FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY THESE FACILITIES ARE BEING MONITORED BY CCTV
Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst Aachen 2000

Media Installation: 2 c-prints (80 x 60 inch), museums video surveillance system, stickers
In this installation the museum's surveillance system is misappropriated, deploying the video system for its own use. Two large-scale photos are installed in the main hall in such a way as to completely cut off the field of vision of the two video surveillance cameras. Instead of showing the actual exhibition room, these cameras now show photographs of the museum's toilets to incoming visitors. The entry doors to these toilets have written notice that warn that the area is being subjected to video surveillance.

1. On entering the museum, the visitor is confronted with the surveillance monitors easily visible from the cashier's counter. These screens now not only show changing images of the museum's rooms, but also of the toilets. Furthermore a camera at the cashier's records the reactions of the visitors to the supposed lavatory surveillance and transmits them live to the enclosed rondelle within the main hall.

2. Entering the hall, the visitors see the photographic blowups that show the toilets of the museum and that are in the field of vision of the museum's video cameras.

3. If the visitors step into the rondelle within the main hall, they are able to observe incoming visitors on the screen. On the outside wall of the rondelle, photos from California and Prague are installed. Public intervention is being continued so that, parallel to the exhibition,
stickers have been installed at approx. 500 public toilets in Aachen: in museums, theaters, public institutions, restaurants, pubs, offices, etc. The photographic documentation is being presented in the museu and constantly brought up to date.

PLACE(S) OF EXHIBITION:
-Ludwig Forum Aachen 2001 www.ludwig-forum.de

CATALOGUE :
- Achim Mohné: Panopticon, published by Ludwig Forum Aachen 2001