OREANDA-NEWS. The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and C/O Berlin cordially invite you to the last event of the „Watched! Surveillance, Art & Photography” series. The British artist James Bridle will hold a lecture entitled “Seeing Machines”, which will take place on 20 April 2017 at C/O Berlin in Amerika Haus, Berlin.

James Bridle explores contemporary computer forecasting and automation technologies as part of our everyday lives. The work of Intelligence services, immigration policies and surveillance are subjects in his art. In his lecture “Seeing Machines”, he discusses new aesthetic forms and technologies whose structures have become almost impossible for us to decipher. To depict those invisible technologies of the security apparatus and the degree of censored CIA-documents he creates images from drones. In his investigative works, he devises forms of resistance to algorithmic systems and creates new images for the computer age. The final event will take place as part of the event series on surveillance and photography accompanying the current exhibition Watched! Surveillance, Art & Photography at C/O Berlin, which started in June 2016.

James Bridle’s artistic work Homo sacer (2014) is being shown in the eponymous exhibition „Watched! Surveillance, Art & Photography” and will be on display at C/O Berlin up to April 23, 2017.

James Bridle is a British writer, artist, journalist and computer scientist from London. He currently lives and works in Athens. Bridle has published numerous journalistic and theoretical texts in online and print media. His artistic work has been shown at international institutions and museums including the Barbican Center and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London; the Laboral in Gijón; ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie in Karlsruhe; and the National Arts Centre in Tokyo; and as part of the Lighthouse Brighton Festival; Milan Design Week; the Bienal Internacional de Curitiba and the Istanbul Design Biennial. He is an active participant in contemporary discourses surrounding the topic of surveillance. Bridle has held lectures worldwide, and has taught at Goldsmith University in London.

Surveillance has long been a major issue in society. Sociologists, psychologists, lawyers, politicians and artists address the different forms of surveillance and their effects on individuals and entire groups. They don‘t merely concentrate on issues of privacy and the potential threat to individuals through governmental and private sur­veillance, but rather critically and playfully deal with the various forms of daily sur­veillance as constitutive part of our social lives. Given this universal development, the question arises: What effect does this have on us? How are these developments reflected in artistic works? And how can contemporary art and media theory contribute to a better understanding of our modern surveillance society?

With the series Watched! – Surveillance Art & Photography the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation and C/O Berlin address the different forms of surveillance and their effects and present different commentaries and reactions from the perspective of contemporary art and media experts.

About Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation
The Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation is a Frankfurt-based non-profit organisation. The foundation activities focus on collecting, exhibiting and promoting contemporary photography. Deutsche Börse began to build up its collection of contemporary photography in 1999. Expanding the Art Collection Deutsche Börse which comprises today more than 1,700 works by over 100 international artists, is one of the key aims of the foundation. The collection and a changing exhibition programme are open to the public. Together with The Photographers' Gallery in London, the foundation awards the renowned Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize each year. Other focal points include promoting new talent, supporting exhibition projects of international museums and institutions, and the expansion of platforms for academic discussion about the medium.