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The Artist As Surveillant: The Use Of Surveillance Technology In Contemporary Art, Claire O'Neill

MA Theses

Artists have long been called observers, voyeurs, and watchers, and with a
particular interest in human behavior and society, they frequently use unknowing
passersby as their subjects for works. Curators and scholars explored how artists put citizens under surveillance with photography and videography, which dates back to the early 1900s, years before governments deployed surveillance systems. Since the 1980s, artists have explicitly explored surveillance technology and theory to alert viewers to the rise of surveillance. Today, this genre is called artveillance, a term coined by Andrea Mubi Brighenti in 2010 to categorize art that explicitly deals with surveillance. This genre …