Nicky Robertson-Peek - Paranoid Live

My research explores notions of paranoia, performativity and the urban environment in the context of surveillance and the prevailing ideologies of voyeurism. We are (according to a recent Daily Mail article) caught on surveillance cameras an average of 300 times per day; subsequently we enact our daily routine with an inherent awareness of a constant "gaze". The emergent technological order in the spectre of George Orwell's 1984 or Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose dystopian paranoiac prophecies have haunted technological evolution and informed contemporary popular culture.

The concept of "big brother" has become a recognisable motif with widely acknowledged connotations, detached from its Orwellian context. In the wake of C4's Big Brother series, the growing popularity of docu-soaps and the iconic value of the surveillance image in the media reporting of the Jamie Bulger, Rodney King and Damiliola Taylor incidents, the emergent overt big brotherism has become a significant aspect of popular visual culture. The use of covert video surveillance images in consumer watchdog programmes or Hollywood films (which perpetuate the notion of totalitarian state surveillance) creates a climate where the iconography of CCTV has become an either naturalised or fetishised aesthetic of visual culture.

The surveillance image functions in a framework of the traditional voyeuristic modalities of "seeing" and "being seen" inherent in the relationship to the visual. The aim of this study is to examine these themes and the role of artistic representation within the topography of a telemediated or surveillance-based society. My research will examine how artists are increasingly engaging with these themes and developing methodologies for questioning these trends (e.g. Ulf Lundin, Steve Mann, Julia Scher & Jamie Wagg), as well as considering contemporary work within a shifting understanding of scopic regimes.

The advent of the 'globalised space' and the "imploding urbanism" (Virillio) of new telecommunications media has radically restructured postmodernist notions of space and visual perception, I aim to develop a new critical framework for engaging with these discourses which moves away from the existing methodologies of largely subjective luddite/technophile polarities, predominantly based in outmoded cultural theory. Any study which centralises new or emergent technologies is problematic for establishing a fixed criterion for analysis, I will therefore maintain a flexibility in my research by adopting a multifaceted approach will also draw upon a variety of sources outside of conventional art history, in order to produce a more holistic and multidisciplinary investigation. In addition I am organising exhibitions and events to bring together artists employing these themes in a range of environments to identify and develop the main critical questions for a study of these discourses and genre.

Please contact me with your comments.
nickyrobertson-peek@orange.net
or c/o Middlesex University, School of Arts, (Research Dept)

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