Nika Radic: 3 Windows
The term "sousveillance", coined by Steve Mann, stems from the contrasting French words sur, meaning "above", and sous, meaning "below", i.e. "surveillance" denotes the "eye-in-the-sky" watching from above, whereas "sousveillance" denotes bringing the camera or other means of observation down to human level, either physically (mounting cameras on people rather than on buildings), or hierarchically (ordinary people doing the watching, rather than higher authorities or architectures doing the watching).
[via Sousveillance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance]
SOUSVEILLANCE The Art of Networked Surveillance
Decoding the Social and the Private
This will be a Themed Workshop class. Students can explore and work on their artwork (if it relates), or develop new work around assigned/proposed class projects. Work will take place alongside readings, screenings, and discussions in order to better frame the work. This a studio class so it will have time built in for working on making art. Broad topics examined will include spying & surveillance, networks, and experimental art that relates to these concepts, real-life events and developments. Projects can be individual and/or collaborative, and will not be limited to or determined by a particular medium.
We will look at a lot of other art by artists who have long been working with these concepts. The various readings will draw on different philosophical and cultural perspectives, with an eye towards historical context, technological developments, and institutional changes leading to current controversies about privacy and surveillance. And 'sousveillance.'
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Image above via LICHTER Streetview:
Nika Radic: 3 Windows
The native of Zagreb and Berlin-based artist Nika Radic, approaches her work not without irony. She explores the blurring boundaries between public and private, between intimacy and voyeurism. Several years ago, the 3-channel installation “3 Windows“ captured the urban space in Berlin and provided onlookers with the ambivalent pleasure of observing strangers behind their curtains. A situation which could be seen as a reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 classic, “Rear Window“. Radic’s video works leave the safe context of galleries and exhibition spaces, to conquer the facades of the town and on them, to tell the stories of their protagonists.