Welcome to "...Is that Art? Friday" Forum!
Week 2
This week's conversation is about surveillance and privacy issues. This artist is not as well-known as Maurizio Cattelan, but it does not mean that the work I am about to present to you is not as controversial. This artist has been in New York's court because one of his projects did not follow traditional strategies: "The Neighbors" is the name of Arne Svenson series of photographs shot in 2012.
Arne Svenson is a photographer, and he is interested in narratives: human or inhuman. He is now known as the "voyeuristic photographer". In his controversial series "The Neighbors", he swapped his studio for his apartment window in New York and used every neighbour's window as a subject to his photographs. Svenson engaged in a paparazzi-like life as he wanted to capture the pure essence of their quotidian. People were being shot in secret because that way, the artist could shoot a non-staged scene. His neighbours found out about all this situation when they visited his exhibition in Julie Saul Gallery in 2013. Of course, after that, they took Arne Svenson to court.
Every artist might understand that will to pursue an idea. Sometimes we believe so much in what we are doing that we forget how that might affect other people. Some call it "the artist's ego"… But, I believe, that artists that challenge this kind of rules end up winning, artistically, at least. Taking Svenson's artwork as an example, the artist did not hurt anyone. As he said in court, the curtains were up as in a theatre stage, you were welcome to see whatever was there to be seen. This idea that we are responsible for our own privacy and that sometimes this fine line is breached by the transparency of a window. Svenson's neighbours were deliberately sharing their daily life's with whoever wanted to see, right? But what if it was you at that window and out of nowhere you see your face printed in massive photographs in a gallery space?
Arne Svenson won the case in court. And now the question is: did this artist did anything illegal? If you think about it...One, he is right: every open window is an invitation to be watched, it doesn't really matter what kind of an environment you are in. It is a window. It is not illegal to watch. Also, there are surveillance cameras everywhere. For example, in China, they have a points system where everyone has their faces scanned at every second. Does that make it okay to be shoot then? What is the difference between having your face scanned at all circumstances, and being photographed through your apartment window that you deliberately left open? We are in an era where the boundaries of what is private and what is not are very questionable. The more we advance technologically, the less privacy we will have.
Do you agree with the court decision? How do you feel about the artist's project? How would you feel if this was you? What do you think about surveillance systems that are in place right now? If you were to start a project around privacy issues nowadays, how would you approach it?
Leave your opinion in the comment section 😉
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- https://www.arnesvenson.com/theneighbors.html