Surveillance in contemporary art practices: memory, exploitation, and gender

More and more aspects of contemporary human daily life are moving to the internet, where surveillance has reached an unprecedented level of pervasiveness. Global- scale challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian war in Ukraine, and the climate crisis have further catalyzed this situation. As the role of surveillance increases in our societies, so does the research related to it. A significant number of these studies are confined to specific scientific fields (psychology, sociology, criminology, philosophy, art theory, etc.). Only the works attributed to surveillance studies tend to be more interdisciplinary. However, it is noteworthy that surveillance studies better encompass the perspectives of social and natural sciences. This research also adopts an interdisciplinary approach, but with a greater focus on a humanitarian approach, emphasizing philosophy and art theory.

The main goal of this research is to examine contemporary art practices dealing with surveillance, placing emphasis on memory, exploitation, and gender. In examining aspects related directly and indirectly to surveillance art and exploitation and the ethical questions arising from them, texts by Michel Foucault, David Lyon, Jeremy Bentham, Martin Buber, and Emmanuel Levinas will be used. In examining aspects related to surveillance art and gender, texts by Joan Copjec, Laura Mulvey, and Judith Butler will be used. In examining aspects related to surveillance art and memory, texts by Bernard Stiegler, Richard Kearney, Hannah Arendt, Thom Mathiesen, and Jacques-Alain Miller will be used.

In the context of the study, special importance is given to contemporary art practices for which surveillance and asymmetry of gaze are essential both strategically and thematically, and which are explored and analyzed by texts of sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, legal theorists, art historians, and others. Following this approach, the study plans to examine surveillance artists such as Julia Scher, Hito Steyerl, Trevor Paglen, David Spriggs, Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Ai Wei Wei, and others.

This project has received funding from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No. S-PD-24-127.