Producer: Modelab

27 May to 13 June 2015

1 Grey Street

Property Partner: DNZ Property Partner Limited.

Images: Gabrielle McKone and Modelab, courtesy of Modelab and the artists.

Project website: www.modelab.info

The Surveillance Awareness Bureau creates a space for critical discussion about systems of surveillance, and awareness of the issues around privacy, liberty, control and abuse they raise.

Featuring some of the alternatives proposed by artists, designers, scholars and journalists, this temporary office aims to highlight the tension and risks between seeing and not seeing the effects of technologies, and the vulnerability of humans in being in a space of "control framed by usual unawareness". 

Produced and curated by Modelab, the project brings together an exciting range of international and New Zealand contributors with a public programme: Simon Denny (whose Secret Power on this subject is currently representing NZ at the Venice Biennale), Hemi Macgregor (NZ), Terri Te Tau (NZ), Zach Blas (USA), James Bridle (UK), Paolo Cirio (IT/USA), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (MEX), and Ruben Pater (NL). 

"Not a single day passes without news of trust breaches and information misuse of data in all levels, from the common individual to states and international organizations," writes curator Claudia Arozqueta. "But while certain technologies can be considered even as predators for privacy, there is already counterarguments that choose the same technologies and deploy them as tool of resistance or as a crucial democratic element that can link individuals with the wider social and political environment they live in.”

The Surveillance Awareness Bureau will provide the audience with on-site bibliographical resources and other media on the subject of state and commercial vigilance. Also, panels on mass surveillance and civil liberties in the digital age. A workshop on enhancing privacy tools will be held to draw attention to the multiple ambiguous forms of surveillance that could be positioned along a spectrum from 'care' to 'control'.

Funding has been provided by the Wellington City Creative Communities.