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ctrl [space] - Rhetorics of surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother

Ulf Lundin
Pictures of a Family

1996, photographic series, c-prints, each 28.5 x 39"

We see a child lying motionless on the edge of the street. The bike handlebars underneath him and the wheel rearing up behind him indicate that the child has taken a tumble. But it is not clear what exactly has happened. An accident? A murder? Something is not right. The photo is part of the series Pictures of a Family (1996). For this work UlfLundin followed the movements of one of his schoolfriend's family and took photographs of them for a period of one year. And although the family basically knew that they were being observed, they could never know exactly when Lundin was actually looking at them. Consequently, fundamental to the work was an optical relationship that placed the family in a situation of being permanently stared at, even though the observation occurred only sporadically.
So as to remain unobserved when taking photographs, Lundin hid behind bushes and trees in his friend's garden or on the neighbour’s property, climbed onto roofs, peeked through the windows of the house, followed the family on trips and on their summer vacation. The result are pictures that show the children playing, the family eating, shopping, relaxing. We are also allowed an insight into the circumstances under which the photos were taken: our view of the family is through trees and bushes or through windows, doors or walls, which fully occupy the foreground of the picture with their blurred two-dimensionality. This gives the impression that the photos have been taken with the aid of a vignette frame. An investigative gesture that creates distance, for it is as if we are looking at events through a keyhole.
When, around 1900, secret cameras began to flood the market - hidden in picnic baskets, books, walking sticks, hats, or behind ties - their main objective was to snap the object of the photographers' desires unnoticed. But these photos were meant to be in sharp focus, which is why they look like ordinary snapshots; the fact that the photographer's gaze is hidden cannot be seen from the picture. With Lundin, the situation is different. Here, the detective-like quality of the gaze is veritably put on show through the conscious interplay of sharp and blurred focus. Admittedly, however, in the hundreds of pictures he has taken, there is nothing to discover. The aim of Lundin's photographic drama is definitely not to record the deeply secret workings of the human soul, and we would search in vain for any sublime revelations of the most intimate. Instead, the photographs are assembled in a seemingly loose, arbitrary way, creating a surfeit of meanings. "I can create several I different stories about them from the pictures I have. I don't think you know the family even if you look at all of them." And thus interpreting the child's fall with the bike is merely one possibility amongst many others. There is no narration in Lundin's pictorial series. What is decisive is the multiplicity of viewpoints.
In Station (1997), Mobil (1998) and Bless You (1999), Lundin uses a video camera to expand his visual archive of the everyday and banal. We see people on a platform waiting for a train. We see people that Lundin has invited to his studio to record the way they sneeze.
The concept behind Work in Progress, a work Lundin began in 1999, also clearly reveals the artist's interest in the enthusiastic production of optical traces. Here it is Lundin himself who is the object of observation, and he records a portrait photograph of himself every day with a digital camera. Once again, Lundin creates a situation for the viewer where specific looking habits lose their validity. The record he makes is not for identification or classification purposes. As Lundin remarked in an interview: "The camera has a central role in our society which interests me. Questions about this are present in all of my works: how we relate to the camera, the relationship between the observer and the observed, photography as an act of power."

Christine Karallus

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