It is a well-known fact for us that the urban environment is under constant manipulation and surveillance. This control is put into effect by two opposite practices. On the one hand, uniformed security guards, whose presence is public and visible, execute control. On the other hand, control is based on invisible supervision, performed by security cameras and observers hiding behind mirror-surfaced glass shelters. While the former practice is aimed at counteracting criminality and deviant behavior by a dominating attendance, the latter aspires to hide the watchful eye, thus aiming at undetected surveillance.

In my work Monitoring Post, I have combined these two divergent practices of surveillance in a paradoxical and contradictory way. The rational practice of surveillance is thereby made irrational, without any other objective except the self-purposeful act of monitoring.

© Timo Heino, 2007