Police State interrogates the systems of control put in place by the UK government in the name of order and security. Catalysed by increasing police powers and ongoing bureaucratic violence, the work examines surveillance and technology to visualise the ways in which the state polices its people.
With whose consent?
Examining the practice of surveillance through the prism of protest reveals the rift between the rights of the people and the controlling interests of the status quo. This conflict surfaces in the public space, on the streets, exposing the point at which the state embodies violence. This focus is visceral; visible. Yet the exertion of surveillance technology and facial recognition is an invisible extension of underlying structures.
Open source imagery, including protest footage and streetview locations - alongside technologies akin to those implemented to suppress and surveil protest - is used to uncover the rift formed at these sites of violence; to capture and examine the face of the state, both man and machine.
The work, together with its title, is a provocation. It aims to agitate the viewer, calling into question the concealed deployment of powerful technologies, evolving mechanisms of control and suppressive actions of the state.
Work-in-progress from ‘Police State’ was featured in the British Journal of Photography’s June 2021 Humanity & Technology issue.
RAKE was one of the six recipients of The Photographer’s Gallery 2021 New Talent Award for its ongoing work on the project. Expanded captions and further information available to view at the online exhibition.
