Creation Date
2017
Preview
Medium
digital prints and cork board
Description
Dimensions: 3 x 3 inches (individual digital prints)
Rights
© Jordan Dean Rosengrant, 2017.
Exhibit Images
Keywords
spying, eagle eye, monitored, installation, recording, control
Artist Statement
What does it mean to have a private life in today’s world? We are all constantly being monitored by an unseen force; surveillance video cameras. These cameras can be seen everywhere, their eagle eyes of security lurking at every corner. I decided to point my camera back at the cameras above in an attempt to explore what it means to live a life under the constant state of surveillance. I am watching the cameras that are watching me.
It’s not unknown knowledge, we know that these cameras are everywhere. It’s nearly impossible to be somewhere without being in the presence of technology recording our moves. We tend to avoid people pointing smartphones and other cameras in our direction as we walk down the street, but are we conscious of all the cameras hiding above us? It’s no secret. We are all aware that we are being watched by some mysterious presence, invisible behind the attentive eyes of a security camera; yet we’ve become so accustomed to the company of surveillance that it’s almost as if we’ve stop paying attention altogether. I realized that as I make these photographs, I am being photographed as well.
Each photo in this body of work will be presented in a square, polaroid-like form, having the security camera be directly centered within the frame. This series will replicate actual security camera footage. This is accomplished post process by adding grain and halftone pattern lines to imitate the look of a low quality monitor screen. Text is added to the bottom of each photo to name the camera. This body of work will personify security cameras by treating them as characters of their own.
These cameras hide in plain sight, blending into walls, becoming a part of the architecture, existing among the decor and this series sets out to explore this persistent nature of surveillance by bringing awareness to their existence all around us.
Do we know who is watching us? Do we care?