Performing through Surveillance
Urban Architecture | Sem 08
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The site selected ia a Lift Lobby of the building Shree Siddhivinayak Towers located in Chikuwadi, Borivali (W), Mumbai, Mharashtra.
Passing through the same lift lobby multiple times in a day, it produces a rhythm of being constantly surveilled that makes people aware and makes them conscious to behave in a specific way. As one enters the closed space through the glass doors, the first thing that catches attention is a female security guard constantly supervising everyone. There is an atmosphere of control that separates the social richness of the space.
The space produces a rhythm of a cyclic loop that constitutes an interrelation of space, time, people, and the camera that produces the rhythms of everyday life. People move, behave, and interact according to the expectations set by this surveillance apparatus.
ENGAGEMENT WITH THE SITE:
The constant gaze from the security guard, the CCTV cameras, and the people makes one behave in a certain way in the lift lobby area. In response to this, the site is looked at as a canvas of screens of multiple scales making the space playful which displays everyday bodily movements, people and their expressions. The constantly changing, zoomed in, distorted, skewed, perspective views on different screens make the most mundane actions create a performance in itself, making the people in transit, the main actors. It becomes a stage where the human experience is amplified, where surveillance actually becomes a form of art.
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