Jonas Dahlberg
Safe Zones No. 7
2001
- Artist / Artist group
- Jonas Dahlberg
- Title
- Safe Zones No. 7
- Year
- 2001
- Category
- video, installation, Video installation
- Material / Technique
- Four miniature models, monitor (12", b/w), video switcher, four cameras with objective lens, four camera mounts, four mounting plates with acryl glass covers
- Dimensions / Duration
- Installation dimensions variable
- Collection
- ZKM | Center for Art and Media
- Description
The installation »Safe Zones No. 7« is installed in front of and inside a public toilet. A screen in front of the toilet’s entrance shows alternating views of toilet stalls and urinals, recorded from one of the corners of the room. The installation makes the viewers suspect that they will appear on screen themselves as soon as they use one of the toilets. The desired private sphere of the toilet is disrupted through the purported live-streaming of everything that occurs inside the stall: entering the sanitary facility triggers a feeling of being watched in the visitors.
Only if visitors overcome their inhibitions and use the toilet in spite of possibly being watched, does the actual installation become visible. What one sees on the monitor in front of the toilets are not the actual rooms of the toilets. The CCTV cameras are trained on small models that are miniature copies of the spaces inside the conveniences.
Here, users of the toilets are confronted with two opposing positions: first, the position of the subject, the observer, and second, the position of the object that could be surveilled. The installation »Safe Zones No. 7«, therefore, thematizes a contradiction, which increasingly impinges on the public’s everyday lives, but which is only appparent at a second glance.
