[spectre] press release for exhibition CTRL [SPACE]

[Anke Hoffmann]

CTRL [SPACE]
Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother
ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Germany=20
October 13, 2001 =96 February 24, 2002, Exhibition: Atrium 8 and 9
Curator: Thomas Y. Levin (Princeton University)=20
Exhibition Opening: 12.10.2001, 7 pm

In 1785, the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), founder of
the doctrine of Utilitarianism, began working on a plan for a model
prison called the panopticon. The signature feature of this design was
that every one of the individual jail cells could be seen from a central
observation tower which, however, remained visually inscrutable to the
prisoners. Since they could thus never know for sure whether they were
being watched, but had to assume that they were, the fact of actual
observation was replaced by the possibility of being watched. As a
rationalist, Bentham assumed that this would lead the delinquents to
refrain from misbehaving, since in order to avoid punishment, they would
effectively internalize the disciplinary gaze. Indeed, Bentham
considered the panoptic arrangement, whereby power operates by means of
the spatial design itself, as a real contribution to the education of
man, in the spirit of the Enlightenment.=20

While long the subject of theoretical and political debate, the
panopticon was reintroduced into contemporary philosophical discussion
in 1975 by the French philosopher Michel Foucault who insisted on its
exemplary role as a model for the construction of power in what he
called a "disciplinary society." Ever since, the controlled space of the
panopticon has become synonymous with the cultures and practices of
surveillance that have so profoundly marked the modern world. When we
hesitate to race through a red light at an intersection where we see a
black box, not knowing whether it contains a working camera but having
to suppose that it might, we are acting today according to the very same
panoptic logic.=20

Challenged by the disturbing (and constantly expanding) omnipresence of
surveillance in our daily life to investigate the state of the panoptic
art at the beginning of the 21st century, the interdisciplinary
exhibition CTRL [SPACE] will explore the wide range of practices =96from
more traditional imaging and tracking technologies to the largely
invisible but infinitely more powerful practices of what is referred to
as "dataveillance"-- that today constitutes the extensive arsenal of
social control. However, taking its cue from the central role in the
genealogy of surveillance played by an architectural model, the focus
will be on the complex relationships between design and power, between
representation and subjectivity, between archives and oppression. If a
drawing could become the model for an entire social regime of power in
the 18th-century, to what extent does that regime change (if at all)=20
along with shifts in dominant representational practices? What happens,
in other words, when we reconceive the panopticon in terms of new
infrared, thermal or satellite imaging practices? Indeed, what are the
sociological and political consequences of a surveillant culture based
increasingly on entirely non-phenomenal logics of data gathering and
aggregation? Is there a history of surveillance and, if so, how have
contemporary practices of, and attitudes toward, surveillance changed?
As it turns out, these and other key questions concerning the practices,
transformations and experiences of surveillance have long been explored
not only by sociologists, political theorists, and philosophers, but
also by artists of all sorts. These include Vito Acconci=92s following
pieces and Andy Warhol=92s explorations of "real-time" and early
closed-circuit video in the 1960s, Bruce Nauman=92s video corridors, Dan
Graham=92s "Time Delay Rooms"  and Rem Koolhas=92 "Project for the
Renovation of a Panoptic Prison" in the 1970s, Sophie Calle=92s
documentation of a detective hired to spy on her, and Michael Klier=92s b=
y
now classic compilation of found surveillance footage in "Der Riese"  in
the 1980s, and Thomas Ruff=92s night photographs, various installations b=
y
Diller & Scofidio and the ironic surveillant science of the Bureau of
Inverse Technology in the 1990s. Whether it is the photographic
documentation of public surveillance cameras by Frank Thiel and their
systematic mapping by the New York Surveillance Camera Project, or Laura
Kurgan=92s refunctioning of declassified satellite reconnaissance images
and Josh Harris=92s "we-live-in-public.com," a brutal experiment in life
under continuous real-time cyber-surveillance in the new millennium,
panoptical questions are far from a new concern even as they have
increasingly become a major focus of contemporary cultural production.
Yet, curiously, with the exception of a handful of small gallery shows,
there has never been a systematic museum overview of this so important
issue.=20

In order to grasp the stakes of highly visible developments such as the
self-conscious soap-operatic panopticism of the global television
phenomenon "Big Brother" and the increasing tendency towards "real"-time
in the so-called "reality-TV" paradigm, not to mention the dramatic
proliferation of surveillance both as subject matter and as narrative
structure in much of today=92s cinematic production (witness "The Truman
Show" or "Enemy of the State") it is essential that we map the full
range of cultural engagements with panoptic issues. In its exploration
of the historicity of surveillant practices in their relationship to
changing logics of representation, CTRL [SPACE] will offer both a state
of the art survey of the full range of panopticism --in architecture,
digital culture, video, painting, photography, conceptual art, cinema,
installation work, television, robotics and satellite imaging-- and a
largely unknown history of the various attempts to critically and
creatively appropriate, refunction, expose and undermine these logics.
With an exhibition structure that will itself be thoroughly saturated by
multiple tracking systems, CTRL [SPACE] promises to be an experience
that is at once fascinating, frightening and above all enlightening.
Indeed, the latter seems especially important, given that the German
word for enlightenment, Aufkl=E4rung is also the term used to refer to
aerial reconnaissance, i.e. surveillance. (T.Y.L.)

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive catalogue, published i=
n
collaboration with MIT Press.


list of participating artists: =20

Vito Acconci (USA), Merry Alpern (USA), Lutz Bacher (USA), Lewis Baltz
(USA), Denis Beaubois (AUS), Jeremy Bentham (GB), Niels Bonde (DK),
Bureau of Inverse Technology (USA), Paul Bush (USA), Sophie Calle (F),
Peter Cornwell (GB), Jordan Crandall (USA), Jonas Dahlberg (S)
David Deutsch (USA), Bart Dijkman (NL), Diller & Scofidio (USA), Harun
Farocki (D), Dan Graham (USA), G.R.A.M. (A), GRAFT (USA), Jeff Guess
(F), Harco Haagsma (NL), Jon Haddock (USA), J=FCrgen Klauke (D), Michael
Klier (D), A.P. Komen (NL), Rem Koolhaas/OMA (NL), Korpys & L=F6ffler (D)
Laura Kurgan (USA), Langlands & Bell (GB), Ange Leccia (F), Chip Lord
(USA), Jenny Marketou (GR), J Mayer H (D), Michaela Meli=E1n (D), Dan
Mihaltianu (RO), Heiner M=FChlenbrock (D), Pat Naldi & Wendy Kirkup (GB),
Bruce Nauman (USA), Yoko Ono/ John Lennon (J/GB), Chris Petit (GB)
Walid Ra=91ad (USA), Daniel Roth (D), Thomas Ruff (D), Julia Scher (USA),
Cornelia Schleime (D), Ann-Sofi Sid=E9n (S), Lewis Stein (USA), Stih &
Sczhnock (D), Surveillance Camera Players (USA), Frank Thiel (D), Zoran
Todorovic (YU), Visomat inc. (D), Jamie Wagg (GB), Andy Warhol (USA),
Peter Weibel (A)

--
Anke Hoffmann | exhibition coordination | ZKM | http://www.zkm.de