Hayley Louise Goodsell’s work deals with aspects of privacy and intrusion, documenting the public and private activity that occurs within our culture’s edges and the communities and fictions that describe and guide them. Collecting material via Internet chatrooms, recorded telephone conversations and CCTV footage, she operates within the realm between documentary and fiction.
Legal and ethical concerns about privacy and intrusion have become increasingly pressing in recent years as webcams, phone cameras and surveillance devices become a staple presence in the public realm. With the rise of reality TV, Internet dating, social networking and online chatrooms, technologies that once seemed invasive and violating can now be seen as a source of comfort, protection, and entertainment, and as a society we appear to no longer regard voyeurism with the caution we used to. Allowing unprecedented access to and evidence of otherwise private and restricted moments, she explores the willingness of the subjects to place extraordinary trust in strangers, focusing on our understanding of what it means to watch and be watched ourselves.
Legal and ethical concerns about privacy and intrusion have become increasingly pressing in recent years as webcams, phone cameras and surveillance devices become a staple presence in the public realm. With the rise of reality TV, Internet dating, social networking and online chatrooms, technologies that once seemed invasive and violating can now be seen as a source of comfort, protection, and entertainment, and as a society we appear to no longer regard voyeurism with the caution we used to. Allowing unprecedented access to and evidence of otherwise private and restricted moments, she explores the willingness of the subjects to place extraordinary trust in strangers, focusing on our understanding of what it means to watch and be watched ourselves.
