Exhibition: Peeking beyond the Ending

Zebrastraat, Ghent, 01 to 31 March 2024

Featured artists: Joachim Coucke (BE), Jerry Galle (BE), Kyriaki Goni (GR), Sahej Rahal (IN), Sabrina Ratté (CA).

Curatorial advisor for Privacy Salon.



“If, however, one [...] redefines technology and science as primarily cultural carrier bag rather than weapon of domination, one pleasant side effect is that science fiction can be seen as a far less rigid, narrow field, not necessarily Promethean or apocalyptic at all, and in fact less a mythological genre than a realistic one.”

Ursula K. Le Guin in ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’



How will technology impact future generations? For some people, technology will have devastating consequences, while others regard it as the solution to all global issues. 

Rather than viewing technology as Promethean or apocalyptic, ‘Peeking beyond the Ending’ invites us to look at technology from Ursula K. Le Guin’s perspective that supports a more nuanced approach to technology. It addresses technology’s unmatched and dehumanizing effects, as well as its potential for development. 

The renowned American (science fiction) author encouraged the readers of her seminal writings to reflect on the ways that technology shapes our world and influences individuals, societies and nature. 

Ranging from AI chatbots engaging in intertemporal communication to e-waste or transferring data into plants, the exhibition invites the visitors to question their own stance and views on technology and therefore to peek beyond the ending.



Sabrina Ratté ‘Inflorescences’

Why Queering Surveillance Capitalism with Art Matters: A Microfilm by Lynn Hershmann Leeson

In the 21^st century, data has become the most valuable commodity on Earth. The new mining lords are nowadays the Big Tech companies. Armed with their artificial intelligent (AI) algorithms, they dig into gigantic pools of data to sort profiles that can be targeted by companies and governments. Shoshana Zuboff coined this new economic system that commodifies human experiences for profit as ‘surveillance capitalism’. She highlights its capacity to surveil, control, influence, and predict human behavior. Surveillance capitalism puts privacy, democracy and civil liberties under threat. In a time of political polarizations, artistic practices that subvert surveillance, referred to as surveillance art or ‘artveillance’ aims to raise awareness, critique, resist and counter surveillance and thereby transform society.

In the microfilm Shadow Stalker (2019 - see below), artist Lynn Hershman Leeson highlights the consequences of integrating AI algorithms into the social sphere. The video is part of a larger interactive installation that aims to highlight the biases in AI, but also to raise awareness of data protection and privacy. At the entrance of the exhibition space, visitors are invited to give their e-mail address. An algorithm especially conceived for Shadow Stalker collects data linked to the e-mail address and projects the retrieved personal data such as pictures, bank account numbers or
telephone numbers onto the exhibition walls. With this ‘digital shadow’, Hershman Leeson doxes the visitors to draw their attention to the vulnerability of their data and how their privacy can be compromised. Part of the installation is also a website where visitors can enter a zip code and see the percentage of predicted crimes in the area based on AI calculations. Shadow Stalker demonstrates how AI algorithms are used to surveil, control and predict human behavior, processes that often go unchecked.

Data collection is ubiquitous. From browsing the web to using apps, from facial recognition systems to the Internet of Things (IoT) and from financial transactions to healthcare records, telecommunications and drones, escaping the surveillance of data or ‘dataveillance’ is hardly an option anymore. Moreover, dataveillance disproportionately affects marginalized groups of people that are underrepresented in the data the algorithms are trained on. The algorithms hence perpetuate and reinforce discriminatory norms on identities and bodies. Facial recognition systems are, for instance, more biased with dark skin tones, especially those of females, transgender persons are misidentified and persons with disabilities are not recognized by the systems. These biases carry significant political and social implications since they are used in many areas such as law enforcement, banking, employment, health, education and more.

Artists such as Hershman Leeson play a crucial role in exposing, disrupting and countering these systems. Ephemerals wants to probe and speculate on the implications of contemporary AI systems through art and queer theory - both open-ended terms - that enable a greater hack into systems of surveillance and control.

