"AN EYE FOR AN “I” by Christelle Oyiri, showcased at ZOLLAMTMMK in Frankfurt am Main in 2024, embarks on a deeply provocative exploration of visibility, surveillance, and the concept of freedom in the digital age.
Oyiri's installation engages with the figure of the chouf—a term deriving from Arabic, meaning “see” or “look”—to interrogate the paradoxes of our contemporary existence, where the act of seeing and being seen is imbued with power, control, and, paradoxically, a form of invisibility.
Oyiri's work operates at the intersection of the digital and the physical, the public and the intimate. By invoking the choufs, individuals who observe without being observed, the artist crafts a metaphor for the modern surveillance apparatus. This comparison is not made lightly; it underscores the invisibility of power structures that shape our lives, from the algorithms that dictate the flow of online content to the surveillance cameras monitoring public spaces. These choufs, though rooted in a specific cultural and socio-economic context—that of lookouts for drug dealers—expand in Oyiri's hands to symbolize broader questions about privacy, agency, and autonomy in an era dominated by digital observation.
The exhibition poses unsettling questions: In an age where every action, emotion, and thought is potentially monitored, what does it mean to be free? Can we carve out spaces of autonomy and privacy, or are we forever destined to oscillate between being watchers and watched? Oyiri's installation suggests the chouf as a potential model for navigating these treacherous waters—a figure that embodies the ability to see without being seen, to know without being known. This countersurveillance strategy, while born from necessity in the shadowy margins of society, offers a radical blueprint for rethinking our relationship to the digital panopticon.
However, "AN EYE FOR AN “I”" goes beyond merely diagnosing our contemporary malaise. It invites viewers to imagine new modes of being and resistance. Through its immersive environment, the exhibition encourages a visceral understanding of the tension between visibility and invisibility, prompting a reflection on our own complicity and vulnerability within the surveillance state.
