Open Sky

Open Sky*. Revisiting public space is a photographic project composed of a series of digital photomontages linking together surveillance images from the Securitate** archive, taken by the secret police photographers in Bucharest between the 1950s – 1980s with screenshots of Google Maps/Street View of the current location of the places where those snapshots were taken. By putting together two formulas of observation/surveillance, I try to raise the question: how is our impression of the old surveillance images transformed when they are seen through the lens of today’s evolved technologies? The project was part of a larger event entitled “The Second Life in Communism”, which I initiated and coordinated in 2012. It was made possible thanks to the collaboration between CNSAS (The National Council for the Study of the Securitate), MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art) and UNARTE (National University of Arts Bucharest). The German media channel Deutsche Welle made a short documentary about this project which is online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMVgTQOivNQ *Signed March 24, 1992, by 34 states, the Open Skies Treaty permits each state-party to conduct short-notice, unarmed, reconnaissance flights over the others' entire territories to collect data on military forces and activities. The Open Skies Treaty entered into force on January 1, 2002. The United States withdrew from the treaty in November 2020, and Russia withdrew in December 2021. ** The Secret Police Agency of the Socialist Republic of Romania.