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Data as the Contemporary Panopticon: A Look Through Shu Lea Cheang’s ‘3x3x6’

Shu Lea Cheang presented her site-specific installation 3x3x6 (2019) at the Taiwanese pavilion of the 2019 Venice Biennale. The work was curated by queer theorist Paul B. Preciado who also contributed to the writing and research of the work. The title 3x3x6 refers to the contemporary dimensions of a prison cell (3x3x6m3) that are monitored by six cameras.

The work, that expanded over various rooms of the 16thcentury prison Palazzo delle Prigioni, touches upon the criminalization of non-conforming sexualities and contemporary uses of surveillance techniques. 

The installation compromised ten videos. Each of them centered around a character that was convicted for sexual misconduct. It stretched from Casanova, who was imprisoned at the specific site, to Sade or Foucault. They are presented in subverted ‘counter-historical’ videos that deconstructed the visual and legal hegemonies and demonstrate how norms are created on sexuality and gender. 

Michel Foucault was imprisoned in Poland because of his homosexuality. A prolific writer, he did not only lay the basis of surveillance studies with Discipline and Punish (1975), but he also paved the way for queer theory with The History of Sexuality (1976).

In Discipline and Punish, Foucault claims that power and control are gained solely by observing someone. He illustrates this through the ‘panopticon’, an architectural prison concept designed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century that would allow a guard to watch over all inmates from one specific point. Unknowing when the prisoners are being surveilled, they would adapt their behavior at all times. 

For Foucault, modern-day Western civilizations are disciplinary societies with the concept of the panopticon being used throughout institutions such as prisons, schools, factories, hospitals and the military. Watching over individuals with the use of scientific knowledge turns the individuals into ‘docile bodies’ that are easier to control, discipline, normalize and punish.

Building on the Foucauldian notion of panopticism, Gilles Deleuze anticipated the expansion of surveillance through data in Postscript on the Societies of Control (1990). He noticed a shift from Foucault’s ‘disciplinary societies’ to what he named ‘societies of control’ that were made possible through data collection. 

Surveillance moved from concealed structures and became ubiquitous and invisible. Control is no longer exercised only through the body, but also through the transformation of data into statistics (a word deriving from the word ‘state’) that enables governing powers to control its citizens. Today’s facial recognition cameras link body features with personal digital data. 

In 3x3x6, Cheang installed facial recognition cameras at the entrance of her installation to capture the visitors’ faces. They are projected in a later room, the images are altered in an aesthetic way. Cheang underlines the ethical aspect of capturing someone’s face and identity and the opaque and subjective uses of them. She also hacks the technology by using the faces for aesthetic purposes instead of domination.

In the final room of the installation, the visitors are invited to upload a video through an app of themselves dancing, supporting a girl in Iran who convicted for posting a video online where she dances. The interactivity integrates the visitors in the work, which raises their concern and empathy with the topic even further. 

Probing surveillance capitalism through gender and sexuality, like Cheang does, is “fundamental at mounting a critique of surveillance” according to Kirstie Ball, scholar and co-founder of the journal ‘Surveillance and Society’. Surveillance has historically been used mainly on marginalized people such as political dissidents, slaves or sexual non-conforming people.

In History of Sexuality, Foucault parallels how scientific knowledge on sexuality — just like on criminality — enabled the modern control and domination of people through their sexuality. He notices that in the 20th century, people felt obliged to confess about their sexual life to their physicians or therapists. They thus internalized norms on sexuality and aimed to conform to them. Sexuality became a fundamental social construct for moral and identity that dates back to the Victorian era where heterosexuality was considered the norm (Foucault, 1976).To counter heteronormativity, queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz proposed his theory of ‘disidentification’. It suggests that queer artists can showcase the gap between how the world is represented by majority culture in comparison to their own queer realities. Closing this gap enables a more inclusive, ‘queer utopian’ vision of society. For Muñoz, queerness is an ideality, a utopia in the current system of privileged white heteronormativity. 

