Artistic sousveillance in the societal surveillant assemblage – on Dragonfly Eyes and Eye Contact

Abstract

ABSTRACT Built on theoretical frameworks of surveillant assemblage, sousveillance and other surveillance and biopolitical scholarship, I analyze two Chinese art projects, Dragonfly Eyes (2017), an experimental film by Xu Bing and Eye Contact (2016), a performance piece by Ge Yulu, as artistic sousveillance to resist surveillance biopower in a control society. I put the two works in dialogue as their shared yet different strategies critically engage with the surveillant assemblage, DIY technology and biopolitical production. Apart from problematizing the algorithmic violence and biopower of the global and also local surveillant assemblage, both art projects also contribute to more-than-human configurations of the surveillance system. I also point out that as these two surveillance artworks are symptomatic of surveillance systems, they may embody mimetic violence and post considerations for more ethical reflections in artistic sousveillance.