Altogether it would appear that what's occurring here is a buttressing of the structures of authority: spatially, physically, and psychologically, and in ways that remind me alot of, for example the photographs in Architecture of Authority by Richard Ross, which brings a visualization to that power asserted over people and how experiences become dictated in a physical space (i.e. city streets pockmarked with surveillance cameras or the emotionless, repressive interiors of bureaucratic buildings). In that context, I've been thinking alot about the myriad intersections between art and politics (or the protest thereof), so I'm putting together a series of posts over the next few weeks or whatever to tackle that topic.
While it seems somewhat problematic to assume that artists play an implicit, active role in political resistance through their works -- at risk of pigeonholing the artist's entire oeuvre, for example -- its probably at least fair to say that any art which arises from a reaction to the world at-large (and particularly dealing with sociopolitical issues) is in the very least a politicized act, even if the artist doesn't explicitly detail or imply some personal principle or position in the work. In this way, it seems that the intersections of art and politics are constant and continuous.
However, I'd be quick to characterize art as playing a different role than, say, the Occupy or anti-war protestors: while both would involve rather sustained efforts of subversion and activism, on the one hand the protest movement is far more active, vocal and extemporaneous; on the other hand the art movement is comparatively more passive and calculated. Further, they tend to engage audiences and dialogues in different ways.
To return to the issues at hand, the topics of surveillance and authoritative structures have been common subject matter for many artists. Even before the 9/11 events, as the use of CCTV cameras began its stranglehold, the American artist Lewis Baltz, for example, examined surveillance in the corporate and political spheres thru two large-scale projects, The Politics of Bacteria and Ronde de Nuit, both part of his "sites of technologies" works in the early 1990s.
(**note: all images below are from the book The Politics of Bacteria, Docile Bodies, Ronde de Nuit. Published by MOCA Los Angeles. Book scans via 5B4**)
from The Politics of Bacteria
© Lewis Baltz
Baltz is widely known as part of the New Topographics movement for his black-and-white photographs of the American postwar landscape: the light industrial structures, office parks, strip malls and housing developments typifying the suburban sprawl spilling out all across his native California, detailed in his books such as The Tract Houses (1969-1971) or The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, California (1974).However, Baltz largely abandoned the small monochromatic format of documentary photographic traditions in the late '80s and began working in huge color murals that often took cues from alternate visual sources such as video and film. However, the curious link you find between both his black-and-white prints of suburban sprawl in the '60s/'70s and his color murals of the '90s is a continued focus on the man-made landscape and how the technologies of our time contribute to that built environment's assertion of control and power over individuals.
from The Politics of Bacteria
© Lewis Baltz
Baltz's "sites of technologies" works confront a rift between surveillance and spectacle and the resulting uncertainty of power. In his words:"The problem is that the circuitous process of surveillance/spectacle is even less visible than its enabling technologies, and to address it representationally would be to address it metaphorically: to make a work that replicated the functions of this system without directly representing them."For The Politics of Bacteria, Baltz was commissioned to make images in the new Ministry of Finance building, one of the largest office structures in Paris. He explains that the building has two courtyards: one opens out into the street and serves as a place for public assembly, while the second was an interior courtyard accessible only to the Minister and other high administration, almost so that they could carry on business without disturbance from the workers and the general public. The implied contrast between the physical space of financial authority versus the public space (no doubt susceptible to the protesting masses) seems evident.
from The Politics of Bacteria
© Lewis Baltz
In his collage of images we also see the juxtaposition of sharply-dressed (and sometimes helmet-clad) men who seem to represent security and authority figures, often perched on a rooftop surveying the working masses below, and the surveillance cameras which provide a complete visualization of the space and bolster authority by recording the pixelated faces of workers and passers-by (including demonized media images of menacing dark-skinned faces). 
from The Politics of Bacteria
© Lewis Baltz
Meanwhile, Ronde de Nuit, a 39'x7' panorama of conjoined cibachrome panels, serves as a deeper investigation into surveillance as an instrument of control in contemporary society. 
from Ronde de Nuit
© Lewis Baltz
The title may sound slightly familiar, as it makes reference to Rembrandt's famous painting Night Watch (1642), and sparks interesting ideas about the exaggerated alert and paranoia inherent in the perceived necessity of video monitoring. 
from Ronde de Nuit
© Lewis Baltz
For Ronde de Nuit, Baltz was given access to the police surveillance system in Roubaix, a depressed post-industrial suburb of Lille, France. With permission to direct and move its multiple cameras, Baltz creates a series of photographs of public areas and the people in them and ultimately pairs the grainy, pixelated images next to crisp, glossy (and maybe one could say, architecturally resplendent) images of the wires, cables, and structures that internalize and store the surveilled data. We hereby become aware of this hidden-away world where our information is empowered against us -- a notion of increasing poignancy in the current age of social media and what personal details we choose to divulge online. 
from Ronde de Nuit
© Lewis Baltz
By visually solidifying the connection between the practice of surveillance and the people and structures that perpetuate its usage, in a way it seems that Baltz has come full-circle to his postwar landscape works -- each reinforcing the other and further codifying how our man-made environments can become sites of institutionalized repression. 
Ronde de Nuit installation view at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1992
© Lewis Baltz
