Individual Art Review

I PASSED!

For those of you who do not know. I am a considered a junior at Northern. As a junior I was required to create a body of work. Create a statement of intent explaining my work. And then finally show my series to a panel of faculty. The faculty then decides if I pass or fail. If I would have failed I would have had to retake this class and it would have postponed my graduation date. And that is something that would not have made me happy.

I am going to put my statement of intent below and then below that will be a link to my flickr page where you can view the images in a slide show.

Thank you to everyone who was a willing participant. I couldn't have done it without you.
Statement of Intent

My photographs address the issue of privacy and surveillance. In 1791 Jeremy Bentham designed the Panopticon, which can be viewed as a metaphor to contemporary surveillance issues. The Panopticon was a prison building with a guard that was able to observe the inmates without them knowing they were being watched. Michel Foucault adopted the notion in his book Discipline & Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, suggesting that groups or classes of people were watched at all times. The observer would then have the potential for unlimited power.  In contemporary society, the camera is used in partner with the idea of control. We are photographed almost everywhere we go. There are cameras at the ATMs, tollbooths, traffic lights, hotels, and places of employment. We are constantly surveyed, watched, and monitored.

Since the invention of photography in 1839, personal privacy has increasingly dissolved.  My photographs show an invasion into someone’s privacy. I was able to observe my subjects without their knowledge from outside their homes as I photographed from the street. I held the power, and had the ability to observe without being observed. My photographs underscore the idea that we are always being watched. We have an expectation of privacy that is constantly broken.

The close proximity to the subjects makes the viewer feel as if they are looking at something they shouldn’t, at an event that shouldn’t be seen. The primary figures in my images are partially blocked by either a curtain or blinds. These barriers execute the idea that the viewer is outside looking in. The shift in the light balance acts as a second kind of curtain or barrier, and heightens the awareness of being outside in the dark looking in.


SLIDE SHOW OF IMAGES