The Chicago Police Department calls its public surveillance cameras Police Observation Devices (PODs).
The PODs look down from the tops of telephone poles or street lights. Many make themselves visible with a flashing blue light that resembles a police car siren.
Others, flat-black and subdued, blend covertly into the everyday infrastructure that supports them. Their aesthetic qualities anticipate ways that publics might behave and observe within a surveilled environment.
I employ direct observational drawing, sculptural replication, and 35mm slide
photography in an ongoing practice of representing the Police surveillance
cameras in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. This multidisciplinary
framework documents multiple ways of seeing and a plurality of articulated
positions relative to the PODs. The resulting works can be thought of like performance artifacts—material documents of deliberately returning the camera’s
gaze.
This body of work searches for ways of seeing and being seen in surveilled public
spaces. I would like to encourage reciprocal gazes. As an individual, looking back
means actively electing presence, visibility and vulnerability. It ambiguates the roles of observer and observed. At its best, it creates space for me, and ideally
others, to participate creatively and consciously with the presence of police
surveillance in Chicago. ---This week we are featuring gallery artist Dylan Cale Jones. Join us til Saturday as we explore his process further. Pictured: Police Observation Device, Potomac and Washtenaw, 2016, pine, 8"x12"x14"
Everyone is Crying (2), 2017, 36"x 42", ink, acrylic and graphite on paper
Police Observation Device, Potomac and Washtenaw, 3/4 scale, cherry, 6""x10"
Contact the gallery with inquiries.
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