| Description: | Jill Magid is attracted to situations from which she is excluded, whether they are spaces, systems or ideas; she looks for a point of entry and invents a means and a methodology for access, participation, revelation, or exchange.
Seeking out intimate spaces within the public domain, Magid began working with closed-circuit video cameras, interposing her own body within that of the social and institutional. She bought her first lipstick-camera to explore the surface of her body in public space, by intervening in localised surveillance systems. In 2002 she started the ongoing project System Azure, reinventing herself as 'Head Security Ornamentation Professional', transforming security cameras into architectural ornaments, and persuading the police to hire her to decorate their outdoor security cameras with fake jewels (Rhinestoning Headquarters). This marked a shift in Magid's practice, from focusing on her own body to focusing on the body of institutions and their relative systems of authority.
Magid combines these lines of investigation in the work made for both FACT (Retrieval Room) and Tate (Evidence Locker) in International 04. The work represented within these two different contexts is the result of a relationship built with Citywatch (Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council), whose function is city-wide CCTV surveillance-the largest system of its kind in England.
There are 242 CCTV cameras in Liverpool, monitored by Citywatch from an unmarked control room located in the city centre. CCTV footage, taken by the police and obtained from all 242 cameras, is kept for 31 days, after which it is erased (unless pulled out as evidence). The footage retained is held for seven years in an evidence locker - a file that usually contains selected, 'suspect' video-recorded incidents, occurring in public space.
Magid developed a relationship with the Citywatch police (whom she refers to as 'the Observer') during her 31-day stay in Liverpool -one complete cycle of memory - in order for them to create her very own evidence locker. She subverted the CCTV process through the staging of footage that would be submitted to the evidence locker: wearing a bright red trench coat and knee-length boots, ensuring she was easily identifiable throughout the city, she would call the police on duty with details of where she was going to be and ask them to film her in particular poses and places, or even guide her through the city with her eyes closed, as in Trust, shown at Tate.
To view and retrieve footage, one must complete a 'Subject Access Request Form', and Magid completed 31 of these, writing them as though they were letters to a lover - who eventually becomes embodied within the Observer. In addition to detailing the facts of where she was and what she was doing, she expressed how she was feeling and what she was thinking. These 'letters' form an intimate portrait of the relationship between herself, the Observer and the city, and an intrinsic part of this new body of work.
The relationship with the police or 'Observer' was a vital part of Magid's process. Their rapport became an intimate, mutually dependent exchange mediated through, and eventually beyond, the camera. The resulting installations (which include video footage, diaries and a website) form two chapters of one work - one grounded in real time, from the perspective of the Observer (Tate), and one based around retrieved and recorded information (FACT). Through Magid's and the Observer's memories and reflections, the viewer enters the intimate, romantic space they have created between them.
Liverpool's city-wide surveillance system, reflected in cities all over the world, is designed for monitoring crime and disorder; through this project Magid transcended this prescribed function, using the system as a film crew and the city as a stage. Liverpool Citywatch operators' willingness to participate in, collaborate with and facilitate Magid's project, along with the UK's Data Protection Act of 1998, enabled herto blurthe line between reality and fantasy, social control and mutual trust. This is particularly pertinent given the current global paranoia regarding individual and collective security. Magid reveals systems of technology, limited by our fears, as offering poetic potentials and new forms of human interaction.
Ceri Hand [MORE][LESS]Jill Magid is attracted to situations from which she is excluded, whether they are spaces, systems or ideas; she looks for a point of entry and invents a means and a methodology for access, participation, revelation, or exchange.
Seeking out intimate spaces within the public domain, Magid began working with closed-circuit video cameras, interposing her own body within that of the social and institutional. She bought her first lipstick-camera to explore the surface of her body in public space, by intervening in localised surveillance systems. In 2002 she started the ongoing project System Azure, reinventing herself as 'Head Security Ornamentation Professional', transforming security cameras into architectural ornaments, and persuading the police to hire her to decorate their outdoor security cameras with fake jewels (Rhinestoning Headquarters). This marked a shift in Magid's practice, from focusing on her own body to focusing on the body of institutions and their relative systems of authority.
Magid combines these lines of investigation in the work made for both FACT (Retrieval Room) and Tate (Evidence Locker) in International 04. The work represented within these two different contexts is the result of a relationship built with Citywatch (Merseyside Police and Liverpool City Council), whose function is city-wide CCTV surveillance-the largest system of its kind in England.
There are 242 CCTV cameras in Liverpool, monitored by Citywatch from an unmarked control room located in the city centre. CCTV footage, taken by the police and obtained from all 242 cameras, is kept for 31 days, after which it is erased (unless pulled out as evidence). The footage retained is held for seven years in an evidence locker - a file that usually contains selected, 'suspect' video-recorded incidents, occurring in public space.
Magid developed a relationship with the Citywatch police (whom she refers to as 'the Observer') during her 31-day stay in Liverpool -one complete cycle of memory - in order for them to create her very own evidence locker. She subverted the CCTV process through the staging of footage that would be submitted to the evidence locker: wearing a bright red trench coat and knee-length boots, ensuring she was easily identifiable throughout the city, she would call the police on duty with details of where she was going to be and ask them to film her in particular poses and places, or even guide her through the city with her eyes closed, as in Trust, shown at Tate.
To view and retrieve footage, one must complete a 'Subject Access Request Form', and Magid completed 31 of these, writing them as though they were letters to a lover - who eventually becomes embodied within the Observer. In addition to detailing the facts of where she was and what she was doing, she expressed how she was feeling and what she was thinking. These 'letters' form an intimate portrait of the relationship between herself, the Observer and the city, and an intrinsic part of this new body of work.
The relationship with the police or 'Observer' was a vital part of Magid's process. Their rapport became an intimate, mutually dependent exchange mediated through, and eventually beyond, the camera. The resulting installations (which include video footage, diaries and a website) form two chapters of one work - one grounded in real time, from the perspective of the Observer (Tate), and one based around retrieved and recorded information (FACT). Through Magid's and the Observer's memories and reflections, the viewer enters the intimate, romantic space they have created between them.
Liverpool's city-wide surveillance system, reflected in cities all over the world, is designed for monitoring crime and disorder; through this project Magid transcended this prescribed function, using the system as a film crew and the city as a stage. Liverpool Citywatch operators' willingness to participate in, collaborate with and facilitate Magid's project, along with the UK's Data Protection Act of 1998, enabled herto blurthe line between reality and fantasy, social control and mutual trust. This is particularly pertinent given the current global paranoia regarding individual and collective security. Magid reveals systems of technology, limited by our fears, as offering poetic potentials and new forms of human interaction.
Ceri Hand |
