinct clamor of orgasmic noise. To make the situation even more awkward, Warren added perverse dialogue, such as “It tastes like my chewing gum,” and “That was a little fast for me.”

“People were very scared when I said I was going to do this. I had a lot of people that mentioned I might get sued,” Warren said, describing the fear of an adverse response. “There’s a long history of art being a vehicle for pushing the envelope … I can’t control people’s reactions.”

The reactions to the experiment were varied.

“The most surprising thing was the initial response,” Warren said. “It seems to file along one of two sides. Some people come out laughing because they think it’s funny and the other people are somewhat uncomfortable.”

While some people were too discomfited to stay in the restroom, senior Johanna Richard from Tyrone was too curious to leave. “Initially I thought two people had come in. I was definitely intrigued and I sat and listened for awhile,” she said. Graduate student Malia Polster found the experiment to be unconventionally humorous. “I saw it as an Andy Kaufman kind of joke,” she said.

The sociological rationale behind the experiment is no laughing matter, however.

The sensors that Warren used are the same sensors installed in most restrooms around campus. “It’s a matter of someone tapping into that and they’d be able to do anything they wanted to with the sensors in the system,” he said.

Warren separated voyeurism from government surveillance but said that both are a problem in the United States.

He said his experiment had no correlation with pornographic voyeurism or voyeuristic fetishes but believes people do have a strong interest in learning about other’s private lives.

“Digital surveillance is a reality that we are facing now and we will increasingly face that in the future. Digital surveillance can be used for you and for society’s benefit and they can also be used against society.”

He pointed to cameras that monitored traffic as a source for technology used properly but said surveillance is more a cultural issue than a political one. “I think people will always be fascinated by other people, especially people’s private lives,” Warren said.