Tom Burckhardt, Jason Phillips, William Norton and Performances by Dirty Churches

FEBRUARY 10, 2022 – MARCH 13, 2022

at SFA Projects

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU 

“In the far distance a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant like a bluebottle, and darted away again with a curving flight. It was the police patrol, snooping into people’s windows. The patrols did not matter, however. Only the Thought Police mattered.” 

George Orwell published “1984” in June 1949 as his horrified vision of the totalitarian state. Propaganda becomes the facile fabrication of news, organized by the state to manipulate the populace into passivity and fear. The never-ending war controls the narrative necessary for keeping the workers satisfied with their never-ending drudgery and starvation lifestyles. The Cult of Personality enforced by the Secret Police and their constant mass surveillance are no longer our most feared distant future, with facial recognition software operating through every cameraon every corner we are now constantly watched and monitored. In Britain, people are happily living in one of the most ‘watched’ societies on Earth, with an estimated five million security cameras watching people. In China, cameras armed with facial recognition are used by police to pick out criminals even in large crowds. Our own online shopping and research are constantly monitored to send us advertisements.