Hasan Elahi’s Tracking Transience (2003–2020) was an artistic performance of hypervisibility. Initiated in response to being misidentified as a terrorist, preemptively arrested, and interrogated by the FBI, the artist created a comprehensive life log documenting his everyday life for all to see. Despite transformations to the surveillance environment, the performance raised a question that remains relevant today: How can ubiquitous surveillance be resisted when the technologies of capture and control are pervasive, but being visible is normalized? I argue that through his performance of countervisual aesthetics, Elahi claimed the right to existence and reassessed the need for the collective refusal of surveillance. I make two contributions to the theorization of aesthetic resistance. First, against the tendency to romanticize resistance, I reaffirm the impossibility of evasion. Surveillance is ubiquitous in the current datafied society, and being under surveillance generates vulnerability. Yet it is from this located, contingent position that we need to theorize resistance. Second, by theorizing how aesthetic performance mobilizes its public, I demonstrate that resistance to surveillance needs to move beyond the individualism of privacy. Through rereading Tracking Transience, I show how visibility enables collective resistance to the normalization of surveillance control and hierarchies.

中文翻译：

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监控下的个体脆弱与集体抵抗：在歧视嫌疑下主张生存权


哈桑·埃拉希（Hasan Elahi）的《追踪瞬息》（2003-2020）是一场高度可见性的艺术表演。为了应对被联邦调查局误认为恐怖分子、先发制人的逮捕和审问，这位艺术家创作了一份全面的生活日志，记录了他的日常生活，供所有人查看。尽管监视环境发生了转变，但表演提出了一个至今仍具有现实意义的问题：当捕获和控制技术无处不在，但可见性已成为常态时，如何抵制无处不在的监视？我认为，埃拉希通过反视觉美学的表现，主张了生存权，并重新评估了集体拒绝监视的必要性。我对审美抵抗的理论化做出了两项贡献。首先，针对将抵抗浪漫化的倾向，我重申逃避是不可能的。在当前的数据化社会中，监视无处不在，而受到监视会产生脆弱性。然而，正是从这个偶然的位置出发，我们需要对阻力进行理论化。其次，通过理论化审美表演如何动员公众，我证明对监视的抵制需要超越隐私的个人主义。通过重读《追踪瞬息》，我展示了可见性如何使集体抵制监视控制和等级制度的正常化。