“The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”

George Orwell, 1984

I still remember how it astonished me that no one had ever paid attention to the hundreds of cameras plaguing the city. They were everywhere -in every corner, they watched silently. I got obsessed with it. Who watched? And what for? Where that footage was stored and for how long? No one knew, apparently.

I was outraged. I started talking about it with everyone. And all of them looked back at me as if they did not understand. “The cameras keep us safe. This city is safe because of the cameras.” If there was anyone else, there was then general nodding. Everyone accepted this as a fact, and then changed topic.

I could not resignate to the glasses spying us and doing so unnoticed. And although I could not change the fact that they would still be there, the least I could do was to notice them. Noticing every camera in Poznan was my personal crusade. I started capturing some of them on pictures, but it would be practically impossible for a single person to photograph them all -they really were in every street of the city. So I had to settle with noticing them.

I eventually found out some of the footage was actually available on the Internet, and anyone could browse it and watch it from their computer. I could easily imagine some weirdos watching the streets of Poznan from a dark room somewhere in the world. Putting all my intentions into that hypothetical voyeur, I started to perform different actions in front of the cameras. With the hope that someone would notice and interpretted my actions as my voice yelling “I do not want to be watched”.