Exposed. Voyeurism, surveillance and the camera

Have we become a society of voyeurs? The proliferation of cell-phone cameras, YouTube videos, and reality television series would certainly suggest that this is so. Pictures can now be made using infrared technology to penetrate darkness or satellites to create omniscient views. If our capacity to look seems increasingly boundless, however, it also threatens to make us a nation under surveillance. Amid endless political debates about terrorism, the security camera has become one of the icons of our age. Aided and abetted by the camera, voyeurism and surveillance provoke uneasy questions about who is looking at whom. Yet there have been surprisingly few attempts to examine the history of might be called invasive looking. Published to coincide with a major exhibition at Tate Modern, Exposed aims to fill this critical void. Recognizing that voyeurism has inspired photographers since the inception of the medium, this book reveals the myriad ways in which artists have probed its fascinations, dangers, and cultural significance.