Under Surveillance

The evolution of surveillance techniques is bound up with the development of photographic technology – from earlier aerial photography to satellite photography. In the 21st century, security cameras on street corners, in shops, and in public buildings quietly document every step we take, while online tools embrace satellite technology, preventing us from evading the all-encompassing eye of the camera.

On television, reality shows echo the control society, relying upon a radical use of cameras which cover every inch of space and record every moment in time. Around us a new intimacy is formed, based on elements of tension, suspicion, and secrecy, and on the erotic desire between hunter and hunted. This new intimacy does not resist the reality of control but rather feeds off it. Surveillance cameras, implanted in society's consecrated sites – from airports to street stands – become central players that define emotional relations in the society devoid of secrets surrounding us.

Many artists in Israel and worldwide, among them those participating in the exhibition, examine the presence of stationary, surveilling, hidden, and exposed cameras – which produce data that is channeled, networked, and processed. Engaged with this reality, artists seek to explore the transformation of the gaze itself: from a horizontal, categorizing gaze that seeks to find order in existing information, to an all-encompassing bird's-eye view that reflects an expansion of the boundaries of knowledge and even generates a sense of information overflow.

As opposed to the unique perspective of the hegemonic camera, the plurality of perspectives is characterized by a subversive element that suggests its own latent potential. On the other hand, in applications like Google Earth, this plurality is knitted together into an illusion of a path that may be treaded, without the option of choosing the shooting angle or directing the "camera" independently.

The exhibition's works reflect an awareness of the gaze created by surveillance cameras in the new control society, and emphasize the emergence of the eye regime under which we live and act. To a large extent, the new reality, in which surveillance separates the seer from the seen, is shaping the self of contemporary culture.
The exhibition presents artist walls by Thomas Israël, Belle Shafir and Khen Shish.

Participating artists: Nava Abel, Tomer Appelbaum, Denis Beaubois, Inbal Marie Cohen, Aim Deuelle Luski (from a private collection), Doug Rickard