Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Vice Presidential Downtime Requirements, 2008
For complete caption see image gallery

View Slideshow

The 60th anniversary of George Orwell’s science fiction opus 1984 came and went unnoticed last year. Why would such a prescient novel generate so little hubbub on its birthday? Perhaps the notion of a society numbed by perpetual war, newspeak (the reduction of language to suit ideological purposes), and constant government surveillance of the public is not that newsworthy. Do these ideas apply so aptly to the 21st century that 1984 seems redundant? Or is pointing out this trend toward total surveillance just harshing the mellow of the Net Generation who surrender their privacy with wild abandon? On my first day on Facebook, I jokingly posted my status as “Big Brother is watching you,” and was surprised by a slew of comments suggesting I was a buzzkill.

The New Normal, an exhibition curated by Michael Connor, tackles the subject of personal disclosure in a world where we’ve come to accept it as de facto. The show’s title harkens back to “the new normalcy,” former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney’s description of the indefinite curtailment of personal freedoms post 9/11. Indeed we are entering our 9th year of the USA Patriot Act, 7th year of the War in Iraq, and decades of corporate – driven media—so far from objective journalism that Orwellian “doublethink” doesn’t sound that weird.

The thirteen artists in The New Normal reveal private information to question unequivocal participation in this over-sharing orgy. From Trevor Paglen’s passport photos of CIA operatives to Guthrie Lonergan’s video introductions lifted from people’s Myspace pages, The New Normal looks at what happens when people are defined by their data trail.

In Jennifer and Kevin McCoy’s installation, Vice Presidential Downtime Requirements (2008), the artists reverse the roles of observer (government) and observed (citizen). The McCoys recreate a typical Cheney hotel room in the gallery with his VIP requirements fulfilled: all TVs tuned to FOX News, ample cans of Sprite Zero, a pot of decaf brewing and the temperature set to 68 degrees. In this instance, Cheney’s own consumer habits are broadcast to viewers, who can analyze his consumption up close.

Similarly, Hasan Elahi discloses his own consumer habits in his ongoing project Tracking Transience, a compulsive daily log of the artist’s flights, meals, purchases and exact locations presented as photographs, maps and consumer data. Elahi began voluntarily monitoring himself for the FBI after an “anonymous tipster” flagged him as a potential terrorist in 2002. After months of interrogation and nine lie detector tests, Elahi was cleared of any suspicion, but still advised to “check-in” with the FBI regularly, hence the self-surveillance. Implied in Elahi’s project is the rise in racial profiling and xenophobia under the guise of increased U.S. security. Both Elahi’s project and that of the McCoys present an absurdist view of surveillance, where the accumulation of a person’s mundane habits defuses the power of that very information.

The project that most thoroughly conveys the moral complexities of extracting information is Jill Magid’s multi-media Lincoln Ocean Victor Eddy (2006-07). One evening, Magid approached a male NYC police officer on the subway, and asked to be strip-searched. The officer refused, but what ensued was a friendship based on mutual disclosure, implied romance and taboo. Over the course of five months, Magid gained the officer’s trust, (despite warnings from his friends she was using him,) and was granted access to his personal beliefs and professional life, even when it threatened his marriage and job. On view is a photograph of Magid in the officer’s uniform shirt, an image of her holding his gun, a (replica of) a bullet he gave her and other artifacts of their relationship. A 64-page novella details their time together with the same allure as the government-forbidden romance between protagonists Winston and Julia in 1984.

As Here Comes Everybody author Clay Shirky points out in the exhibition catalog, what Orwell didn’t predict in 1984 is that “governance doesn’t require government.” By participating in networked communication, we’ve become so accustomed to observation that disclosing our most private moments seems “normal.” In other words, who needs a totalitarian society when the citizens willingly monitor themselves?

Andrea Grover is a migrant curator, artist and writer. In 1998, she founded Aurora Picture Show, a now recognized center for filmic art, that began in Grover’s living room as “the world’s most public home theater.