Shu Lea Cheang’s work can also be read through the writings of Paul B. Preciado. In Testo Junkie and The Countersexual Manifesto, he presents a counter-hegemonic vision of sexuality that challenges normative constructions of gender and desire. The Countersexual Manifesto proposes a radical reimagining of sexual politics based on the rejection of heteronormativity and the embrace of non-normative forms of embodiment and desire. Preciado calls for a politics of pleasure that celebrates the diversity of sexualities and resists the regulatory forces of bio-power.

With 3x3x6 Cheang challenges heteronormative norms and laws and reverses the gaze from ‘being viewed’ by technology to ‘exposing’ through it and ultimately celebrates each one’s uniqueness. By disrupting surveillance technologies, Cheang highlights the reality that “we live in a data panopticon today” while instilling a queer utopian perspective to it. With these various strategies, Cheang disrupts technology to raise awareness of contemporary surveillance techniques, she deconstructs heteronormative historical formations and invites to collectively resist and queer contemporary surveillance systems in a symbolic and poetic way.

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The Cyber (In)Visibility Paraodox As Seen in Hito Steyerl’s Fucking Didacting Educational. mov File

In How Not To Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File (2013), Hito Steyerl delves into the complexities of visibility and invisibility within contemporary surveilled societies. Through a satirical lens, she parodies self-help videos while offering uncanny strategies to remain unseen.

Steyerl highlights the inherent dangers associated with both being seen and not being seen. On one hand, the disappearance from public discourse poses a significant threat to marginalized groups and non-conforming identities, as it can lead to erasure and further marginalization. Conversely, constant surveillance and visibility subject individuals to vulnerability, echoing Foucault's notion of surveillance as a mechanism of power.

This paradox is exacerbated in a datafied world, where surveillance from higher authorities, sousveillance from peers, and counterveillance from the dominated towards the dominating powers coalesce into an "omniveillant" digital society. The ownership and control of personal data by Big Tech companies often clash with individual agency and privacy rights, further complicating the issue.





Steyerl's video prompts reflection on these complexities, challenging viewers to consider the implications of their own visibility and invisibility in an increasingly data-driven and surveilled world. Her strategies for avoiding visibility underscore the difficulty of maintaining privacy and autonomy amidst pervasive surveillance, particularly for those whose identities or perspectives diverge from the mainstream.

Sex workers are an example of this visibility-invisibilty paradox. While they can promote their services to a larger public, they also expose themselves to threats. To help sex workers with the issue the collective Cypher Sex published How to Cypher Sex: A Manual for Collective Digital Self-Defense Guides (2024). A manual that is specifically aimed to supporting sex workers in Belgium to hide their identities.

Talking to Donatella Portoghese from Constant that supported the publication, she explained that the collective carried a thorough research to understand the needs of sex workers in Belgium. They received demands for a similar publication from other regions as well, but the self-defense guide is specifically designed for the Belgian context and cannot be duplicated since it strongly depends on the local context like local privacy laws, communication platforms, service providers, etc.). It provides however a blueprint on how to camouflage from digital surveillance.



How to Cypher Sex: A Manual for Collective Digital Self-Defense Guides can be freely downloaded here.

Queering Genetic Data: Biohacking à la Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Mary Maggic

Artists that use biohacking, such as Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Mary Maggic, interrogate systems of power that regulate bodies, identities, and genetics. By critically engaging with tools and processes typically reserved for scientists, they expose the ways in which institutional control operates, from genetic surveillance to pharmaceutical monopolies.

Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in analyzing genetic data, using algorithms to classify, surveil, and commodify human biology in ways that raise ethical concerns about bias, privacy, and the reduction of identity to data points. Heather Dewey-Hagborg underlines this in Stranger Visions (2012–2013) where she collected DNA samples from discarded objects in public spaces — such as chewing gum, hair, and cigarette butts — and used this material to create speculative portraits of anonymous individuals. By visualizing these genetic traces, her work critiques the hidden ways in which bodies are surveilled and classified. AI is central to these processes, as algorithms are often employed to analyze genetic material and draw conclusions about identity, race, or even behavioral predispositions. Through this work, Dewey-Hagborg reveals the subjective nature of these interpretations, exposing the biases and assumptions encoded into both scientific methodologies and the AI systems that amplify them.


