Abstract

This thesis considers how contemporary digital art can underscore the urgency to be critical of the digital condition, especially within the context of surveillance and algorithmic culture. By considering the art practice of American artist Natalie Bookchin (b. 1962), case studies for this analysis include her video installation Testament (2009/2017) and film Now he’s out in public and everyone can see (2009-2011, 2017). Amongst many others in her oeuvre, Bookchin collected and collaged found video confessionals and vlogs from social media sites and YouTube, where people (often alone in private spaces) face the camera to express their views about personal and/or social issues. Bookchin establishes connections between her subjects and draws them together in a type of choral orchestration. The thesis frames this art practice by drawing on contemporary art writing, media theory, and archival theory, while paying particular attention to recent scholarship about the politics of algorithms, and the field of surveillance studies. In doing so, this investigation complicates surveillance as a complex cultural phenomenon, rather than simply a top-down, omnipresent system of control; while search engine algorithms are analyzed because of the ways they influence how individual and collective digital histories are being organized, remembered and archived. Bookchin’s art practice is important as it plays a powerful role in underlining the hidden architecture of online platforms and emphasizes the importance of engaging critically with the structures that shape digital culture.