Artists observing at the machines that monitor us

This article provides an overview of both theoretical and artistic previous works developed by different disciplines questioning the role of surveillance devices in the digital age. Its aim is to analyze how, since the 1970s, various artists have used the closed circuit device, and, more recently, webcams, with the purpose of creating visual narratives pointing out that the massive use of vision technologies has led to naturalizing surveillance and its camouflage in our daily lives. Methodologically, we have identified and assembled works that operate, on the one hand, aiming to dismantle coercive control tactics; on the other, works that criticize the apparent neutrality with which panoptic systems have become omnipresent in society. The essay suggests that these artistic practices confirm that, from intimate stories to military strategies, control technology and its automated representations have been shaping a political-visual regime that subordinates our behavior to an apparent state of normality.