Erika Ungari – Biennale di Durazzo

A fixed camera in Piazza Duomo, Milan, continuously streams everything that happens there day and night. An indefinite mass of people is filmed continuously and unknowingly by these digital eyes.
Hundreds of camera traps placed in the Stelvio National Park monitor the life of wildlife every time it passes by. While humans are unaware of being filmed, animals, on the other hand, seem to sense the presence of an external eye. By comparing animal behavior toward these camera traps with that of humans with their surveillance cameras, the video aims to question human surveillance systems and how our position toward them has become flattened, unlike animals, who always perceive the external gaze of a potential predator. How did we get to the point where we no longer sense the gaze of a predator? And to understand that man’s greatest enemy is himself?