Creative Capital

Hasan Elahi Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project

Discipline
Emerging Fields
Medium
Interdisciplinary
Subject

History

Politics
State
Maryland
Year
2006
Status
Completed

Description

Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is a self-surveillance project. A former subject of an intensive FBI investigation post 9/11, Hasan Elahi develops a network device, GPS tracker and website that make his exact location continuously available to anyone with access to the Internet. Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project builds on a series of installations, performances and websites that use Elahi’s self-surveillance to critique contemporary investigative techniques. A second innovation in this work is its embrace of surveillance for its subject’s own protection; Elahi has protected himself from unwanted scrutiny by making his entire life and whereabouts publicly accessible.

Hasan Elahi

Hasan Elahi is an interdisciplinary artist whose work examines issues of surveillance, simulated time, transport systems, borders and frontiers. Hi…
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Project Updates

2011: Elahi presents Tracking Transience at TED Global in Edinburgh, Scotland
2010: Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is featured in a group exhibition at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts in Idaho, along with lectures at local schools
2010: Elahi holds discussion about Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
2010: An iteration of Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is shown at DiverseWorks in Houston, TX
2010: Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project premieres at SITE SantaFe
2008: Hasan appears on The Colbert Report to discuss Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project
2008: Segments of Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project are on view at New Fronter on Main at the Sundance Film Festival
2007: A book featuring images from Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project is published