CCTV Buddha (2020)

crt tv, surveillance cameras, video-installation

CCTV Buddha is a reenactment of the famous “TV Buddha” (Nam June Paik, 1974). By replacing the Buddha statue with a second surveillance camera, the video sculpture establishes a dialogue with the original artwork: where the former dealt with themes such as east/west cultural frameworks and meditation, here the camera spots at its own eyes, in an exercise of self-reflection, but also enprisioned in a narcisistic gaze. The still in the middle is the subject’s point of view, in other words, a capture from the second surveillance camera. In it, we are able to embody the work - the observer therefore acts as a surveiller, at the same time as it becomes surveilled.