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Tracking Himself: The 'Orwell
Project'
Jessica Dawson
Washington
Post
Saturday May 12, 2007
Soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government
mistook Hasan Elahi for a terrorist. On a return trip from Europe,
the Bangladesh-born, New York-raised artist was flagged at the airport
and interrogated. To prove his whereabouts, Elahi showed them his
Palm PDA, a device that yielded enough information -- from calendar
notes of appointments and classes he teaches at Rutgers University
-- to placate his interrogators.
But shaking off the feds would not be easy. In the months after
the first round of questioning, the FBI subjected Elahi to more
interviews and to a lie-detector test. Though he passed the test,
his paranoia grew.
The artist hatched a plan. If Big Brother wanted proof of his coordinates,
why not surveil himself? Recording his own moves could, theoretically,
seal his alibi. And, when conceived of as art project, the action
might satirize federal intelligence gathering.
From the day in 2002 when Elahi implanted a GPS-enabled device
in his cellphone, art and life merged. Several times a day, the
artist input his location into the phone and his computer recorded
the data (he hopes to incorporate a live GPS tracker soon). He then
created a Web site that allowed viewers to see where he is at any
given time -- you can visit at http://www.trackingtransience.net--
and he began taking photographs with a digital camera as further
proof of his whereabouts.
A documentary exhibition, "Tracking Transience: The Orwell
Project," on view at Civilian Art Projects, grew from Elahi's
promising scheme.
But as an exhibition, "Tracking Transience" loses its
way. Elahi's premise is based on real-life evidence and the obsessive
recording of events. In this area, his exhibition succeeds. He foists
plenty of visual information on us, including grids and panels of
photographs taken at airports and on aircraft, site plans of various
airport terminals and videos based on his travels.
Yet precious few of the images here are presented with time or
date stamps or any identifying information. It's as if the element
of corroboration has gone missing. Even the artworks that show satellite
coordinates -- a video screen flashes one satellite image per day
for a year, showing where the artist was at noon each day -- invite
doubt. The year isn't listed, only the month and day -- May 1, May
2, etc. How are we to know when Elahi was where he said he was?
Or if it was indeed the artist's phone that registered these coordinates?
The questionable authenticity of images is as old as the history
of photography. The digital age invites further doubt. But there's
something missing here -- a strand of evidence that establishes
the artist as a voice of authority, if only mock authority. As it
stands, doubts hang at every turn.
The trouble comes in the grids of photos on view, shot inside airports
and on airplanes to prove the artist's presence at the time he claims
to have been there. Yet one particularly arresting grid of color
photos depicting in-flight meals is arranged not in accordance with
a particular chain of events or itinerary. Instead, as the artist
told me, the photos fit together simply because they looked good.
Yes, the colors pop and the images' regularity and repetition captivate.
Making aesthetically minded choices is any artist's prerogative.
But here, in a show dedicated to documentation, such a choice runs
counter to the larger project. "Tracking Transience" is
about establishing a veneer of confidence and it loses us when it
wavers.
Another photo grid, called "Interstate," assembles pictures
of airports the artist has visited. For this piece, Elahi input
parameters into his computer to select the pictures -- a certain
span of time, airports where he'd spent a minimum number of hours,
etc. Such choices establish a relationship between the images. Yet
even these moves aren't apparent without asking the artist himself.
Other pictures show urinals, food courts and other airport sights.
Each image prompts questions: What day? Which airport? Which moving
walkway? To his credit, Elahi cross-references his data with records
kept by people other than himself -- bank transactions, credit card
swipes and cellphone call data. Yet none of that information is
on display in the gallery. Without real-life documentation corroborating
the artist's truth, "Tracking Transience" becomes an exercise
in solipsism.
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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