Voyeuroboros

The Facebook page titled “Santa Cruz County Mugshots” publishes police booking photos of people arrested in Santa Cruz County, California, to “make a safe county for the great people of Santa Cruz”—well before a court judges the arrested innocent or guilty. In Voyeuroboros, the picture and name of every person who has given a “like” or other emoji reaction to posts on the “Santa Cruz County Mugshots” Facebook page have been printed on a single sheet of paper. Copies of this paper are stacked on a table for the audience to take with them, and a camera conspicuously mounted above the stack captures an image of every gallery visitor who takes a copy.

No one featured or participating in this project has explicitly consented to having images of themselves disseminated for the entertainment of others, yet they are unable to control their images. Voyeuroboros invites visitors to examine their own participation in the attention economy that sustains industries ranging from for-profit mugshot websites to ubiquitous social media platforms.

Reviewed by Benedetta Sabatini in Neural #63: Voyeuroboros, click on “like” and I’ll tell you who you are