© all rights reserved | 2011
In June 2011, The New York Times Opinion Pages argued that overreaching new rules for surveillance threaten Americans' basic rights. Reportedly federal agents will be given new powers to search private databases, go through household trash or deploy surveillance teams in their new edition of their operating manual with even fewer checks against abuse. The piece -and supporting articles by Charlie Savage-generated a variety of responses online, some of concern for the loss of civil liberties, others seeing it as the price of freedom.
Rosa María Alfaro has spent couple of years photographing trash at different neighborhoods in the city . Through her informal visual research she has assembled a document that surveils different socioeconomic communities. The content of the trash reflects their choices as consumers, and provides indicators to economic status, ecological consciousness, eating habits and more. Ms. Alfaro’s work is the first to my knowledge to delve artistically in these issues of surveillance.
The elements that conform the installation piece is composed of a collection of articles bought at local stores, newspaper article and online responses. Two trash cans, a coffee table and two digital photo frames pay homage to the Readymades championed by Marcel Duchamp. In this case the silhouette of the piece resemble that of the Twin Towers, but here symbolize everything we have lost in the last decade.
The referenced articles by New York Times’ Chris Savage and the online response of the readers, represent only a fraction of the issues the country has faced since the attacks. The piece is about the search for meaning that still is going on and the civil liberties that have been at risk in our response to the attacks. The name comes from the famous U2 song But I Still Haven’t Found What I Am Looking For, that I played when working in the piece and it is a fitting found name that describe where we have been in the last 10 years.
ARTIST STATEMENT
INSTALLATION
BUT I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR
INSTALLATION ART
SELECTED CONCEPTS
...WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR
KEEPING AN EYE ON SURVEILLANCE | PAI
SAN FRANCISCO, CA | SEP. 10 - OCT. 22, 2011
CURATORIAL STATEMENT
KEEPING AN EYE ON SURVEILLANCE
“Anyone who trades liberty for security
deserves neither liberty nor security”
~Benjamin Franklin
The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001 ushered in a new era of shattered comfort zones, a shaken sense of security and a wary worldview. Fear has paved the way for the proliferation of powerful surveillance tools and compromised the principles of the U.S. Constitution to the degree that society under complete surveillance is no longer the stuff of fiction books and movies.
In “Keeping an Eye on Surveillance” over thirty artists explore the blurring boundaries between public space and private life, the visible and invisible, and the observer and observed. The artworks, spanning a broad range of media, examine show how smitten we are by the allure of new advanced technologies while giving mere lip service to the protection of privacy and civil liberties.
The exhibition is a fitting vehicle for exploring serious questions about the growing omnipresence of the many surveillance systems in use. Is the ever-present obsession with security -- fueled by global fears of terrorism -- ever justified? Does it lead to a sense of false security? Is the rising ubiquity of surveillance technologies compromising our right to privacy, and how concerned should we be?
The “Keeping an Eye on Surveillance” exhibition seeks to underscore the need to balance our longing for security with our dedication to a free and open society.
Hanna Regev
SELECTED CONCEPTS
...WHAT I AM LOOKING FOR
