Securityland, 1995

Securityland and Wonderland are elaborate online projects Julia Scher has created with äda 'web, launched in 1995 and 1997, respectively; they were preceded by an introductory trailer titled Danger Dirty Data in 1995. Scher offers various areas for user exploration, many of which raise issues of control and personal privacy. All manner of psychologically and physically invasive services and products are seductively pitched at the visitor, promising to alleviate problems caused internally and externally. Loosely based on architectural and clinical models, Securityland and Wonderland completely destabilize the notion of neutral or straightforward interchange, using inflections that are libidinal, gendered, quasi-institutional and subtly threatening.

Her work in gallery and museum contexts presents interactive situations through the use of video equipment and surveillance technologies. Charged with psychological, personal, and political implications, these works spur the viewer to think about voyeuristic activities and control of information. The larger spectre of organized, systematized observation is raised, as are issues pertaining to power relations between those who observe and those who are observed.

Scher is represented by Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York city.