Faculty of Design
Graphic Design
Stacey Arkhipova
Invisible Observer
Photography
2020
A collection of stills from unsecured live surveillance camera feeds displayed on insecam.org; captured by me throughout 2020-2021.
“These images were collected from publicly available live feeds streaming from unsecured surveillance cameras all over the world. I questioned my role as an observer. Could I be held accountable if I were to witness a crime, albeit virtually and seemingly anonymously? Spying on unsuspecting targets across the world made me feel in charge of a situation that is entirely out of my control. I also became conscious of my own subjectivity. It made me question my own behaviour and my normalized personal identity.On the other hand I was mesmerized watching unedited footage and people’s unfettered behaviour. We live in a time and place where watching people online is a daily activity for many of us, though we rarely see anything other than what was deliberately made for us to consume. In a world that is so heavily saturated with performative and edited digital content, seeing the mundane reality of everyday life on a screen is very compelling. Any form of surveillance is invasive and discriminatory as its use usually entails an unequal power relationship. Soon security camera surveillance will become obsolete since our personal digital devices do a much better job of tracking our lives from the time we take our first breath until we die. Is it safe to say we should assume we are being watched at all times?In taking these images out of their original context and including them in my visual exploration, I place the viewer in the role of an observer and simultaneously suggest that they too are being observed.”