Surveillance in Suburbia

Abstract

Value By Cheryl Pagurek Patrick Mikhail Gallery Ottawa, Canada January 6-February 8, 2010 High Value Targets, a multimedia exhibition by Canadian artist Cheryl Pagurek, employed a diptych format to present contemporary military surveillance and war imagery from the Middle East juxtaposed with domestic scenes of a lush urban backyard to convey a disquieting sense of unease and underlying tension in the family life of middle-class North America. Pagurek's exhibition raised questions about personal and public security and vulnerability. As she noted in her artist's statement, work opens up a space to contemplate the myriad ways in which we, as individuals, might feel under siege in today's world. The artist's understated disclosure about the source of the military content (1) consisting of video footage and stills from the war in Iraq dating predominantly from 2007 and 2008 (2)--allows it to be read as a symbol of threat and surveillance of our time rather than a specific reference. The soundtrack of Pagurek's dual-channel video, Growing Pains (2009), combined everyday domestic sounds with the aggressive noise of armed conflict, and provided an intentionally disturbing-ambience in which to view her series of five large digital prints, High Value Targets (2009). (3) Pagurek's sinister title High Value Targets was derived from U.S. military combat terminology refering to attack objectives. Each of the photographs' subtitles--They have wounded, Clear to engage, Good Missile, We've got a runner, and Follow my lead--is an example, of military jargon or command taken from her video and reflect the type of armed activity seen in one half of the print and by inference the potential for this activity in the seemingly tranquil urban environment depicted in the adjacent half. For example, Value Target 4: Good Missile, a vertical diptych, presents a verdant suburban Garden of Eden seen from above, abutting a grainy green aerial night-vision image of pale buildings surrounded by palm trees and a smoky green tail from a missile that has just, hit its target. Both parts of the diptych arc overlaid with viewfinder lines that center on the garden and conjure a sense of danger while also raising the spectre of civilian space as the objective of military assault. Value Target 2: We've got a runner, a horizontal dual-image print whose title refers to chasing an escaping person, contrasts a close-up photograph of tender green and red shoots pushing through the soil amid a tangle of last year's dead foliage with a military observation image. The garden--also a scene of surveillance--is superimposed with a circular viewfinder and is seen beside a grainy brown night-time aerial surveillance image matted in vivid green, depicting a barely discernable, ghostly-white human figure running just beyond the crosshairs. Pagurek's work conjures the possibility that our safe and protected neighborhoods might also become a place of surveillance and danger; it also allows us to dimly grasp the living conditions of civilians who experience war from the air. Pagurek's major work, the Growing Pains video, introduces the artist's other roles as parent and gardener. …