Julia Scher explores performance, video, installation, and sculpture to interrogate the psychic landscapes of surveillance. Appropriating female icons and domestic technologies, Scher creates multimedia environments that explore the boundaries between exhibitionism, self-surveillance, and violent state surveillance.

Julia Scher was born in Hollywood, California, and lives and works in Cologne, Germany. Over the past four decades, Scher has devoted herself to extensive research and teaching in the field of surveillance studies, which was nascent at the time but is now well established. Scher's interest in privacy and security stems from her interest in gender politics, particularly the feminisation of surveillance. Her unique vocabulary—the uniforms of her security guards, ‘hidden’ cameras, whips and chains intertwined with exposed coaxial cables—refers to psychosexuality and the pleasure of being seen. Scher's works challenge the shifting boundaries between the private and public spheres in a society based on social control. Her interactive installations place viewers in the dual position of observers and observed. Scher's interest in the manipulative and voyeuristic qualities of the cybersphere largely preceded and anticipated the extent of the contemporary surveillance society.

Photo credit : Albrecht Fuchs