Surveillance cameras on every street corner. Shopping malls, intersections and subway stations watched by security guards. -- This is still utopia in Germany, but is commonplace in England and the United Kingdom.
To keep security guards from being bored to death in front of their screens, the "Surveillance Camera Players" perform in front of the cameras. The action and little magic tricks are somehow directed against the surveillance state. The group's motto: "We Like To Be Watched" [sic]. But the very high number of artists in New York might be another motive for their critical engagement in front of the eyes of Big Brother. See for yourself if these mimes have the potential to make it on Broadway. Photos and tiny videoclips show the group's untamed creative urge. Because there can evidently be no action without theoretical background, I want to point to "Not Bored!" (a mouthpiece for the artists). Texts written by the SI are also available in a [completely unrelated] German archive.
[By Gernot Kramper. Originally published on 29 November 1999 by Stern.]
[Translated June 2000 from the German by Robert. Please note that the title is a play on the phrase Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten, which means "The stage [literally, the boards] means the world."]
Contact the Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail Info@notbored.org
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998
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