Art in the Age of Surveillance with Backdoored.io at The Cass, 5-20 August

Backdoor, noun. [Hacker slang] A feature or defect of a computer system or device that allows surreptitious unauthorised access to data.

Backdoored.io, an exhibition by Nye Thompson, curated by Kosha Hussain and showing at The Cass, London Metropolitan University is a collection of images captured from unprotected domestic surveillance cameras around the world, on public display for the first time. Using algorithms to robotically harvest these images from search engines, Thompson exposes our vulnerability in cyberspace, disclosing just how unwittingly we open ‘backdoors’ into some of our most private spaces. A postgraduate Fine Art alumna of The Cass, for this show Thompson has chosen to focus her disquieting research on a small residential community in Hong Kong, in which many of the inhabitants have mass-installed surveillance cameras into their homes. As part of the exhibition, an uncensored live feed of images will be brought from the Internet into the gallery in real-time, putting viewers face to face with their inner voyeur, and exposing the darker side of the interconnected world we live in. Nye Thompson says, “These images demonstrate the hidden risks underlying our passion for ‘convenience technologies’. The people whose lives and homes are captured here have no idea that by installing ‘home security’ webcams they have opened their private lives to a watching world. By collecting and exhibiting the images, I hope to highlight the chilling implications of a future where we are willingly exposing ourselves, becoming more and more dependent on Internet-connected devices of this kind.” Thompson documents the ‘big data era’, where robots, artificial intelligence, governments and larger-than-government corporations all feed on the personal data trails we generate. Backdoored.io acts as a stark warning towards our continued indulgence for virtual realms, investigating our relationship with technology and the hidden agendas of digital culture; and challenging our notions of privacy and authorship in an age of technological automation.