Often without realizing it, our daily activities are recorded by hidden surveillance cameras, concealed in department stores, banks, museums, garages or simply on the street. Unnoticed, we are observed by all kinds of control equipment and our privacy is affected. Orwell's novel 1984, intended as a warning against every (anti-utopian) syvoice that, however it may be disguised, threatens freedom, has more or less come true: the all-seeing Big Brother spies on us all too regularly. In Observation #762, we look through the voyeuristic eye of a surveillance camera and see a man locking his car on an open parking place. At first nothing strange is going on (although it does briefly seem as if he is after the car radio) but soon enough it is obvious that this observation does not involve a 'normal' case. Time and again, driven by an inner need, the man checks whether he has locked the car properly or not. The viewer gets involved in the oppressive doubt and tragic uncertainty of a neurotic person, unable to escape his compulsive checks. The music (German opera) and the sound (bird song) amplify and underscore the alienating behaviour of the man.
– Marieke van Hal
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