The evolution of visual culture throughout different artistic mediums reveals a lot about contemporary culture and progression. Surveillance, a topic that many artists may shy away from, reveals itself when it is translated into art and visual culture.

 

It is not only the NSA tapping into your phones. In visual culture, surveillance can encompass much more. Examples include the 2010 exhibition at the Tate Modern about surveillance and voyeurism. A more recent example is the Season 3 premiere of Black Mirror, in which a woman builds her life and identity around the way others watch her.

 

The collection of pieces of visual culture listed explore different modes of visual culture and how they are represented across numerous subjects. The subjects include political issues like race, and social issues like publicity.

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In fine art and popular culture alike, surveillance is continually exposed as something that does not come naturally to humans. Instead, it is feared by many  and also ferociously embraced. These two chosen works of visual culture show the divide between surveillance being disturbing and also beneficial to the human ego.