I've just seen the web version of a piece by the British new media artist Stanza called "YOU ARE MY SUBJECTS". The piece addresses a familiar topic in new media art - surveillance - especially as is operates through the ubiquitous British CCTV system. While in the gallery, YAMS is meant to be displayed on three large screens in London with the imagery originating in New York. On the web, the viewer is limited to a single image frame with multiple simultaneous audio tracks. The image itself is sensitive to the position of the viewer's cursor in relation to the frame, displaying a series of blurred and distorted still images that only come into focus when the cursor comes to a stop.

In creating a piece meant to critique surveillance through closed circuit television, Stanza has managed to integrate only a thin illusion of liveness and avoid almost completely the specificity of CCTV. Yet, I don't mention this as negative criticism, but to point out that the stated goal of the piece (revealing a state surveillance apparatus) is not necessarily the effect, intended or not.

First of all, it's key to note that a large portion of YAMS viewers will not be in the gallery, but on their computers viewing it in their web browser - like me. This contrasts with the idea that the piece addresses CCTV as a specific medium of surveillance. Stanza has opened the illusion of surveillance to any who choose to access it, essentially feeding not only a desire to see without being seen, but also the parallel desire to be seen that we see so often in new media. The images are vague enough to imply liveness and immediacy without actually breaching those boundaries. This allows the viewer to place him/herself on both sides of the screen. We are, in a sense, viewing ourselves as much as others.

YAMS does indeed tackle surveillance, though not in the subversive manner it seems to want to. Instead of revealing a grim reality of the modern state, it undermines its outlying purpose and allows an outlet for the fulfillment of scopic desires that we see in action in so many places on the web these days (do I even need to mention them here anymore?).