I Never Went

In times of increasing mass surveillance and hyper-visibility – what is privacy, and how is it manifested? Has privacy become a notion of nostalgia – an exotic algorithm?

As we cruise through voluntary algorithmic governance, we acknowledge that privacy is then a thing of the past. It has ceased to be a choice but a lost cause, somehow nostalgic. In a similar way to the loss of the exotic, we have now been deprived of privacy. Covered in data like a suffocating duvet, I propose a carnival. The carnival as the festivity in which the loss of identity is celebrated, a commemoration where everyone is famous and no one is.

Carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behaviour are suspended. Hierarchies are flattened and identity is blurred. However, how do we effectively blur identity under global surveillance? What might this look like? How may we manufacture a new tradition? Can we install a tradition?

The show included a filmed parade, panopticon stands, a privacy-trinity carnival patron and a fake meat banquet.

Curated by Cristina Vasilescu and Cristina Bogdan.

With the support of /

Proyecto financiado por las Ayudas Injuve para la Creación Joven 2017/2018 :