Disruptive exhibitionism - a performance methodology for surveillance art

ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen an increase in work that critically names surveillance as a colonial logic, technology, and practice (see Browne 2015; Maynard 2017; Cahill 2019; Cahill 2021). To contribute to this turn, we propose ‘disruptive exhibitionism,’ a theoretical and methodological concept for surveillance performance art developed through the lenses of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and queer positivity that center practices of care and pleasure as forms of resistance against surveillance structured by the violence and exploitation of white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The aim of this article is to develop disruptive exhibitionism as a methodology for surveillance performance art and research-creation that offers a way for marginalized identities and bodies to engage with visibility, where public visibility may be fraught or even dangerous. Disruptive exhibitionism builds on Koskela’s (2004) important concept of ‘empowering exhibitionism,’ which suggests that individuals might resist surveillance by using surveillant technologies to self-represent and publicly ‘expose’ oneself voluntarily. Disruptive exhibitionism expands empowering exhibitionism to consider (a) those subjectivities and bodies whose public visibility has been erased and/or rendered dangerous and (b) how contemporary corporate culture, white feminism, and postfeminism have co-opted ‘empowerment’ (Banet-Weiser 2018; Beck 2021).

KEYWORDS:

• Surveillance art
• empowering exhibitionism
• disruptive exhibitionism
• surveillance
• exhibitionism
• performance art

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use the term ‘difference’ throughout this article to encompass the wide variety of intersectional identities marked by race, gender, sexuality, ability, and other forms of social categorization that inflect the relationships between bodies and surveillance practices.

2 In addition, Koskela herself recently presented a talk entitled ‘Empowering Exhibitionism in Surveillance Art’ at the 2022 Surveillance Studies Network Biennial Conference, which acknowledged how artists can use empowering exhibitionism in their own practices.

3 Here, Banet-Weiser is referring to the terms ‘Can-Do girls’ and ‘At-Risk girls,’ developed by Anita Harris.

4 It should be noted that Jennifer Ringley experienced her own type of harassment from her visibility as a young white woman, such as receiving death threats, aggressive sexual demands, and public criticism of her personal romantic life (Hart 2010; Knibbs 2015).

5 Interestingly, Bilal drew a comparison between the paintball gun and the phallus, writing in his journal on the twenty-fifth day of the performance: ‘The project has taken on an aspect of sexual metaphor to me . . . the gun is a metallic penis, the shots a series of quick angry orgasms. I see the gun as a symbolic and physical extension of the male aggressive drive to dominate . . .’ (Bilal quoted in Kapadia 2019, 85).

6 Racialized bodies in public spaces are constantly targeted by whiteness, in the form of both police and white citizens. Across Turtle Island, people of color are often reported to police by white people for simply being in public spaces. Amy Cooper, a white Canadian woman, called police on Christian Cooper, a Black man, while he was bird-watching in New York City’s Central Park claiming he was ‘threatening her’ (Ransom 2020; Bromwich 2021). She was later charged with ‘filing a false police report,’ though the charges were dismissed (Bromwich 2021). Somewhat similarly, Ntwali Bashizi was biking on a trail in Odawa/Ottawa, when a white woman called the police claiming he was intimidating her (Lord 2020). Indigenous woman Taniah Swampy posted footage on TikTok of a white man calling the police on her, accusing her of breaking into her car (Lenzen 2021). Likewise, someone called police in Odawa/Ottawa, reporting an elderly Chinese woman practicing Tai Chi in a public park (Raymond and Praill 2022). She was forced to leave by police.

7 ‘Being Karened’ is a colloquial term to define ‘white women who raise trivial complaints to higher authorities such as the police’ (Lord 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Julia Chan

Julia Chan is a mixed-race settler, writer, artist, and academic. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in Critical Media Practice at the University of Calgary in the Department of Communication, Media, and Film. Her academic work has appeared in the journal Porn Studies and the edited collection Screening #MeToo: Rape Culture in Hollywood (SUNY Press, 2022). Recently, she was a Mitacs Postdoctoral Visitor in Cinema and Media Arts at York University and the Managing Editor of PUBLIC: Art | Culture | Ideas. In 2021, she was the inaugural Postdoctoral Fellow at Carleton University's Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice. She collaborates with Stéfy McKnight on their research-creation performance project Cam Hunters.

Stéfy McKnight

Stéfy McKnight is a white settler, non-binary, queer artist scholar, Assistant Professor in Media Production and Design and Director of PROTOHYVE: Center for Innovative Research-Creation in so called Canada at Carleton University, on the unceded territories of the Algonquin nation. Their scholarly work takes the form of performance, multi-media interventions, online curatorial projects, 3D printing, installation, video, and live streaming. Stéfy’s research-creation has been exhibited at the Stratford Gallery (Stratford); Modern Fuel Artist-Run Center (Kingston); Isabel Bader Center for the Performing Arts (Kingston); White Water Gallery (North Bay) and others. Stéfy is a member of the research-creation performance duo Cam Hunters (with Dr. Julia Chan).