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Seeing or being seen? Social Impact offered guided tours with a difference through downtown Linz—ones guaranteed to escape the notice of surveillance cameras.

A case of espionage or an achievement of democracy? Surveillance cameras—both public and private—have now become a virtually all-pervasive element of the cityscape. Hardly anyone seems to care what problems they and the security drive that underpins them raise both in legal as well as in social terms. This in itself justifies an intervention that combines a double dose of irritation with a dash of humor.

This project by Social Impact, a group of artists and activists, consisted of a tour through the inner city with a very unusual objective: as a crew of up to 15 persons and outfitted with overalls, knee & hand protectors, and various tools to help protect them from surveillance, the members walked, ran or crawled with the aim of avoiding detection by the cameras. After a 20-minute introduction to the creatively designed equipment (e.g. mirror shield), warm-up exercises, and practicing various group formations meant to prevent the cameras from capturing these “intruders,” each tour began at Lentos and headed for Hauptplatz.

The performative character of the group and its shared aim of avoiding detection on its way through town made for fun times and fostered group dynamics in a very easygoing way. Plus, the members’ nondescript, uniform attire quickly attracted the attention of numerous passers-by. The tour itself was regularly punctuated by breaks that featured information about surveillance in public places, the legal situation, trends and surveillance methods. HIDE garnered enormous response. No sooner did Program Book 3 hit the streets than the first inquiries began to arrive and the 10 tours were quickly sold out.


WHAT // Urban reconnaissance
WHEN // May 10-16, 2009
WHERE // Downtown Linz
www.ausblenden.net

IDEA / CONCEPT / REALISATION // Social Impact in cooperation with choreanders
Participants // Ulrike Hager (project director), Harald Schmutzhard (project coordinator)


Free admission