Roel Weerdenburg - PanOptical
The installation panOptical explores Foucault’s theory of panopticism. This theory describes the behavioral discipline and structure that results from the conviction that one is constantly surveilled by authorities and it’s peers. With this installation, visitors are forced to experience and reflect on the omnipresence of (mass-)surveillance techniques, how they are introduced into our daily lives, and how fragile these systems are.
panOptical made its debut at the Uncloud Festival UNshaping exhibition of 2020, located at the former Pieter Baan Centrum in Utrecht, a psychiatric research facility and prison.
The installation was the result of a residency at Uncloud Festival where Roel had several weeks to experiment, try new things and develop an end product to his satisfaction. Particularly important parts of the installation were the already present CCTV system, videoswitchers and other video infrastructure at the Pieter Baan Centrum. The video gear Roel brought himself was mainly used for the generative and mixing parts. The CRT tv towers and walls were, of course, brought by him, too.
A second iteration was exhibited at the HKU Graduation Festival of 2020 and the FOMA Exhibition, also during the summer of 2020. For the Graduation Festival there, a large number of CCTV cameras were installed in the exhibition space, which gave the monitored subjects no chance to comprehend the different angles they were filmed at. All the other displayed videos were generated live by using algorithmically controlled videomixers and matrices. All available monitors were used in this installation, resulting in different videowalls and a videotower.
At FOMA, every available CCTV camera in the former bookshop/library was used, sometimes capturing the things happening outside on the street. Some pre-recorded videos were displayed by an array of Raspberry Pi video loopers. This made the installation much more compact compared when compared to generating everything live.
A third iteration was exhibited at Ars Electronica 2020 and GOGBOT 2020, for which Roel collaborated with Ward Slager. He wrote a python script that runs on multiple Raspberry Pi’s, turning them into fully automated IP camera ‘hackers’. This means that the installation is livestreaming images of unsecured IP cameras on the world wide web. In some cases, they are familiar images like from the webcams some hotels point at a beach or of a panoramic view, but in other cases we can get a glimpse of an office, garden or even a living room.
More with Roel Weerdenburg
In this Private Kitchen series our host Alexa Rodrigues visits Roel Weerdenburg “in the studio”. For a month, we bring you weekly a new short story from the studio in Amsterdam. Follow instagram for upcoming releases!
Director - João Rodrigues
Host - Alexa Rodrigues
Video & bio photography - Maja Silver
Editing - Nathalie de Jong & Maja Silver
Audio Mixing - Mass Audio
Producer - Rens Machielse
Producer - Sebastiaan Donders