I resonate with the point that Sean made in his review of the BriefCam, that the re-purposing of surveillance technologies can lead to creative opportunities. Surveillance footage plus analytic functionalities allow for the manipulation of visual information across space and time. BriefCam superimposes different moments of the same place together, which is ‘eerie,’ as Sean calls it, and I quite feel it. I also want to add that surveillance camera gives a sense of power, because in a way, BriefCam offers a type of ‘god-view.’ Demonstrated even in the graphic novel HER, which Sean mentions, the ability to collapse images over the course of thousands of years empowers the user/reader/audience to experience history with a new perspective.
This reminds me of Dragonfly Eyes, a feature-length narrative film by Xu Bing. It is made entirely from surveillance footage in China. Seemingly disconnected, random, transient slices of life in the form of security footage are pieced together by the artist to tell one cohesive story. Unlike works of surveillance art that emphasize the critique of and resistance towards oppressive use of the technology (as in Joseph’s post), this feature film does not quite strike me as a critique. As the film creates narrative with surveillance footage, it also creates a type of romance. Instead of acknowledging that China is a surveillance state, the film seems to (try to) prove that there is something poetic about it (and that the person who understands such poetry is the one who can collect, access, and own these surveillance footage). I wonder what the artist felt like when he was editing this film, and if he felt like a god.
Other posts reviewed:
- Jacqui’s “Project To Share: Unpainted Sculpture by Charles Ray”
- Philippe’s “Christian Marclay’s The Clock”
- Joseph’s ‘Triple Chaser’ by Forensic Architecture
- Stacy’s Tom Sachs’ Tea Ceremony