Unter Beobachtung - Kunst des Rückzugs
Kunsthalle Villa Merkel, Esslingen, GermanyCurator: Gottfried Hattinger
Artists: Dries Depoorter, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Verena Friedrich, Esther Hovers, Gregor Kuschmirz, Marc Lee, TOAST, Alex Verhaest und Christiaan Zwanikken
SECURITY FIRST, Villa Merkel, Esslingen, https://youtu.be/IOmGHl9sen8
SECURITY FIRST, Villa Merkel, Esslingen
Under Observation
In Stuttgart and in more than twenty municipalities in Baden-Württemberg, an art festival devoted to the wide-ranging theme Places of Refuge – Under Observation. The Art of Withdrawal will take place from 25 September to 18 October 2020.
With every click on the Internet, every use of a smartphone and each purchase, it is well-known that we leave behind traces and thereby make public much information about ourselves. In the so-called social media, private matters are often heedlessly revealed. Surveillance systems are being boosted by constantly improving technologies for data storage and facial recognition, bringing closer and closer the day of a seamless monitoring of citizens. This is already being demonstrated by pilot programs whose logical outcome consists of ‘social credit systems’ in which citizens act as accomplices to their own surveillance.
Nor should the possibilities offered by genetic manipulation be forgotten, with their interventions in the human body which do not have only positive aspects. So where do there still exist places of refuge where individuals can find shelter and the opportunity for self-assertion? Where are the retreats, reservations, idylls or oases to which we can withdraw, at least for a while, without being pressured by the media? Can sites devoted to art and culture fulfill this shielding, nurturing function?
https://www.kulturregion-stuttgart.de/was/unter-beobachtung/esslingen-am-neckar-themenausstellung
Exhibited Artwork
SECURITY FIRST
Mixed Media InstallationIn this installation, Marc Lee shows the wonderful world of surveillance technology. On a shelf are cameras in all possible forms: hidden spy cams, surveillance cams, night vision webcams, real-looking dummy cams. As a counter-design to the utopia of total security through camera surveillance, Lee shows the website insecam.org: The visitors of the website have access to the images of thousands more …
ZKM, Karlsruhe
ZKM, Karlsruhe
Art Hall, Tallinn