Exterior view of the book.

Interior view revealing the video screen cover (left) and the coptic binding cover (right).

Display view revealing the video (left) and the open book (right). The page spread shows binary poetry on the left (which if converted will reveal different poems than presented in text) and text poetry on the right.

Display view revealing the video (left) and the open book (right). The page spread shows some of the surveillance photographs taken on the person walking through the city. The eye in the video watching the person reading the book is the same person being watched by the person who is being followed.

Ginger Burrell (Morgan Hill, CA)
gingerburrell.com

Countersurveillance
2015
Coptic bound book mounted in a trifold binding with inset video screen
Edition of 10
36 pages
9 x 18 x 2

Countersurveillance examines the surveillance state in which we now reside. Not only are we watched by businesses, the government, and our employers, but we are also being recorded and photographed by strangers, our family, our friends, often without knowing what will happen with those images. We have in effect lost any sense of privacy. The watchers are also those being watched.

Countersurveillance is meant as a thought exercise. While you are watching others, they are watching, and recording, you.

I am posting photos
I took of someone else
And looking at photos
That someone else took
Of me doing that thing, at that place, when I didn’t realize
They were taking photos.