Safe is a Wonderful Feeling: Atmospheres of Surveillance and Contemporary Art
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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Safe is a Wonderful Feeling : Atmospheres of Surveillance and Contemporary Art. / Søilen, Karen Louise Grova.
I: Surveillance and Society, Bind 18, Nr. 2, 17.06.2020, s. 170-184.Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Safe is a Wonderful Feeling
T2 - Atmospheres of Surveillance and Contemporary Art
AU - Søilen, Karen Louise Grova
PY - 2020/6/17
Y1 - 2020/6/17
N2 - This paper examines how the combined prism of contemporary art and the notion of atmosphere may offer alternative perspectives on our encounters with places and practices of surveillance. Specifically, this article investigates the atmospheres of surveillance surfacing in the video installation Safe Conduct (2016) by British contemporary artist Ed Atkins. The artwork recreates the well-known situation of going through an airport security check. Through a combination of visual narrative and a soundscape blending the sounds of the conveyor belt and X-ray machines with heavy breathing and Ravel’s Boléro, the work builds up an uncanny anticipation of something awful. Death and violence linger at its edges, and a disquieting atmosphere fills the exhibition space. The objective of the article is twofold: First, it explores the shifting and ambiguous atmospheres produced by contemporary surveillance practices through an immersive reading of the artwork Safe Conduct. Second, and connected to the first, it offers an experimental methodology of written vignettes responding to the embodied, aesthetic experience of atmospheres of surveillance. The article concludes that being more sensitive to the atmospheres of surveillance in our environment can give us a space to think critically about how these atmospheres affect us, how they are absorbed bodily, and how they attune our being: how surveillance is “in the air.”
AB - This paper examines how the combined prism of contemporary art and the notion of atmosphere may offer alternative perspectives on our encounters with places and practices of surveillance. Specifically, this article investigates the atmospheres of surveillance surfacing in the video installation Safe Conduct (2016) by British contemporary artist Ed Atkins. The artwork recreates the well-known situation of going through an airport security check. Through a combination of visual narrative and a soundscape blending the sounds of the conveyor belt and X-ray machines with heavy breathing and Ravel’s Boléro, the work builds up an uncanny anticipation of something awful. Death and violence linger at its edges, and a disquieting atmosphere fills the exhibition space. The objective of the article is twofold: First, it explores the shifting and ambiguous atmospheres produced by contemporary surveillance practices through an immersive reading of the artwork Safe Conduct. Second, and connected to the first, it offers an experimental methodology of written vignettes responding to the embodied, aesthetic experience of atmospheres of surveillance. The article concludes that being more sensitive to the atmospheres of surveillance in our environment can give us a space to think critically about how these atmospheres affect us, how they are absorbed bodily, and how they attune our being: how surveillance is “in the air.”
KW - Faculty of Humanities
KW - overvågning
KW - samtidskunst
KW - atmosfære
KW - atmospheres of surveillance
KW - contemporary art
U2 - 10.24908/ss.v18i2.12756
DO - 10.24908/ss.v18i2.12756
M3 - Journal article
VL - 18
SP - 170
EP - 184
JO - Surveillance & Society
JF - Surveillance & Society
SN - 1477-7487
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 247085126