Today we find surveillance camera everywhere, from banks, homes, public areas to cars. In this age of surveillance, we have grown accustomed to being monitored and recorded, in fact these gadgets and technologies have become a basic element of modern life. Ever since the Snowden scandal, people have become more aware about mass surveillance, that their every move is being surveilled by the government and the public, yet our reliance on technology have caused us to willingly share our private lives, befriending random strangers on social media, using Google maps and mobile application, we are allowing ourselves to be tracked, blurring the line between private and public.
Dragonfly Eyes 蜻蜓之眼 ( Trailer )
Recently, Chinese artist, Xu Bing ( 徐冰 ) creatively approached the subject of surveillance by creating a full length feature film, Dragonfly Eyes ( 蜻蜓之眼 ) made entirely by stitching together actual surveillance footage from live streams and security cameras.
Dragonfly Eyes is a conceptually interesting film, without cameramen and actors, his film could not really be planned beforehand, instead the story was constructed "post-production" based on the narrative Xu's screenwriters concocted. Xu was able link unrelated surveillance clips from all over China by cutting and editing them, piecing them together after his team carefully observed and analyse 10000 hours of secuclips they have compiled and adding voiceovers to create a fictional story — a story about a young woman who escapes from a Buddhist monastery, milks cow at an industrial farm, is fired from a dry-cleaning job and finally, after some plastic surgery, becomes a famous YouTube-like star ( Hoeij, 2017 ).
Xu compared mass surveillance to Uber, stating that the Uber company does not actually own any cars but instead have regular people who do own cars to work for them, similarly, the government utilizes the people's surveillance camera to obtain necessary data of the people and now he too had cameras from all over China "working" for him. Due to many reasons, such as ownership of surveillance videos, privacy laws and other complications, collecting those surveillance footage was a challenging task, he even admitted that he resorted to abnormal means to obtain them. Even though Xu came across a public website which serves as a platform for people to share live feeds from their personal surveillance cameras and webcams, Xu and his team set out to look for those people featured in his film to prevent any complications. Despite Xu's eagerness to share his creation, and different perspective in viewing things, he would often reflect on his ethics.
"The world is a massive film studio, and it's constantly live streaming, therefore every single one us is an actor/ performer" — Xu Bing
It is a scary idea knowing that millions of "eyes" are watching the people's every move, however Xu mentioned in an interview that reality itself holds these appalling aspects, and after years of organizing these surveillance footage, his team has become more vary of the outside world knowing that the unexpected could happen anytime, anywhere, for example a man hit by a car would miraculously get back on his feet, the absurdity and unpredictability in reality could not be found it traditional films ( 阿Lo, 2016 ). Furthermore, Xu films seems to make us wonder about the question of privacy and anonymity, mass surveillance indicates that we as individual somehow lost our freedom and privacy yet at the same time in a sea of people being captured by these digital eyes, we somehow have a sense of anonymity. The surveillance footage while giving us an unsettling feeling of being watched and tracked especially the lopsided angles the security cameras film from, yet at the same time we cold never get a close up of the figures recorded, and a zoomed in view would often result in grainy and pixelated image, securing the identity of these people.
Xu used surveillance videos from actual security cameras, which are recordings of actual events that happened, yet the art of editing and narration influenced the original context of those videos, transforming objective truths into subjective stories. People in today's society often craft their own reality on social media, news reports could easily be manipulated with their choice of words and Xu too created a fictional story out of real surveillance footage by adding voiceovers, making us question reality, if it is always the absolute truth. Occasionally, English words or phrases would appear on screen, suggesting the human reality interpreted by technology in the form of data. The theme Xu chose to explore was not just about privacy but play on the idea of reality, forging alternate truth and interpreting reality from different perspectives as he believes that actual footage of events could help us better understand human history and progress, that our understanding of the past would perhaps be different if we have visual evidence.
Chief film critic, Fionnuala Halligan stated that this film is disturbing, filled with malaise and unease yet very poetic at the same time ( Halligan, 2017 ). Dragonfly eyes is a conceptual film that comments on the issue of surveillance, privacy and reality in the modern world through art, forcing the viewer into its train of thought, pushing a perpetually reflective mosaic mirror of self ( Halligan, 2017 ). Like the dragonfly, millions of "eyes" are watching us everyday yet we are oblivious to them as they are one with the modern reality, but where do we draw the line?
Reference
阿Lo. ( 2016 ) 徐冰新作《蜻蜓之眼》專訪： 監控視頻的超真實易容, Initium Medium, 23 Febuary. Available at: https://theinitium.com/article/20160218-culture-feature-xubin/ ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
多倫多吃喝玩樂 Toronto Diary. ( 2017 ) Tiff导演访问：蜻蜓之眼. Available at: https://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=DAbnh7HPpQU ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
Halligan, F. ( 2017 ) 'Dragonfly Eyes': Locarno Review, Screendaily, 10 August. Available at: https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/dragonfly-eyes-locarno-review/5120610.article ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
Hoeij, B, V. ( 2017 ) 'Dragonfly Eyes' ('Qing Ting zhi yan'): Film Review | Locarno 2017, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 August. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/dragonfly-eyes-qing-ting-zhi-yan-1029652 ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
The Ethics Incubator. ( 2017 ) Xu Bing On the New Project on Dragonfly Eyes. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K91-QbwIIw ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
Wall Street Journal. ( 2017 ) Chinese Artist Transforms Surveillance Footage Into Feature Film. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv-VGZ46528 ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
雅昌艺术网专稿. ( 2017 ) 【雅昌专稿】徐冰谈《蜻蜓之眼》：全国摄像头都为我工作 用10000小时监控录像编成爱情电影. Available at: https://news.artron.net/20170816/n951278.html ( Accessed: 18 March 2018 ).
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