Electronic
Gallery
Past Exhibitions
HASAN ELAHI: TRACKING TRANSIENCE
Opening Show: Sept 4 - November 1
Hasan Elahi, is an interdisciplinary artist whose work
examines issues of surveillance, simulated time, transport
systems, borders and frontiers.
Click to view larger
His current multi-faceted project,
Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project, was inspired by Elahi's
experiences being investigated by the FBI which builds on a
series of installations, performances, and websites that use
Elahi's self-surveillance to critique contemporary investigative
techniques. As a result of an erroneous tip called into law
enforcement authorities, he was singled out as a terrorist
suspect. After undergoing months of regular interrogations and
finally nine consecutive lie-detector tests, he was cleared of
any suspicions. However, this experience lead Elahi to conceive
a self-tracking device that constantly transmits and maps his
exact location alongside his financial data, communication
records and transportation logs. Other aspects of Tracking
Transience include a database of thousands of images of airports
Elahi travels through and sometimes sleeps in, food he consumes
in transit, and public toilets he uses while traveling. A second
innovation in this work is its embrace of surveillance for its
subject's own protection; Elahi has protected himself from
unwanted scrutiny by making his entire life and whereabouts
publicly accessible.
Elahi recently was invited to speak about his work at the
Tate Modern, Einstein Forum, and at at the American Association
of Artificial Intelligence. His work has been presented in
numerous exhibitions at venues such as the Centre Georges
Pompidou, Sundance Film Festival, Kassel Kulturbahnhof, The
Hermitage, and at the Venice Biennale. His work has been
supported with significant grants and numerous sponsorships from
the Creative Capital Foundation, Ford Foundation/Philip Morris,
and the Asociación Artetik Berrikuntzara in Donostia-San
Sebastián in the Basque Country/ Spain.
http://trackingtransience.net/
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