Abstract
This chapter engages with contemporary surveillance as it is conceived of in art and literature, responding to the contemporary media culture of ubiquitous watching. Artistic discourse and its concern with this facet of modern life is examined via a series of art works. The chapter aims to present a discussion of several of the early-career performance pieces and accompanying short writings of American multimedia artist Jill Magid . By situating Magid’s work within a theoretical frame which synthesises two crucial concepts from technocultural theory—Kevin D. Haggerty and Richard V. Ericson’s surveillant assemblage and Donna Haraway’s cyborg— this chapter proposes an alternative way of looking at the construction of a dividual self within surveillant spaces, one which rejects the dialectical limitations imposed upon our identities in the post- Orwellian , post-Foucauldian era of surveillance. In this way, the chapter opens a discussion about the practices of art as a subsystem of culture, which engages with the notions of selves and surveillance.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allison, A. (2000). Permitted and prohibited desires: Mothers, comics, and censorship in Japan. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Ball, K., & Haggerty, K. D. (2005). Editorial: Doing surveillance studies. Surveillance and Society, 3(2/3). Retrieved December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/3496/3450.
Bauman, Z. (2006). Liquid modernity (6th ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z., & Lyon, D. (2013). Liquid surveillance. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bell, D. (2009). Surveillance is sexy. Surveillance and Society, 6(3). Retrieved December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/3281/3244.
Bigo, D. (2008). Globalized (in)security: The field and the ban-opticon. In D. Bigo & A. Tsoukala (Eds.), Terror, insecurity and liberty: lleberal practices of liberal regimes after 9/11 (pp. 10–48). Oxon: Routledge.
Brighenti, A. M. (2010). Artveillance: At the crossroad of art and surveillance. Surveillance and Society, 7(2). Retrived December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/artveillance/artveil.
Budgett, G. (2001). Introduction to spatial practices. Retrieved January 11, 2016 from http://www.arts.ucsb.edu/faculty/budgett/classes/art12/hatoum.html.
Calle, S. (1980). Suite vénitienne. Set of 81 elements, made in this form from 1996 onwards: 55 b/w photographs, 23 texts, 3 maps. Edition of 3.
Calle, S. (1981). The Shadow. French version: diptych, texts and colour and b/w photographs, each element framed. English version: set of one text, one colour photograph, 29 b/w photographs partly assembled in groups, 11 texts. Edition of 3+3.
Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the societies of control. October, 59, 3–7.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. New York: Vintage.
Gandy, O. (1993). The panoptic sort: A political economy of personal information. Boulder: Westview.
Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Haggerty, K. D., & Ericson, R. V. (2000). The surveillant assemblage. British Journal of Sociology, 51(4), 605–622.
Haraway, D. J. (1991). Simians, cyborgs, and women: The reinvention of nature. London: Free Association Books.
Hatoum, M. (1994). Corps étranger. 1 cylindrical structure, 1 video projecter, 4 loud-speakers, 1 video tape, PAL, colour, stereo sound, 30’.
Knifton, R. (2010). You’ll never walk alone: CCTV in two liverpool art projects. In O. Remes & P. Skelton (Eds.), Conspiracy dwellings: Surveillance in contemporary art. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Koskela, H. (2004). Webcams, TV shows and mobile phones: Empowering exhibitionism. Surveillance and Society, 2(2/3). Retrieved December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/3374/3337.
Koskela, H. (2012). You shouldn’t wear that body: The problematic of surveillance and gender. In K. Ball, K. D. Haggerty, & D. Lyon (Eds.), Routledge handbook of surveillance studies. Oxon: Routledge.
Lacan, J. (1998). Book 11 of séminaire de jacques lacan (2nd ed.). New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Lyon, D. (Ed.). (2003). Surveillance as social sorting: Privacy, risk, and digital discrimination. London: Routledge.
Magid, J. S. (2000). Monitoring desire. MSc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Retrieved August 22, 2011, from http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/76084/47864809-MIT.pdf?sequence=2.
Magid, J. S. (2000). Legoland. B/W footage produced by Surveillance Shoe. 6 min.
Magid, J. S. (2002). Theology of mirrors. Retrieved March 10, 2010 from http://www.jillmagid.net.
Magid, J. S. (2007). Seduction. Retrieved March 10, 2010 from http://www.jillmagid.net.
Marx, G. T. (2009). Soul train: The new surveillance in popular music. In I. Kerr, V. Steeves, & C. Lucock (Eds.), Lessons from the identity trail: Anonymity, privacy and identity in a networked society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mulvey, L. (1999). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In L. Braudy & M. Cohen (Eds.), Film theory and criticism: Introductory readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Murakami Wood, D. (2005). Editorial: People watching people. Surveillance and Society, 2(4). Retrieved December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/3358/3321.
Pridmore, J., & Zwick, D. (2011). Editorial: Marketing and the rise of commercial consumer surveillance. Surveillance and society, 8(3). Retrieved December 23, 2015 from http://library.queensu.ca/ojs/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/4163/4165.
Rosen, D., & Santesso, A. (2013). The watchman in pieces: Surveillance, literature, and liberal personhood. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Russell, S. (1996). Corps étranger. Zing Magazine, [online] 1 February. Retrieved January 11, 2016 from http://www.zingmagazine.com/zing3/reviews/020_body.html.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Christmas, A. (2017). Equality and Erasure: Responses to Subject Negation in the Art of Jill Magid. In: Flynn, S., Mackay, A. (eds) Spaces of Surveillance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49085-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49085-4_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-49084-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-49085-4
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)