Helen, Evans (2020) I / spy: performance, politicity and the surveillance turn. Doctoral thesis, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

Abstract

The setting is London - the world's most surveillance-ubiquitous city. Cells of participants engage in covert operations in public space. The participants are case studies. The site varies between London's streets, stations, and seeing sites, namely, Tate Modern, The National Gallery, and Trafalgar Square; each extensions of British constitutional public space; all inside State ideology. This thesis examines four such practice as/based field investigations into surveillance as interpellative State apparatus of a democracy-surveillance ideological social atmosphere, and how the associated behaviour of its citizens plays-out in and rendering a social serveillant mis en scene. The conceptual framework predominantly appropriates Althusser's interpellation theory to name the liminal space and process for analysis, differentiating interpellation (eternal subjectivity) from hailing (an interrupting event). Placing contrived scenarios in "natural" settings converged Arts based PaR and Auto/Ethnography; the procedures combined fianeurie - solo following and literary/photographic documentation of such - the psychgeographic collective method of derive, and covert participant-observation as lived experience. The investigations included two streamed ocular dynamics: following and awareness of being followed following. Drawing from on-the-spot notation, post-operation debriefs and reflective questionnaires, the thesis identifies, compares and theorises perceived ocular power dynamics and associated behaviour, and tensions arising between resisting performance and perforamcne resistacne. This thesis unpacks how keeping the sleuth latent within the necessary body appearing in public-consensus exposed needs to observe a Ranciereian 'proper' whilst increasingly exciting impulses and ultimately subversion. Chiming with Plato's theory of unsustainable governments, this potential emergence of tyrannous impulses - from a democratic subjects' excess sense of licence - informs this thesis that the politicily of social performance in immersive crowd settings (including theatre) lies in democracy-tyranny-surveillance triangulate tensions. From this, the thesis argues between Althuuerian subjectivity and Baudrillard's absurd spulary transcendent state from State. This thesis ultimately argues that and how surveillance culture hails our latent sleuth.