"I to eye" project is an unfinished photo- documentation of author's face to face confrontation with 400 CCTV cameras of Old Town of Jerusalem (2010)
Confronting the unrealized city... Jacek Smolicki 2010
Jerusalem is a specific place. The paradox of its uniqueness lies in the fact that apart from holding the title of the symbolic capital of the three largest world religions, Jerusalem simultaneously is, and is not the capital of two states - Israel and Palestine. Officially considered by Israelis as the capital of their country - as such, Jerusalem has not been recognized by the United Nations. At the same time for Palestinian minds, Jerusalem is already recognized as the capital of a future state. Visiting this city of torn identity, especially while entering the arabic zone one can immediately spot a countless number of CCTV cameras'eyes and feel the gaze of their hidden operators.
Over the two week period of my stay last summer, I tried to specify the number of lenses brazenly staring into the realities of everyday life by walking every morning and marking their steadfast existence on the map of the old city. By the numbers which mark their metal shells and racks on which they lurk like vultures on the branches, I estimated the number of cameras to around 400.
My next step was the decision to confront the greatest possible number of observers - eye to eye, or more precisely - the eye of my camera into the eye of the surveillance camera. The very moment when my face partially covered by the body of my small compact camera was reflected in the glass lens suspended high above the city - One of four hundred units of the army monitoring system - brought to mind the biblical confrontation of David and Goliath. Even though I expected to fail against this representation of control, I entered the confrontation in an attempt to restore the public character of the common space. Through a provocative gesture of 'shooting' the CCTV cameras I was trying to balance their totalitarian weight. For this purpose I used a cheap, mobile compact camera, in some way, a simplified version of the organised weapon used to affect and choreograph the public life of residents.
Due to the limited time of my stay, I managed to get portrayed by 107 cameras...
"I to eye" project is an unfinished photo- documentation of author's face to face confrontation with 400 CCTV cameras of Old Town of Jerusalem (2010)
Confronting the unrealized city... Jacek Smolicki 2010
Jerusalem is a specific place. The paradox of its uniqueness lies in the fact that apart from holding the title of the symbolic capital of the three largest world religions, Jerusalem simultaneously is, and is not the capital of two states - Israel and Palestine. Officially considered by Israelis as the capital of their country - as such, Jerusalem has not been recognized by the United Nations. At the same time for Palestinian minds, Jerusalem is already recognized as the capital of a future state. Visiting this city of torn identity, especially while entering the arabic zone one can immediately spot a countless number of CCTV cameras'eyes and feel the gaze of their hidden operators.
Over the two week period of my stay last summer, I tried to specify the number of lenses brazenly staring into the realities of everyday life by walking every morning and marking their steadfast existence on the map of the old city. By the numbers which mark their metal shells and racks on which they lurk like vultures on the branches, I estimated the number of cameras to around 400.
My next step was the decision to confront the greatest possible number of observers - eye to eye, or more precisely - the eye of my camera into the eye of the surveillance camera. The very moment when my face partially covered by the body of my small compact camera was reflected in the glass lens suspended high above the city - One of four hundred units of the army monitoring system - brought to mind the biblical confrontation of David and Goliath. Even though I expected to fail against this representation of control, I entered the confrontation in an attempt to restore the public character of the common space. Through a provocative gesture of 'shooting' the CCTV cameras I was trying to balance their totalitarian weight. For this purpose I used a cheap, mobile compact camera, in some way, a simplified version of the organised weapon used to affect and choreograph the public life of residents.
Due to the limited time of my stay, I managed to get portrayed by 107 cameras...