Panopticon
Installation, 2014
The installation "Panopticon" critically examines technological development and its consequences for society. On a very personal level, the visitor is confronted with his digital identity. "Panopticon" thereby demonstrates the power of technology, with all its unattractive facets.
The visitor finds himself in a closed, gloomy room surrounded by old tape recorders. After a call to the dial telephone, the lighting mood in the room changes.
The instrumental of the german folk song „Die Gedanken sind frei" is played and one of the tapes begins to turn.
24h later the visitor receives a text message, with his personal file. In addition to a photo, further information from the exhibition has been collected and analyzed, and compared with current location information. The visitor is caught beyond the analog exhibition in a digital Panopticon.
In collaboration with Kevin Röhl
Photos by Anna Thut
24 hours later – the visitor is trapped in the digital Panopticon
awarded with the german multimedia award
exhibited at Stuttgarter Filmwinter, watch22 Mainz, Luminale Frankfurt, mb21 Dresden
Panopticon 2.0
Installation, 2019
Five years later, we take up the Panopticon again. Not only technology changed, but so has society. Voice assistants like Amazon Alexa are now considered lifestyle products. Tracking large amount of data no longer happens in secret - algorithms are fed voluntarily by placing the devices prominently in "smart" homes.
In the "Panopticon 2.0" there are no longer tape recorders, but hanging "Alexa obelisks" base for the five-sided Panopticon (prison design after Jeremy Bentham). The visitor goes to the center of it and is invited to call the set up telephone number. Thereupon, the lighting mood of the staged alexa devices changes to "recording mode". Parallel to this, the visitor's telephone plays the instrumental: "Die Gedanken sind frei".
In collaboration with Kevin Röhl