Janina Anderson + Remina Greenfield

Remina Greenfield (digital artist, programmer, writer and feminist) and Janina Anderson (textile artist, designer, writer and feminist) met in 2012 as interns at the Smithsonian’s retrospective of Chinese artist, Ai Wei Wei. Inspired by Ai’s place as contemporary art’s most visible critic of government censorship and surveillance. The two began to collaborate based on their shared passion for art, feminism, and their favorite piece in the exhibition – a marble surveillance camera.

Since 2012, the artists have received grants from Maryland Art Place for interactive projects, and traveled across Europe and North America installing QR codes. Outside of their collaborative work both maintain independent art and writing practices.

reminagreenfield.com

janinavanderson.com

QR Code Project

The essential components of QR Code Project are the surveillance feeds, the project website, and the surveillance devices (smartphones) held in viewers’ hands. By emphasizing that the means of surveillance lies directly in participants’ palms, the project asks us to question the extent to which we are personally accountable for the surveillance of ourselves and others. In addition to our graffiti and sculptural installments of QR codes, we distribute QR code stickers to participants, granting them new agency as active collaborators. With QR codes installed in over ten countries and cameras located in several continents, the project relies on continuous internet access and open international communication – highlighting those with access and those without – and seeking to undermine this imbalance.

Informed by feminist notions surrounding the politics of the gaze, our project is a critical restructuring of the dominant surveillance narrative. While the power of surveillance is limited to a select few the discomfort it inspires is universal. Furthermore, the very nature of the project, causes participants to realize that they are both agents and targets in surveillance, experiencing simultaneous feelings of attraction and repulsion to strangers being watched without their permission. By portraying surveillance auditors and those under surveillance as relatable people, across cultures and socioeconomic conditions, QR Code Project reimagines surveillance as a means of unification rather than as an instrument of control. Our project emphasizes the underlying, undeniably human aspects of surveillance over the cold, mechanical eye of the camera.

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Janina Anderson + Remina Greenfield

QR Code Project

Related Events

STUBBORN OBJECTS: Counter-Surveillance in a Post-Human Landscape

< Back