On Dec. 07th 2016 I will be giving a talk at the „Hogskolen i Ostfold“, the Norwegian Theatre Academy (NTA), in Frederikstadt entitled: „Performing Counter-Utopias? Artistic Practices in Spaces under Surveillance.“
The seminar UTOPIA NOW! with two other international guests is sceduled for 15.00 – 19.00 at the Norwegian Theatre Academy, Studio Blue.
The publication Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices, and Materialities of the GCSC conference at Ruhrtriennale 2013 was finally released. The book is available at WVT Verlag. Containing also one of my articles:
Raul Gschrey: „Opening the Closed Circuit: Artistic Practices in Spaces under Surveillance.“ In: Experiencing Space – Spacing Experience: Concepts, Practices, and Materialities.Berning, Nora; Schulte, Philipp; Schwanecke, Christine (eds.) Trier: WVT, 2014, 259-273.
Interdisciplinary approaches to the intersection of space and experience, which comprise an emerging research topic in the study of culture, are few and far between. This conceptual volume maps the rapidly developing international field of research related to the presentation and representation of spatial experience as well as the experiential interfaces of space and experience – particularly in light of new directions in research, which include the exploration of space as a ‘cultural-theoretical’ or ‘psychogeographical’ category. Weiterlesen
Endlich ist das von Uli Richtmeyer herausgegebene Buch zur Konferenz und Ausstellung „Phantomgesichter“ in Potsdam erschienen.
Biometrische Verfahrensweisen stehen im Zentrum gegenwärtiger Sicherheits- und Überwachungsprogramme. Auch in diversen fotografischen Apparaten, die das Material für digitale Bilddatenbanken liefern, haben sie sich fest etabliert. Obwohl sie auf komplexen Berechnungen basieren, sind biometrische Verfahren wesentlich als Bildbearbeitungstechnologien zu verstehen – so die Grundannahme des Bandes. Erst aus dieser Perspektive gelangen die spezifischen Sicherheiten und Unsicherheiten biometrischer Bilder in den Blick. Sie fallen besonders dort auf, wo sich Biometrie auf ein klassisches Objekt der Erkennungsdienste, das menschliche Gesicht, bezieht. Welche Konsequenzen sich aus der Vorgeschichte und Gegenwart der verwendeten Bildtechnologien sowie ihren trivialen und professionellen Gebrauchsweisen für den Status des artifiziellen Gesichtsbildes ergeben, gilt es nun zu hinterfragen.
U.a. gibt es darin einen Artikel zu meinem Promotionsprojekt. Raul Gschrey: „»A surprising air of reality« – Kompositfotografie zwischenwissenscha licher Evidenzbehauptung und künstlerischer Subversion.“
Erhältlich bei Wilhelm Fink Verlag
“Ambiguities & Asymmetries”, Review of the SSN Conference, Barcelona, 2014
The bi-annual conference of the Surveillance Studies Network 2014 takes place in the centre of Barcelona, on the campus of the University of Barcelona and the adjoining cultural institution CCCB. This year’s conference’s topic opens the floor to discussions of “Asymmetries and Ambiguities” in Surveillance Studies. The attention for the conference is unusual, not only in academia, as it becomes obvious in the comparably large number of 170 participants, but also in exceptional public and media attention. This surely has to do with the revelations of Edward Snowden and the so-called NSA scandal, which have proved true or surpassed the often dismissed observations of the surveillance studies community. Here especially “asymmetries” come to the fore: between an all-encompassing state-run surveillance assemblage, drawing on private sources, on the one side and disempowered individuals on the other.
In the evening panel discussion (videos available online) with Caspar Bowden (a privacy advocate and former Microsoft executive), Katarzyna Szymielewicz (human rights lawyer, Panoptykon Foundation), and Ben Wizner (Snowden’s lawyer) who is participating via video connection, these asymmetries become apparent. Weiterlesen
„Ambivalent Faces: Visual Endeavours of Identification and Typification from 19th Century Science to Today’s Biometric Recognition.“
Presentation at the 6th international Surveillance & Society conference (23.04.-26.04.2014) hosted by the University of Barcelona and supported by the Surveillance Studies Network.
