In both digital and physical realms, surveillance evolves from static observation to pervasive control. Artists like Shu Lea Cheang, Trevor Paglen, and Hito Steyerl critique this through works exploring power, visibility, and resistance, reframing Foucault’s panopticon for the modern era.
Surveillance has evolved from the static mechanisms of observation to dynamic and omnipresent systems of control, deeply embedded in our digital and physical lives. The historical progression from Bentham’s panopticon – an architectural design facilitating constant surveillance – to contemporary practices of global surveillance highlights the centrality of visibility and control in the exercise of power. Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, described the panopticon as a metaphor for modern disciplinary societies, where surveillance creates docility and compliance. Today, this metaphor extends into the digital realm, where technologies like facial recognition, algorithmic monitoring, and data mining serve as tools of both observation and subjugation.
SURVEILLANCE IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Artists such as Shu Lea Cheang, Trevor Paglen, and Hito Steyerl explore the implications of surveillance, using their works to interrogate how power dynamics manifest in visual regimes. Shu Lea Cheang’s 3x3x6, for instance, is an immersive installation that critically engages with the architecture of surveillance and its impact on gender, sexuality, and race. Presented at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, the work repurposes the historical Palazzo delle Prigioni, reimagining it as a space of both observation and resistance. Drawing inspiration from Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, Cheang’s installation uses digital interfaces, 3D facial recognition, and a decentralized surveillance network to explore how technologies construct and normalize deviance.
The title, 3x3x6, refers to the standardized dimensions of modern prison cells equipped with six cameras – a symbol of constant monitoring. The installation subverts this surveillance logic by projecting images and narratives of incarcerated individuals, blending historical and fictional accounts to critique the power structures embedded in visual regimes. Cheang’s work highlights how surveillance technologies mediate identities, challenging viewers to consider their complicity in these systems.
TREVOR PAGLEN: AUTONOMY CUBE
On another note, Trevor Paglen’s Autonomy Cube is both an artwork and a functional device, transforming gallery spaces into nodes of resistance against digital surveillance. The cube houses a Tor relay – a server that helps anonymize internet traffic by routing it through a series of encrypted layers – enabling visitors to browse the internet anonymously and securely. By embedding this technology into an art context, Paglen foregrounds the intersections of aesthetics, privacy, and activism.
Through Autonomy Cube, Paglen critiques the normalization of surveillance in everyday life and invites viewers to envision alternative infrastructures for digital freedom. The work exemplifies his broader practice of revealing the hidden architectures of surveillance, from classified military sites to undersea cables.
HITO STEYERL: HOW NOT TO BE SEEN
Structured as a satirical instructional video, Hito Steyerl’s video installation How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational.MOV File employs humour and irony to dissect the logic of visibility in contemporary society. The work offers strategies for evading detection in a world dominated by surveillance technologies.
Steyerl critiques the commodification of visibility, where individuals become data points in vast networks of extraction and control. Her work underscores the paradoxes of transparency in digital capitalism, where being visible often equates to being exploitable. By subverting the conventions of educational media, Steyerl challenges viewers to reflect on their own relationship to visibility and surveillance.
FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: THE LONG DURATION OF A SPLIT SECOND
Forensic Architecture’s investigative practice blurs the boundaries between art, activism, and science, using advanced technologies to expose state violence and systemic injustices. In The Long Duration of a Split Second, the collective reconstructs the fatal shooting of a Palestinian man by Israeli forces, employing architectural analysis, video footage, and 3D modeling to challenge official narratives. Their work exemplifies the potential of surveillance technologies to serve emancipatory purposes, reclaiming tools of observation to hold power accountable. By making visible the otherwise obscured mechanisms of violence, Forensic Architecture highlights the dual potential of surveillance as both a means of control and resistance.
LAURIE ANDERSON: THE BODY AS PRISON
In Habeas Corpus (2015), Laurie Anderson directly addresses the themes of detention and surveillance, blending performance, music, and visual projections. The work centers on the body, rendered a prisoner of technology and power. Anderson subverts the idea of the panopticon, revealing how surveillance becomes an inescapable condition affecting not only physical freedom but also psychological autonomy. Through the use of enlarged images and amplified voices, the artist invites the viewer to reflect on the relationship between surveillance and humanity, emphasizing the power of visual storytelling to create empathy.
HEATHER DEWEY-HAGBORG: DNA AS A TRAP
With Stranger Visions (2012–2013), Heather Dewey-Hagborg pushes beyond the visible, examining how surveillance extends to the genetic level. Using DNA samples collected from public spaces, the artist reconstructed three-dimensional portraits of strangers, raising questions about biological privacy. The work serves as a critique of the dangers of biotechnology when used for control, highlighting the vulnerability of our bodies as objects of invisible surveillance. It challenges Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power, showing how it pervades even the most intimate essence of our being.
SURVEILLANCE AND RESISTANCE: A FOUCAULTIAN REFLECTION
These works reveal a profound ambivalence at the heart of surveillance: its capacity to both oppress and empower. Foucault’s analysis of power as diffuse and relational finds resonance in these artistic practices, which interrogate the mechanisms of control embedded in visual regimes. By exposing the operations of surveillance, these artists invite viewers to question their own roles within these systems and imagine possibilities for resistance.
In the digital age, where visibility is both currency and control, art becomes a critical space for reimagining power. From Cheang’s subversion of the panopticon to Paglen’s infrastructural interventions, these works underscore the urgent need for vigilance and creativity in resisting the encroachments of surveillance. As Foucault reminds us, power is never absolute; it is always met with resistance, and it is in this resistance that new forms of agency and subjectivity emerge.
Art, therefore, becomes not only a mirror reflecting the dynamics of surveillance but also a tool for envisioning new modes of existence beyond its grasp. The challenge lies in sustaining this resistance, transforming critique into action, and reclaiming autonomy in a world increasingly defined by observation.
LINK
- Between dust and algorithms. A day with Damiano Tata in his studio - October 24, 2025
- Giuliana Cunéaz: art as an exploration between science and wonder - September 12, 2025
- Beyond the screen: immersion, embodiment, and empathy at Venice Immersive - August 29, 2025
