interventions: Surveil
~To keep (a person or place) under surveillance; closely monitor or observe.
Totalitarianism is a word that has been used quite often in regards to China in the past decades. After Mao Zedong, that word was nonsense. China was always a dictatorship, but it was, after Mao, no totalitarian state anymore. There was a civil society, there were interesting people, groups, organizing and all. And it was not a state that tried to get into the last corner of your brain. It was not a state anymore that would try to get under your bedding, as it was under Mao Zedong. Now we’re seeing a return of totalitarianism. The thing is, and I would suggest the scary thing is, it’s a much smarter form of totalitarianism, because the totalitarianism of old days, of Stalin and Mao, that was a totalitarianism that had to rely, on a large part, on everyday violence and terror. That’s just not the case anymore with these smart new technologies. One thing the Communist Party in China is trying to do is actually to internalize control. You yourself are going to be your own policeman. You don’t need a policeman at the corner anymore. And you’re carrying around your surveillance tools with you yourself. You’re carrying it around to the toilet, into the bed.
unsanctioned event, 2021, New York, NY,
materials: acrylic paint, foil appliques, acid-free ink, Fabriano paper (23 X15 inches)
