Under Surveillance

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Under Surveillance is a forceful photo essay on the means of photographic expression in an age of digital super-technology and permanent surveillance. Twenty-three international photographers addressed the complex of themes and present a range of documentary, staged, or conceptual approaches in their images. The ability to see things in hiding is surely not a privilege of government surveillance. Observation is an integral part of our culture and the production of knowledge. Various forms of social control influence our activities and our mindscape to no lesser an extent. Yet the art of observation adheres to different rules and is acquainted with a complex world of phenomenological consideration. Creating images and words beyond a specific context and a specific interpretation is one possibility of enabling new aspects of experience in our fixation on the visual. Surveillance strategies are short-circuited, fed back, or overdriven when focused on by a critical gaze. With works by Absalom & Bardsley, Werner Amann, Diana Artus, Viktoria Binschtok, James Bridle, Edmund Clark, David Deutsch, Christian Dootz, Martin Henze, Andreas Herzau, Enver Hirsch, Ori Jauch, Karin Jobst, Bettina Lockemann, Jörg Möller, Trevor Paglen, Marco Poloni, Volker Renner, Katrin Ribbe, Alec Soth, Henrik Spohler, Katja Stuke, Janko Woltersmann. with a text by Maik Schlüter