Surveillance #21 - Limited Edition 1 of 9 Photograph

Lambda C-Type Print on FUJI Crystal DP II paper on aluminum backing with 2mm clear premium Acrylic Glass. SURVEILLANCE Dance yourself free. They should not know what lingerie you wear, where and with whom you go out on Saturday night – and stay – despite all strength and defiance – a human of glass; as they know exactly what you like… The new Video/Performance ‘Surveillance’ by Beata Obst and Agnieszka M. Zieba focuses our attention on the issues of personal surveillance, which has recently moved into the public eye after the emergence of whistleblowers Julian Assange and Edward Snowden as well as platforms like ‘WikiLeaks’. Again and again the questions arise: Where does mass surveillance stop and where does espionage start? Where does transparency stop and where does fluoroscopy start? What serves to protect? Where does the danger lie? Right in the midst of this ambiguity are we - humans. The crux: What we accuse loudly on the one hand, we operate on the other often (un)willingly. In addition to tapped credit cards, microchips, tracking numbers, internet accounts, cellphones, satellites and drones surveillance creeps up quietly even in a seemingly harmless “like” on a social network. Aim No. 1: To spy on the consumer behavior of users. The American programmer and activist Richard Stallman puts it in a nutshell: "Facebook is not your friend. It's a surveillance engine. " Masterful is the interpretation of Beata Obst’s and Agnieszka M. Zieba’s theme: like a wild, caged animal the dancer twists and turns in this net – on pointe, in a split, between real life and cyberspace. Never alone but constantly surrounded by metallic ringing voices and snippets from WalkieTalkies, modems, railway stations and airports. Time flows – completely against the temperament and rhythm of the dancer – slowly away. Drop by drop. There is no going back. Surveillance is already embedded in our daily routines. ‘The Panther’ of Rainer Maria Rilke appears in ones mind. There are over one hundred years between this poem and the video ‘Surveillance’ by Beata Obst and Agnieszka M. Zieba. Nevertheless the atmosphere remains the same: The impotence when you are constantly monitored like the panther in the zoo or our dancer by surveillance systems. Consequentially: a feeling of emptiness arises. Resignation emerges after failed rebellion and imprisonment. This inner and outer captivity leads to a self-alienation. “His gaze against the sweeping of the bars has grown so weary, it can hold no more. To him, there seem to be a thousand bars and back behind those thousand bars no world. The soft the supple step and sturdy pace, that in the smallest of all circles turns, moves like a dance of strength around a core in which a mighty will is standing stunned. Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides up soundlessly — . An image enters then, goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs — and in the heart ceases to be.” (The Panther, R. M. Rilke)