Surveillance Society - Art Installation at Helen Day Art Center

Helen Day Art Center in Stowe, VT is proud to present Surveillance Society opening Friday, January 24th at 6:00pm.  The exhibition runs through Sunday April 20th, Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday 12:00-5:00 and by appointment.  Docent guided tours are available to school groups on request.

Contact:  

Nathan Suter Executive Director & Curator Helen Day Art Center

90 Pond Street, PO Box 411 Stowe, VT 05672

(802) 253-8358 helenday.com

Surveillance Society

Surveillance: privacy and safety, security and freedom, public and personal -  Each of these dichotomies point to the gravity of the debate between public and private space.  The prevalence of surveillance in personal, public, corporate, and governmental contexts is growing exponentially.  Who are the watchers, and who is being watched?  What information is at stake?  Are we / they generating meaning?  Is there a balance between safety and threat? The exhibition features the response of artists who wrestle with these topics in contemporary society.

Curated by Nathan Suter the exhibit features six prominent artists:

Hasan Elahi, Adam Harvey, Charles Krafft, Eva and Franco Mattes, and David Wallace

Hasan Elahi  http://elahi.umd.edu/orb.php

Artworks:

Hawkeye (large scale photograph of the AT&T data center in San Francisco where all call records for AT&T service are stored since 2001 - created by collaging Google Street View images

An Undisclosed Location interior views of Dick Cheney’s D.C. area residence on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  The artist identified the property by studying “no fly” zones in the region and researching real estate transactions

Untitled  video map of cell phone activity that can be used to predict the future location of users based on past patterns

Adam Harvey  http://ahprojects.com/projects/stealth-wear

Stealth-Wear Hijab metallic cloaking garment used to mask the wearer from detection by drones using infrared cameras

Charles Krafft http://www.charleskrafft.com/

CCTV Porcelain Delftware CCTV Camera

Eva and Franco Mattes  http://0100101110101101.org/

CCTV installation video of the theft of their artwork during installation days before an exhibition as captured by CCTV cameras in the gallery

David Wallace  http://davidwallaceprojects.org/section/207711.html

Friends, Family, Neighbors Multimedia installation of photographs of quotidian portraits overlaid by silhouettes of swallows flying and an ominous predator drone cast by a shadow theater mobile

David Wallace http://davidwallaceprojects.org/home.html

Wallace’s friends, Family, Neighbors is a slideshow of quotidian scenes from David’s community of people in the course of their lives.  Each image is partially masked by a moving tableau of shadows - first of swallows flying by, then, in a sobering punch, the shadow of a Predator UAV (drone).  The shadow theater he creates is low-tech - cut out shapes are suspended from a large plywood disc and rotated by an electric motor in front of a projector.  This approach implies an everyman’s reaction to the presence of drones and the impending insertion of same into U.S. airspace.  

Wallace on Wallace:

My work engages the power structures of remote warfare, surveillance, and state violence by bringing them into contact with issues of vulnerability in both private and public spaces where people gather and go about their daily lives. Through public installations, video, sculpture, drawing, painting, and shadow puppetry, I intervene with the dominant narratives of war and power propagated by mainstream media, politicians, and the military/security industrial complex. “Friends, Family, Neighbors” utilizes 140 color slide portraits taken of over 50 people from my daily life. Portraits of my loved ones, co-workers, and neighbors are projected onto the front window of a gallery as a flock of shadow birds and a silhouette of a Predator drone move across their faces. My film “Predator” reflects on our shared complicity in the use of military drones as well our simultaneous vulnerability in a world where they have become ubiquitous.

Hasan Elahi: http://elahi.umd.edu/orb.php

Elahi is an artist who was detained by the FBI in 2003 and underwent numerous interrogations and a lie detector test before they "cleared" him of suspicion.  This experience inspired him to create software for his phone and website that tracks his movements and shares them with anyone who is interested.  He also documents mundane events in his life photographically as further "evidence