Post from Brian Wallace
Mark Shetabi’s observation (about the prominence of surveillance as a topic) is correct (see Nov. 4, 9:41 a.m. post), but I’d be interested to know why he thinks it’s true.
I, naturally, have an opinion: to me, it’s a way to address semi-perennial “issues” such as the body, pornography, and politics while seeming (and in some cases being) fresh (and, er, without getting labelled as prurient).
I brought Surveillance Camera Players to Cambridge/Boston last spring as one part of a conference on digital art and public space [ed. note: Digital Art and Public Space: Expanding Definitions of Public Art], and their performance was pretty provocative (shown right, above, SCP’s map of surveillance cameras in Times Square area; shown left, image from an SCP performance).
Their tapes are interesting as documentation, but participating in a critical (literally, a finger-pointing) tour of a populated streetscape is very engaging…putting your body into a politically active mode for the delectation of some anonymous viewer…why, it’s those issues of the body, pornography, and politics again.
–Brian Wallace is the director of exhibitions at Moore College of Art
