THE MORE YOU LOOK, THE MORE YOU SEE
A selection of video works as the first outcome of a larger project that approaches the ever deepening discussion on how CCTV surveillance and its documenting of anomalous behaviour (actions deviating from what is standard, normal, or expected), opens up questions about truth, perception and issues of representation of the body within public and private spaces. While simple in their presentation models, they utilise the endless amount of live images available on the internet, overlaid with a series of texts that highlight certain points about the aim of CCTV, what are a range of suspect actions, and more to the point what makes one suspicious. Ironic at times they touch on the issue of the link between voyeuristic popular culture and the passive acquiescence of much of the public to being under surveillance, even if this does not actually make them any safer in practice.
As the dawn of a new era in surveillance unravels, where software programs and smart systems are being developed to aid and assist CCTV operators inability to view the endless screens of human activity, these systems actively scan and more readily calculate supposed human behaviour within the field of vision, producing the ability for preventative responses in juxtaposition to the normative models, which are mostly after the fact affairs.
If the manner of these systems is to look for signals, body language, anything out of the ordinary and as the following statement obviously ensues that, If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, then I am led to ask, that if by the sheer fact so many cameras are present, it must indicate that suspicion is in the air. Consequently producing a perfect logic: You are watched therefore you must be suspicious, and as time goes on there is in fact more and more work to do as the definition of suspicious becomes wider and wider. Creating in a sense a Production of Suspicious Bodies. Potentially understood by the endless accumulation of CCTV systems throughout the world and the fact that the economics of the situation depends on it being like this.
These works were presented in accompaniment with a workshop and a series of talks and events that took place over two weeks during the 2008 Theatre Der Welt Festival at the UFO Gallery / Halle. As part of the project ESCALATORS project from the International Theatre Institute within the 2008 Theatre Der Welt Festival, Halle, Germany. June 2008
Supported by the International Theatre Institute as part of the 2008 Theater Der Welt in cooperation with the Schaustelle e.V. and supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
WEBCAMS #4v4
STREET INTERVIEWS
As the dawn of a new era in surveillance unravels, where software programs and smart systems are being developed to aid and assist CCTV operators inability to view the endless screens of human activity, these systems actively scan and more readily calculate supposed human behaviour within the field of vision, producing the ability for preventative responses in juxtaposition to the normative models, which are mostly after the fact affairs.
If the manner of these systems is to look for signals, body language, anything out of the ordinary and as the following statement obviously ensues that, If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about, then I am led to ask, that if by the sheer fact so many cameras are present, it must indicate that suspicion is in the air. Consequently producing a perfect logic: You are watched therefore you must be suspicious, and as time goes on there is in fact more and more work to do as the definition of suspicious becomes wider and wider. Creating in a sense a Production of Suspicious Bodies. Potentially understood by the endless accumulation of CCTV systems throughout the world and the fact that the economics of the situation depends on it being like this.
These works were presented in accompaniment with a workshop and a series of talks and events that took place over two weeks during the 2008 Theatre Der Welt Festival at the UFO Gallery / Halle. As part of the project ESCALATORS project from the International Theatre Institute within the 2008 Theatre Der Welt Festival, Halle, Germany. June 2008
Supported by the International Theatre Institute as part of the 2008 Theater Der Welt in cooperation with the Schaustelle e.V. and supported by the Fonds Darstellende Künste and assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
WEBCAMS #4v4
STREET INTERVIEWS
