VLVL(6) Another Question

[Matt Treyvaud]

On Tue, 1 Dec 1998, davemarc wrote:

> Nowadays, I believe there's a new Black Panther movement that's using
> cameras to record police behavior.

As part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival that was held recently, one
artist (I forget her name) had an installation which was set up as
follows: there was a room full of computers which were themselves full of
digitised pornography. Viewers/participators in the installation were free
to look at the porn to their hearts' content. However, they were warned
before they began that there were cameras recording them in detail (facial
expressions especially) as they were checking out the skin pics, and these
images were -also- part of the installation (I believe they were played on
TV screens both inside and outside the room).

The artistic statement, aside from the usual postmodern infinite-regress-
of-observers idea, was that people who chose to participate in the
installation would become subject to the same pitiless, predatory, and
above all public gaze which created and defined the pornography they were
viewing. I thought it was a cool idea, but I didn't get along to much of
the Fringe Festival myself so I can't say how well it worked (or how
popular the installation was).

I'm interested in the modern filmic Black Panther group. Does anyone have
any more information on that? (Off-list e-mail is fine).

Matt

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 Matt Treyvaud, Abbr. Prim.                       (R.I.P. Kerry Thornley)
 khidr at kosher.com                           cthulhu at aardvark.apana.org.au
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