Artist's Statement

Marcus DeSieno

Editions at 16”x20” and 32”x40”

“Privacy is a Myth We Tell Ourselves to Sleep” is an ongoing study of our American ideals of freedom and privacy in the 21st century. With the ubiquity of digital imaging, the omnipresence of the internet as a means of exchange, and rise of artificial intelligence, we face a new era where the camera is now an active participant in the role of seeing. Yet, Imagery and photography have been used to actively control our lives for decades.

This work investigates the various ways in which photography transforms, commodifies, and regulates our lives – with specific attention devoted to the notion of privacy. The imagery oscillates and weaves together the history of photography in relation to surveillance and privacy. Government enterprise and private industry collide while antiquated inventions are paired with imagery culled from the internet. Artifacts and objects of our clandestine history are combined with architectural landscapes that highlight the power of the American Government. All of these images are brought together to show the totality of vision in our surveillance state.

The average person is largely unaware of the ways in which image-based technology has continually invaded their private sphere; actively dismantling any reasonable expectation of privacy. If these systems remain unseen then how will this average citizen begin to understand how their lives are affected? There are irreparable consequences surveillance technology has on us as a society and “Privacy is a Myth We Tell Ourselves to Sleep acts” a visual encyclopedia to highlight these injustices for the viewer with the hope that one day privacy won’t just be a myth.