Observed: Hypervisibility and Reclamation 2024
Observed was an installation realized with Halima Cassells and Tawana Petty at Haverford College Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery. Using Detroit as a case study, it explores the contradictions we face when surveillance is conflated with safety; when law enforcement agencies, governments, businesses, and institutions leverage digital and biometric technologies to track us, as well as our resistance and community responses. The exhibition is divided into two spaces: “the security space” and “the safety space.”
As the visitor enters the maze-like security space, they are confronted with Halima Cassell’s sculpture, built around a flashing green light, referencing “Project Green Light,” the largest public/private municipal surveillance partnership in the country, where flashing green lights indicate the presence of a facial recognition camera. Here, the camera is mounted inside a chandelier of old bike tire rims, a recalling a time when children were not surveilled while riding their bikes until dusk.
Behind the security camera and flashing light is a floor-to-ceiling memorial by Kate Levy, listing every business in Detroit that has paid the fee to have a green light camera placed at their location, granting priority policing.
Memorial, 2024, adhesive vinyl, 12’ x 8’
Framed in bullet proof glass foraged from defunct Detroit party stores, collages by Shanna Merola mine the relationship between the extraction of biometric data, the minerals used to make data scanning technology, and the increased instances of cataracts found in workers who mine these minerals. Through telephone sets, visitors are invited to listen to poetry written by participants in a workshop about surveillance led by Tawana Petty. Listening through a telephone, staring into the cataract-ridden eyes through bullet proof glass invokes the experience of visiting a loved one in prison
Atomic Number 7, 2024, 20” x 22” collages under bullet proof glass; telephone headsets with audio recordings
When the visitor crosses from the “security room” into the “safety room,” they experience softer light emanating from Beacons, five looping projections by Kate Levy, each a montage of light sources created by community activities. Historical and present day footage culls imagery such as light reflecting off the brass of a trombone, the shimmer of a costume during a Raqs Sharqi dance performance, streetlights in the distance, the fire of a barbecue, a carousel at night, fireworks, paper lanterns in Chinatown and light on water.
Link to video of Beacons installation (20s)