When in mid-19th century photography entered science as well as criminological and administrative practice it was widely perceived as an objective medium of depiction and was used as a means for identification as well as typification. Not only in visual anthropology, also in criminology, visual types became influential in the description and classification of the human body and face. Weiterlesen
21. März bis 24. August 2014 – „Außer Kontrolle? Leben in einer überwachten Welt“ Ausstellung im Museum für Kommunikation Berlin.
„Leben wir sicher, wenn Plätze, Straßen und Gebäude von Videokameras beobachtet werden, wenn Geheimdienste im großen Stil E-Mails scannen? Ist es bequem, wenn uns eine Software vorschlägt, wofür wir uns interessieren sollen? Sind unter diesen Bedingungen Sicherheit und Freiheit vereinbar? Diese hochbrisanten Fragen bilden den Ausgangspunkt für die Ausstellung „Außer Kontrolle? Leben in einer überwachten Welt“. Anhand von 200 Objekten zeigt die Ausstellung, dass Kontrolle nicht einfach das Verhältnis von dunkler Herrschaft zu wehrlosem Untertan ist. Kontrolle ist jede Situation, in der Informationen über einen Menschen gesammelt werden, um ihn zu einem vorbestimmten Handeln zu lenken.“ Mit künstlerischen Arbeiten von u.a. Raul Gschrey, Adam Harvey, Chris Oakley.
Exhibition views, Frankfurt/Main, 2013.
Review of the exhibition „La Traversée“ by Mathieu Pernot in the „Jeu de Paume”, Paris, March 2014.
The exhibition „La Traversée“ by Mathieu Pernot in the „Jeu de Paume“, Paris opens with a wall of photographic portraits: small and large-scale, colour and black and white. The subject of all images is a boy turning into a man over the time, offering glimpses into his life. The portraits of the Roma individual set the tone for an examination of concepts of sedentary and nomadic living life.
Entering the exhibition space, in a niche on the left hand side, a work compiled from historical identification documents, interviews and photographic portraits shows how non-conform, nomadic behavior was restricted through heavy police pressure far into the 20th century. The personal stories and artistic portraits contradict the externally prescribed identity in the signaletic cards and nomadic passes.
In another work, on an adjoining wall, the historical mug shots and documents are contrasted with a series of photo-machine portraits that the artist produced with the children of the Roma family he is working with since his university days. The self-portraits hint at the ongoing administrative pressure directed against the non-sedentary population.
This is not restricted to the distant past as a series of large scale photographs of today’s disciplinary institutions, prison yards illustrate. A series of portraits shows family members trying to communicate with the inmates beyond the high walls. These state institutions still extend their influence in an extraordinary manner on the non-sedentary population.
In the next part of the exhibition, this apparatus of identification and population management meets images of sedentary life in the 20th century, concrete housing structures, their de-individualising character, but also their increasing disappearance as overcome and no longer acceptable spaces for residence.
Photographs of a burning caravan and alighted faces of a group of onlookers terminate this circle of a description of society that goes way beyond the documentary realm. Mathieu Pernot is mixing and composing, comparing and opposing story threats and offers new perspectives on – and readings of – our pre-structured and often unquestioned realities of contemporary life and questionable strategies of upholding this status quo.
„Identifying Identity? Identification and Typification in 19th Century and the Formation of 21st Century Identities.“
Presentation at the conference „W(h)ither Identity – Positioning the Self and Transforming the Social“ at the GCSC, Giessen University.
14.01.2014 18.00 Finissage + Filmscreening
„Im Land Dazwischen“/“The Land In Between“ (English subtitles)
The finissage offers the last opportunity to visit, have a drink and discuss about the exhibition. We will also be showing the documentary „The Land in Between“ of the Frankfurt-based filmmaker Melanie Gärtner, who will be present for an exchange after the screening. “The Land In Between” follows the stories of the three protagonists Blade Cyrille (Cameroon), Sekou (Mali) and Babu (India). On their way to Europe they find themselves in a place from which they can move neither forward nor backwards. In Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the Northern coast of Morocco, they are so close. But the Fortress Europe is shutting down its frontiers. Does this mean their dreams of Europe are really over? The documentary accompanies the young men in their everyday life and records their attempts to deal with the situation … and to get out.