In Probably Chelsea (2017), she deepens this critique by using a single DNA sample from whistleblower Chelsea Manning to create multiple speculative portraits. Each portrait reflects a different set of assumptions embedded in the process of genetic analysis, which highlights the fluidity of identity and the impossibility of reducing a person to their DNA. Her work resonates with Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower that examines how institutions regulate populations by controlling bodies and life itself. By queering the processes of genetic surveillance, Dewey-Hagborg reveals the limitations of AI systems and genetic science, questioning the ethics of their use and imagining alternative frameworks that prioritize complexity over control.

While Dewey-Hagborg’s work focuses on the technological processes underpinning genetic surveillance, Mary Maggic shifts the critique to biopolitical systems, exploring how pharmaceutical and institutional control restrict bodily autonomy. In their project Open Source Estrogen (see manifesto in video below), Maggic asks the speculative question: “What if it were possible to make estrogen in the kitchen?”. Maggic critiques the monopolization of hormone production by the pharmaceutical industry and its role in enforcing normative gender binaries. By turning hormone synthesis into an accessible, do-it-yourself process, they transform biohacking into a participatory act of resistance.This approach is expanded in Housewives Making Drugs, a fictional cooking show where two trans-femme characters, Maria and Maria, guide viewers through a “urine-hormone extraction recipe”. The show playfully reimagines the domestic kitchen as a site of political resistance, where conversations about gender, body politics, and institutional access to hormones are staged. With witty banter and sharp critiques of heteronormativity, the performance challenges patriarchal control over bodies while inviting audiences to envision a world with greater bodily sovereignty for all.

Maggic’s practice resonates with Paul B. Preciado’s Testo Junkie, which explores the ways in which the body is shaped by pharmaceutical and technological systems under capitalism. Like Preciado, Maggic critiques the regulation of gender and sexuality by these systems, adding a speculative and communal approach. By queering the processes that control bodies and identities, Maggic offers alternative futures where autonomy and fluidity disrupt systems of control.

Together, Dewey-Hagborg and Maggic use biohacking to interrogate the systems that regulate bodies, identities, and biology. Dewey-Hagborg’s work directly critiques the intersection of AI and genetic data, exposing the biases and limitations of these technologies. Maggic, meanwhile, focuses on the biopolitical regulation of bodies through pharmaceuticals, expanding the critique to include institutional gatekeeping and bodily autonomy. Both artists challenge normative frameworks, where identity is no longer reduced to data or binaries but reimagined as fluid, complex, and resistant to control.

Algorithmic Violence in Palestine

AI surveillance technologies give rise to echo chambers, political polarization and extremist and authoritarian regimes throughout the world. These regimes can use AI-powered technologies such as facial recognition, databases or drones to target and attack more easily and more inhumanly groups of people.

Gaza has been the setting for such recent devastating uses of AI technologies, such as ‘Lavender’, a database used by the Israeli army to kill some 37,000 Hamas targets. Lavender has been reported to have an error rate of 10% with little regard to the error rate of this technology. 

An extensive facial recognition program based in part on Google Photos has also been deployed in the area, as well as Google’s Project Nimbus that has brought up public outcry for the unlawful collection of personal data of Palestinians.

The activist website stopkiller.ai offers insights into these opaque proceedings. Artists have also been vocal around the Palestinian cause. In PalCoreCore (2023),the Palestinian multidisciplinary artist and researcher Dana Dawud steps out of the imagery of Palestinians as martyrs to create “an ode to the resilience of the human spirit against the forces of obliteration”. Through it, Dawud wants to underscore a different way of resistance while not sapping the ongoing genocide.


Watch PalCoreCore by Dana Dawud

Algorithmic Violence in Palestine was the subject of an exhibition concept that I created in collaboration with Suzanne Cleerdin, Noah Heylen, and  Antoine Simeão Schalk.
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