As society relies more and more on new and digital technologies, artists, writers, and philosophers have reflected on the perils this may bring upon: George Orwell, Michael Foucault, Slavoj Zizek — the list goes on. In Privacy Index, the first exhibition of LUmkA gallery in London, a handful of artists including Ruby Chen, Nicholas Cheveldave, Linx Peng, James Hoff, Miles Scharff, and Ivo Nagel do so too. On view through April 11th, this group show is made in collaboration with Big Brother Watch, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and No2ID.
Privacy Index poses important questions in today’s world: who has access to our personal details and information — our intimacy? How is a planet shaped by remote server farms? What is it that companies really extract from our everyday online activity? How does this endless surveillance affect our bodies and psyches? Through the works of various artists, the exhibition “collectively interrogates how contemporary regimes of visibility have recalibrated subjectivity and agency in the 21st century,” the team of LUmkA explains.
“While privacy has become an urgent public concern, it remains poorly grasped as both a concept and a living practice,” they denounce. “Privacy Index arrives as a timely interrogation of surveillance capitalism that insists art’s power to provoke consciousness and enable resistance.” The gallery’s own context also helps to understand that: after relocating from NYC to London, one of the cities with the most surveillance cameras in Europe (and the world), it makes sense that they draw attention to that matter.
The exhibition Privacy Index is on view through April 11 at LUmkA, 55 Curtain Road, Shoreditch, London.
