TESTING GROUND
Dual screen video and four-channel sound installation, 12 mins, 2023
Co-created by Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards
Testing Ground from artist/researchers Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards is a visual and sonic installation of contemporary and historic aerial surveillance over London and Belfast. It shows techniques that were developed by the British Army over Belfast during the 30 year conflict – the so-called Troubles – that have been adapted by the National Police Air Service and are now in use over London and other British cities.
The dual screen installation presents archival material gathered by the British Army during the 1990s in Northern Ireland, the visuals hang from the ceiling with a sonic installation at ground level. The installation reveals the way in which Northern Ireland acted as a testing space for the development of British Army surveillance systems, such as CCTV, thermal imagery, and night vision. These technologies were used at ground level, and from helicopters, to trace people and vehicles moving through the urban and rural spaces below. The archival material from Northern Ireland has been digitised and made accessible to the public for the first time by the artists.
Today, the UK National Police Air Service (NPAS) uses technologies that can be linked to military systems used over Northern Ireland. There are 14 NPAS bases across the UK. NPAS helicopters operate with advanced mapping software and a series of cameras that use live feed, thermal imagery, and night vision – much like the British Army helicopters of the 1990s. The installation presents material gathered from NPAS with new video footage and sonic recordings of helicopter surveillance gathered at ground level at recent moments of protest in London.
Colonial developments of aerial surveillance in the British empire sought to define normal versus abnormal, healthy versus unhealthy and empty space versus human target. They did so by creating aerial images at a distance from their subjects. When overlaid with thermal capabilities the point of view becomes an entirely zonal way of seeing the world below. You are invited to become both voyeur above the city, beyond the territory, and surveilled resident at ground level. Moving between these perspectives asks where we position our gaze: are we passive subjects being watched or active agents reproducing a colonial way of seeing?
Dual screen video and four-channel sound installation, 12 mins, 2023
Co-created by Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards
Testing Ground from artist/researchers Henrietta Williams and Merijn Royaards is a visual and sonic installation of contemporary and historic aerial surveillance over London and Belfast. It shows techniques that were developed by the British Army over Belfast during the 30 year conflict – the so-called Troubles – that have been adapted by the National Police Air Service and are now in use over London and other British cities.
The dual screen installation presents archival material gathered by the British Army during the 1990s in Northern Ireland, the visuals hang from the ceiling with a sonic installation at ground level. The installation reveals the way in which Northern Ireland acted as a testing space for the development of British Army surveillance systems, such as CCTV, thermal imagery, and night vision. These technologies were used at ground level, and from helicopters, to trace people and vehicles moving through the urban and rural spaces below. The archival material from Northern Ireland has been digitised and made accessible to the public for the first time by the artists.
Today, the UK National Police Air Service (NPAS) uses technologies that can be linked to military systems used over Northern Ireland. There are 14 NPAS bases across the UK. NPAS helicopters operate with advanced mapping software and a series of cameras that use live feed, thermal imagery, and night vision – much like the British Army helicopters of the 1990s. The installation presents material gathered from NPAS with new video footage and sonic recordings of helicopter surveillance gathered at ground level at recent moments of protest in London.
Colonial developments of aerial surveillance in the British empire sought to define normal versus abnormal, healthy versus unhealthy and empty space versus human target. They did so by creating aerial images at a distance from their subjects. When overlaid with thermal capabilities the point of view becomes an entirely zonal way of seeing the world below. You are invited to become both voyeur above the city, beyond the territory, and surveilled resident at ground level. Moving between these perspectives asks where we position our gaze: are we passive subjects being watched or active agents reproducing a colonial way of seeing?