Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera Exhibition

 Merry Alpern – 'Dirty Windows' 1994.
A perfect example of how artists have used surveillance as a vehicle for critical art practice. The image shows a woman, not really doing very much but we assume because the artist has called the piece ‘Dirty Windows’ that it must be somewhat uncouth. It has been taken in black and white to add to the whole dark atmospheric mood of the image and the image is cleverly cropped without intention to. The image was created in 1994 and I believe was taken using a telephoto lens. Viewers looking at this voyeuristic shot feel somewhat uneasy but still want to know more about it. Merry Alpern took surveillance to the next level by spying on a bathroom window of a sex club near Wall Street. I really think that the work is aesthetically pleasing even if the subject matter is a bit hard to handle, I think that Merry Alpern just wanted to shock viewers with her latest work with this voyeuristic angle, nothing wrong with that and as Michel Foucault said ‘He who is subjected to a field of visibility and who knows it, assures responsibility for the constraints of power, he makes them pay spontaneously upon himself.’ Therefore stating that if you don’t want to be watched don’t make it easy for them.

Vito Acconci – 'Following Piece' 1969, Gelatin Silver Print

Vito Acconci, a designer, performance and installation artist has took surveillance in his own hands to make ‘Following Piece’. Vito would follow random people until they walked into a building then he would start to follow someone else. This lasted everyday for a month and wrote about each time he would follow someone. Strange? Very. I believe that Acconci was curious to see what people would do, whether they would turn round and see him? Maybe to see how long he could follow someone for? I’m guessing that the pictures were taken with a timer? Or otherwise someone else is taking it for him. I feel this is invading someone’s privacy, voyeuristic in the way of spying on someone but not in the same way as we view ‘Dirty Windows’ by Merry Alpern. Acconci interacts as much with the stranger as he possibly could, unless he talked to them but then there would be no point to the project.

Weegee (Arthur H Fellig) – ‘Lovers at the Movies’ 1940.

Another voyeuristic shot for its time, Weegee managed to use an infrared film to capture this visually pleasing image. It shows a cinema screen where the audience are blissfully unaware to what is going on in the cinema screen. What I find interesting is that you can look at each person in the shot to see what their reaction is to whatever they’re watching with creates two separate stories in the image. It is voyeuristic in the way that at the time public affection was often frowned up on so by secretly kissing in the dark thinking no one can see just shows that someone is always watching. The audience that would look at this nowadays would think it was romantic and sweet but very different opinions to the audience at the time as it was again frowned upon.