It’s you again: Art and tech projects are staring back at surveillance

They are using new approaches to ask: Who will watch the watchmen? What will it take for people to care about the footage and data now out there, featuring them

We’re all stars of screen today. And activists are beginning to ask: What will it take for people to care about the amount of footage and data now out there, featuring them, that they didn’t even create?

(Video still; two-channel colour video projection) An image by Trevor Paglen, from the project 89 Landscapes, 2015, focused on surveillance infrastructure around the world. (Trevor Paglen, Altman Siegel, San Francisco and Pace Gallery)

In attempts to jog citizens out of their complacency when it comes to this invisible, relatively abstract (for now) threat, artists and analysts are trying new approaches.

Such projects are challenging the purpose, methods and use of surveillance data and asking: Who will