IRIS Home Browse IRIS Publication Detail Glut: Images, Information and Excess

Our relationship to the image and the way in which information is captured has changed substantially in recent years. The number of images we encounter on a daily basis has continued to rise ever more steeply, there are now over one and a half billion images uploaded every day. We also appear frequently on surveillance images, with the UK reported to have in excess of 6 million CCTV cameras. In the midst of this unprecedented growth, Glut focuses on the work of a range of artists who are all making creative use of this new situation. The work takes in themes of (in)visibility, surveillance, data gathering and appropriation. Some of the works start with the idea of piecing together material taken from diverse sources in order to produce something new. Other works are more concerned with the world of watching and the exertion of control. All of the work looks at the different ways in which we exist in the midst of a world teeming with images.