Mark Farid on Surveillance, Agency, and the Politics of Crossing the Street
British artist Mark Farid, in a residency at the British School at Rome, discusses his decade-long practice investigating how digital infrastructures shape subjectivity, relationships, and agency. His works—from "Seeing I" (2014-2020), where he wore a VR headset for seven days to experience another person's perspective, to "Poisonous Antidote" (2016), where he broadcast all his personal data publicly for a month—explore the paradoxes of surveillance, privacy, and control. Farid's current project, "At a Crossroads," examines pedestrian crossings as governance environments, filming in eight cities including Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Chengdu, and Accra. He argues that crossing behaviors reveal political settlements about authority and risk, citing the motor industry's invention of "jaywalking" in the early 20th century. Farid also critiques AI as an infrastructure that risks deepening existing inequalities unless ownership and distribution of benefits are addressed. The interview was conducted by Daniela Cotimbo on June 27 during his residency at the British School at Rome.
Key facts
- Mark Farid is a British artist whose practice spans performance, multimedia installation, and theoretical research.
- His work "Seeing I" involved wearing a VR headset for 24 hours a day for seven days, experiencing life through another person's eyes and ears.
- "Seeing I" was performed at arebyte Gallery (2014) and Ars Electronica (2019); a planned 2020 version with the National Theatre was canceled due to COVID.
- "Poisonous Antidote" (2016) involved broadcasting all of Farid's emails, texts, calls, searches, social media, photos, and location data publicly for one month.
- "Anonymity Is Our Only Right" and "That Is Why It Must Be Destroyed" (2015) involved Farid giving away all his login details and living without digital services for six months.
- Farid's current project "At a Crossroads" studies pedestrian crossings in eight cities as sites of governance.
- The interview took place on June 27 during Farid's residency at the British School at Rome.
- Farid references Bernard Stiegler's concept of pharmakon, Shoshana Zuboff's "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" (2019), and Peter Norton's research on jaywalking.
- Farid introduces the term 'consequential authorship' to describe the capacity to intervene within systems in ways that alter them.
- Farid critiques AI as potentially deepening inequalities unless ownership and distribution of benefits are addressed.
Entities
Artists
- Mark Farid
Institutions
- British School at Rome
- arebyte Gallery
- Ars Electronica
- National Theatre
- University of Cambridge
- NERO Editions
Locations
- Rome
- Italy
- London
- United Kingdom
- Berlin
- Germany
- Warsaw
- Poland
- Chengdu
- China
- Accra
- Ghana