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We\u2019re Watching<\/em> is a performance exhibition about surveillance, and the second edition of the Live Arts Bard Biennial.\u00a0 We refer to the biennial as a \u201cperformance exhibition\u201d because it borrows elements from the infrastructures of art exhibitions and performance festivals.\u00a0 This experimental, hybrid format provides an extraordinary context in which to encounter the work of leading contemporary artists.<\/p>\n We launched the LAB Biennial in 2014 with The House is Open<\/em><\/a>, a performance exhibition that explored the dynamic relationship between the worlds of the performing and visual arts.\u00a0 Frank Gehry\u2019s magnificent building<\/a> usually functions as a classical performance venue with designated areas for spectators and performers, but The House is Open<\/em> offered a very different relational structure, transforming the theatre into a temporary museum. The public was invited to roam through spaces in the building that are usually off limits, and to engage with art projects installed in temporary \u201cgalleries\u201d made from backstage areas, wings, storage rooms, hidden corridors, and lobbies, as well as more conventional performance venues.\u00a0 The constant flow of spectators and site-specific projects created new public spaces in unexpected corners, and the whole Fisher Center became a welcoming and inclusive site for art.\u00a0 The experience taught us a great deal about the building, and inspired us to \u00a0imagine new environments in which to experience and reflect on contemporary art and performance.\u00a0 This was how the LAB Biennial was born.<\/p>\n Each edition of the Biennial will take as its subject a question or challenge for the twenty-first century.\u00a0 LAB will invite a group of artists from across disciplines to consider the question from multiple perspectives and forms, creating a complex, and sometimes contradictory matrix of ideas.\u00a0 The performance exhibition is the culmination of a two-year cycle of artist research and development, which also includes undergraduate courses at Bard, conferences and colloquia, artist residencies, and experiments.\u00a0 We see the Biennial as a kind of brain trust, in which artists, scholars, students, and the public come together to reflect on a matter of great significance to our world.<\/p>\n The subject of the 2017 Biennial We\u2019re Watching<\/em> is the systems and technologies of surveillance, and their impact on our contemporary lives.\u00a0 The exhibition includes seven new performances and installations\u2014several of them commissioned by LAB\u2014by artists working across the disciplines of theater, dance, performance, visual art, film and video, sound, and virtual reality.<\/p>\n Surveillance is not a new subject for the art world.\u00a0 From Andy Warhol\u2019s Outer and Inner Space<\/em> to Trevor Paglen\u2019s photographic documentation of the NSA and Jill Magid\u2019s performances for CCTV, artists have long grappled with the visible and invisible infrastructures of the surveillance state.\u00a0 Theater, too, has studied the interplay of spectator and spectated since the invention of drama; the very word \u201ctheater\u201d derived from the Greek for \u201cthe watching place.\u201d\u00a0 In the The Empty Space<\/em> Peter Brook famously reminds us that an act of surveillance is inherent to all performance:<\/p>\n \u201cA man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The technologies and systems of surveillance are, however, expanding at an unprecedented rate in the 21st<\/sup> century, and are changing and challenging the way we relate to government, law enforcement, corporations, and each other.\u00a0 The artists of We\u2019re Watching<\/em> are interrogating the new realities of our age, from social media and chatrooms to biometrics, WikiLeaks, drone warfare, corporate spying, and state interference in elections.<\/p>\n Performance is a profoundly human medium, and We\u2019re Watching <\/em>will explore the human impact of life in a state of surveillance.\u00a0 We invite you to join us as we collectively consider questions that shape our networked lives: How does surveillance affect our bodies, our minds, our relationships, our sense of ourselves as citizens?\u00a0 Who is watching us, and whom are we watching?\u00a0 In an age of increasing activism and resistance, can watching be a political act?\u00a0 Does privacy still matter? We\u2019re Watching <\/em>will not provide answers, but offers a space for complex thought, reflection, and fantasy\u2014so vital to the sustenance of our democracy.<\/p>\n We look forward to welcoming you to the Fisher Center for four remarkable days this April.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2014Gideon Lester, <\/em>Artistic Director,\u00a0Theater & Dance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019re Watching is a performance exhibition about surveillance, and the second edition of the Live Arts Bard Biennial.\u00a0 We refer to the biennial as a \u201cperformance exhibition\u201d because it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":542,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/542"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bard.edu\/wearewatching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}