Technology is the issue for a series of digital videos being screened this weekend as part of the [Chicago] Museum of Contemporary Art's "Version: 02," a program of videos, performances, panel discussions, and workshops. Some of the videos critique the new wired order, others cheer the subversive artists who attack it [...]
A far more effective jab at the state is the straightforward Surveillance Report 02.03.02, made by a Chicagoan who goes by the name "4n6." During the World Economic Forum meeting in New York City this past winter, Bill Brown, a member of a New York guerrilla-theater troupe that does pieces in front of surveillance cameras, takes us to a police video camera installed on a pole at the corner of 49th Street and Fifth Avenue, then delivers an articulate harangue about the Fourth Amendment, privacy, and the place of "lingerers" in capitalism. "This camera is violating every single concept in the law of the land," he says. "The Berlin Wall gets taken down in one particular place and gets rebuilt all over the planet." He concludes by turning to the police camera and saying, "Are you reading my lips as I say 'Fuck you'?" [...]
(Written by Bill Stamets and published in the 18 April 2002 issue of The Chicago Reader.)
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