Surveillance
May W.
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This series of works is called ‘Surveillance’, loosely inspired by the theory 'Panopticon' put forward by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, fiction ‘1984’ by George Orwell, and from my personal experience on the internet.
The concept ‘Panopticon’ by Bentham is a prison system that worked as a symbol of modern authority and discipline in the western world. The prison is surrounded by a circular building with an observation tower at the center. Each prisoner in the round prison can be seen but cannot see, they are objects of observation, but not subjects of communication.
This concept made me relate to a traumatic experience that happened in my childhood that for many years I refused to think about. As a kid my life was threatened by the ones on the internet as a consequence of divulged privacy, making me an object of observation under other people's eyes without consciousness.
Ideally, the canvas will be placed on the floor. When audiences are looking downward, they become a part of the potential prisoners inside the piece without consciousness. Human figures, regardless of age and gender, all pitched in to the work. All of the figures were looking down but the one girl, thinking of themselves as a supervisor to people in the lower level, but not aware of the people above watching them. This creates an interesting interaction with the audience, involving themselves to be a part of the piece.
The only girl looking up in the scene was the symbolism of the ‘sober’ minority. While the rest of us are immersing ourselves in the tittytainment called ‘the internet’ and neglecting the potential danger, their voices seem to be insignificant and inaudible.
The phone camera in the center of the prison conveyed the message of central inspection and the ubiquity of this kind of monitor on the internet. As the audience looks at the piece as a whole, they can see the prison image imitating the human pupil. As we can see from the next two pieces ‘don’t look up’ and ‘the pupil’, the only girl looking up has the reflection of the prison in her eyes as a pupil. The expressed depression was clear, like what George Orwell wrote in ‘1984’, there is no way to escape this modern panopticon.
We, as individuals, are gradually being domesticated by this era of big data. With the exposure of people's privacy, the internet has made us as individuals 'prisoners in cells', with seamless inspection. This series of work is trying to alert people of not being caught in this huge tittytainment web called ‘the internet, and hope that my traumatic experience will never happen again to somebody else.
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To me, creativity is the expression of my personal identity and the voice of my inner heart. Creativity to me is also about the connection between myself and the world. Making art is my way of communicating with the world - visually expressing and sharing my unique inner experience.
