Taken
David Rokeby
Presented by Avatar, Taken ran at Complexe Méduse’s Studio d’Essai from February 2 to 14, 2005.
Taken was created right after Rokeby’s Seen ran at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2002. It is a consideration of the omnipresence of digital surveillance in our day-to-day lives. A double reading of real-time surveillance footage provides a singular perspective on the images of our movements that hide in public space.
In Taken, the gallery space is monitored by video camera. Activity in the gallery is constituted into two types of records, which are projected side-by-side on the gallery wall. On one side, all the actions of all the visitors are run and densely superimposed in a 20 second video loop. On the other, visitors are tracked individually and their head shots shown catalogued in a matrix of boxes.