The Intangible Gaze of Surveillance and Material Marks of Oppression in Valentyn Odnoviun’s Photography

Abstract

The article analyses the series of photographs “Surveillance” (2016–2018) and “Architecture of Evidence” (2021) by the Ukrainian artist Valentyn Odnoviun who lives and works in Lithuania. The analysis is mainly based on the concepts of surveillance and control developed by French philosophers Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. With the reference to this theoretical background the article states that Odnoviun exposes the materiality of the gaze of surveillance in various historical periods. This in turn can be interpreted not only as the documentation of the hard evidence of the crimes against humanity, but also as a symbolic resistance against control and oppression.

Keywords

• photography
• lithuanian photography
• surveillance and control
• digital technologies
• odnoviun’s photography