Discipline and Desire

Discipline and Desire examines how surveillance technologies, whenplaced within the frames of theater and performance, can be used tocritique and critically reimagine the politics of surveillance in everydaylife. In this way, the rapid proliferation of surveillance technologyincluding drones, CCTV cameras, GPS tracking systems, medicalsurveillance equipment, and a host of other commercially availabletechnologies can be repurposed through performance to becometechnologies of ethical witnessing, critique, and action.While the subject of surveillance continues to provoke fascination anddebate in mainstream media and academia, opportunities to criticallyreflect upon and, more importantly, to imagine alternative, creativeresponses to living in a rapidly expanding surveillance society have beenharder to find. Author Elise Morrison argues that such opportunitiesare being created through the growing genre of “surveillance art andperformance,” defined as works that centrally employ technologiesand techniques of surveillance to create theater, installation, andperformance art. Introducing readers to a broad range of surveillance artworks, including the work of artists and activists such as SurveillanceCamera Players, Jill Magid, Steve Mann, Hasan Elahi, Wafaa Bilal, BlastTheory, Electronic Disturbance Theater, George Brant, Janet Cardiff, MonaHatoum, and Zach Blas, Discipline and Desire provides a practical andanalytical framework that can aid the diverse pursuits of new media-artspractitioners, performance scholars, activists, and hobbyists interestedin critical and creative uses of surveillance technologies.

“. . . a timely, valuable contribution to the ongoing discourse not only intheatre and performance studies, but more broadly in media and culturalstudies and in considerations of digital technology in culture.” - Sarah Bay-Cheng, Bowdoin College

Elise Morrison is Director of Undergraduate Studies and Lecturer inTheater Studies at Yale University, USA.