”I’m all in favour of freedom of expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.”
Alan Bennett: Forty Years On (1969).
KISSS and tell – The Revolutionary New Performance Form. Can you see what they’re thinking? No? Well why not find out about KISSS – The Kinship International Strategy on Surveillance and Suppression project that is looking for your input into its exploration of the relationship between surveillance and suppression. Launched at Whitechapel Gallery in East London on 25th August, it is a series of performance events and interventions – an ‘Elastic Residence’ project led by artists Joanna Callaghan and Deej Fabyc.
Central office is in London but there are satellite cells, correspondents and operatives located throughout the globe. KISSS will encompass small and large scale projects, individuals, partnerships and groups. Organised public events include a press conference, a summit, a media campaign, a website and an international touring exhibition.
One of the project’s main aims is, “how do issues of surveillance and suppression affect the work we make as artists?”
It’s not hard to spot that the project has launched at a timely moment. Following the terrorist attacks in London on 7th July there has been worldwide discussion and debate on the issues of surveillance. Governments are under pressure to be seen to be taking action and are using the current climate of public panic and hysteria to rush through some very questionable legislation that will increase the use of surveillance equipment in public places.
Public debates on the issues of surveillance all too often ignore the real infringements of civil liberties and focus instead on issues of data protection raised by new technology; demonising the internet and all who sail in her.
KISSS has turned its attentions to some of the less obvious cultural and political manifestations of surveillance and suppression and asks, “how can we, living in different countries, engaging in multi-platform possibilities and utilising varied perspectives, respond to these issues in a cohesive and powerful way?”
To which the tempting reply is, ‘you could first learn how to spell surveillance and suppression correctly in your press release and on your website’. Or perhaps this is my latent desire to suppress creative freedoms.
Facile grammatical niggles aside, the agenda for KISSS appears to be an overtly political one and the use of the word ‘strategy’ in the group’s title is suggestive of political advocacy and campaigning. However, in spite of the apparently clear questions about the relationship between surveillance and suppression and how those issues affect the work of artists, it is not always clear who the ‘artists’ are, (a lot of the projects seem to hinge on the contributions of the general public) what they hope to achieve and where they stand on the issues. They ask the cryptic question, “are you seeing what we’re thinking?” But so far, it’s not clear what it is that they are thinking.
In an age when we have the likes of Michael Moore, using his film making artistry to present an undoubtedly biased but confronting opinion on the people and public perceptions behind controversial socio/political issues in the US, the KISSS approach is either supremely subtle or it lacks focus.
In seeking more clarity as to their purpose, it’s worth checking out their manifesto:
“KISSS believes that the need for artist’s practitioners to engage with the social, political climate is the only way forward for contemporary practice now. Action and activation is NOW. Engagement and collaboration will produce a REVOLUTIONARY new performance form, that engages the strategies of advertising, media campaigns and BBC type exposures and “Channel 5” trash, in a linked event that takes place over a period of months both in the form of a summit and a media circus and exhibition internationally.”
Some projects are referred to as ‘task forces’, for example the TV and Radio Taskforce is, “dedicated to documenting and analysing how television and radio media present information in terms of language, accuracy, images and graphics…cross-referencing news stories and comparing presentation strategies between major networks. Quotes from TV and radio sources will be documented to stimulate discussion concerning issues of language and meaning.”
In an opportunistic strike, this strand called for contributions to aid an analysis of UK terrestrial television from 7th – 29th July this year, that being the aftermath of the London bombings. And similarly, the Newspaper Taskforce has focused upon the same period and aims to get a global overview of how the bombings were reported around the world. Two examples of “findings” in the TV and Radio Taskforce recorded so far have included, in the Journalists category:
15 July 2005, Channel 4 News
Jon Snow interview with Inayat Bunglawala, Muslim Council of Britain
Jon Snow: “Many other people in the community find it hard to believe that foreign policy can be such a big thing for somebody living in Beeston”
And in the Language category:
14 July 2005 ITV News
George Alagiah: “Well today’s arrests are part of the biggest anti-terror operation ever undertaken in the UK”.
There are plenty more but it is not clear what, if anything, their existence and juxtaposition is supposed to prove.
Likewise, the Newspapers Taskforce “findings” currently consist of a collection of photographs of different domestic and foreign front pages from the period.
At least in the TV and Radio category, these are merely extracts from the findings that are available more fully on DVD, but it is frustrating to see no analysis on the website, which might prompt a visitor to the site to make a contribution to the forum or even seek out the DVD. It is equally hard to see in what ways these “findings” might affect the work of artists.
A less cryptic example is in the Body Fortress ‘strategy’ in which artist Deej Fabyc will…
“…present new research as part of her ongoing project titled ‘And She Watched’; ‘she’ being the artist’s dead mother. This project encompasses journeys through space and architecture, songs, pseudo-forensics, biographical details and dialogue with audiences.
In this new work Pertinent Details/Pisstake the artist journeys on foot and on the London Underground from her home to St Bartholomew’s Hospital in the City of London; a journey through the ‘ring of steel’ [the demarcated, guarded zone around the City of London] carrying two 1-gallon containers of piss. This is 48 hours of urine, to be tested for catecholamines, a substance which is secreted from a particular kind of tumour (paraganglioma) that killed the artist’s mother. A hereditary link has now been asserted with these tumours.
This walk addresses the heightened state of surveillance and suppression in the ancient city-state of London by recording the tension of a walk and train journey taken at this time. A link between the ambivalence of both medical surveillance and city state surveillance is alluded to in this work.”
Unfortunately again, the website remains silent as to whether this journey has yet taken place and if not, when it will. Therefore, we are not privy to the observations and interactions that Deej Fabyc may have experienced during this walk. It is possible to predict that she might encounter raised eyebrows, maybe a strong reaction, from the armed police if they ask what is in the containers. Also it is clear to see that she may experience conflicting emotions about the personal and invasive ‘surveillance’ undertaken by the medical profession for diagnosis and the equally invasive security ‘surveillance’ she will be subject to that may demand her to reveal very personal medical information; perhaps constituting a trespass upon her civil liberties and yet an increasingly justified and widely accepted practise in the name of national security.
Issues of surveillance and suppression are far-reaching and strike at the heart of all our personal freedoms and modes of living. Whether the KISSS project truly can initiate the ‘revolutionary new performance form’ that they claim and whether their methods elicit any thought-provoking new conclusions on the subject is not yet clear. The KISSS project as it is presented on their website certainly offers potential for interesting discussion on subjects that affect us all if we care to look, listen and question, but if it remains under-subscribed and lacking in participants it will slip off the radar.
To find out more about the project see:
