Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper proposes that contemporary image-culture accommodates forms of self-surveillance and performative documentation imagery that can be affective and authentic. I draw from the ideas of Peggy Phelan, Philip Auslander, Anders Albrechtslund, and my own visual art practice to show how networked imaging devices have helped the borders between surveillance and self-surveillance become more porous, and how definitions of performance art have similarly expanded to accommodate its documentation. Participatory surveillance can be understood as a practice of mutual exchange rather than the hierarchical structure of the panopticon. Artists Emily Jacir and Jill Magid have used surveillance imagery in ways that that do not exclusively conceptualise surveillance as inherently impersonal, imbalanced in its power relations and concerned with state or corporate control. Operator-less imagery may generate emotional affect deriving from displacement, authenticity, and mono no aware. I discuss my video work Made Me Cry, in which felt and expressed emotion is transmitted through multiple lenses, screens and performances, and my exhibitions Open for Maintenance/We Are Still Alive and Open for Maintenance II/We Are Still Alive II, which explore relationships between performance and operator-less documentation and bring together philosophies of performance normally held in opposition.