Artistic sousveillance in the societal surveillant assemblage – on Dragonfly Eyes and Eye Contact

ABSTRACT

Built on theoretical frameworks of surveillant assemblage, sousveillance and other surveillance and biopolitical scholarship, I analyze two Chinese art projects, Dragonfly Eyes (2017), an experimental film by Xu Bing and Eye Contact (2016), a performance piece by Ge Yulu, as artistic sousveillance to resist surveillance biopower in a control society. I put the two works in dialogue as their shared yet different strategies critically engage with the surveillant assemblage, DIY technology and biopolitical production. Apart from problematizing the algorithmic violence and biopower of the global and also local surveillant assemblage, both art projects also contribute to more-than-human configurations of the surveillance system. I also point out that as these two surveillance artworks are symptomatic of surveillance systems, they may embody mimetic violence and post considerations for more ethical reflections in artistic sousveillance.

KEYWORDS:

• Surveillance
• sousveillance
• surveillant assemblage
• biopolitical production
• China

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 The credits list the camera sources in the order of their appearance, providing geolocations for 145 (138 as in mainland China) out of total 286 cameras. I took the city-tier list as a reference for the urbanization levels following a comprehensive list published by the influential Chinese financial media outlet Yi Cai in 2016 (https://www.zhihu.com/question/40173729). Additionally, the South China Morning Post (2016) published an English-language article elucidating the Chinese city-tier system using a four-tier list based on 2013 data (https://multimedia.scmp.com/2016/cities/).

2 According to my calculations, of the 138 cameras in mainland China, 19 were in Tier-1 cities, 28 were in emerging Tier-1 cities, 31 were in Tier-2 cities, 27 were in Tier-3 cities, 14 were in Tier-4 cities, 16 were in Tier-5 cities, and 3 were in cities lacking a tier-ranking but presumed to be lower than Tier 5.

Additional information

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Zimu Zhang

Zimu Zhang is a researcher and moving image practitioner. She completed her PhD research on Anthropocene visuality and countervisuality in contemporary Chinese visual culture in 2022 at School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She is the recipient of the 2022 Landhaus fellowship at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society. She is also active in film curating and socially engaged art practices.