Somebody's Watching Me

UMD Art Professor Hasan Elahi turns surveillance into art.

By Michael Farley, City Paper

Artists who capture the public’s imagination, like all popular superheroes, usually have a good origin story. Hasan Elahi’s is a juicy one, wrapped in current affairs, loaded with identity politics, and sprinkled with international intrigue. In the year following the 9/11 attacks, when anthrax and paranoia were in the air, Elahi, who was born in Bangladesh, endured several FBI interrogations due to a case of mistaken identity and racial profiling. The artist was detained by the INS while returning from a trip to Europe and made to account for his whereabouts in the months leading up to and following the terrorist attacks. Consequent to the incident and months of repeatedly being called in for questioning, Elahi began documenting his location at all times: first with emails of travel plans and photos to the FBI, and soon thereafter with DIY tracking software on his phone. Eventually, the constant need for an alibi evolved into the self-surveillance website Tracking Transience.

Those who find Elahi’s life story interesting will be delighted by his solo exhibition Thousand Little Brothersat Maryland Art Place. . . because Hasan Elahi’s work is all about Hasan Elahi. His MAP show—the latest addition to a curriculum vitae that includes exhibits at the Centre Pompidou and the Hermitage—features prints, video, and installations documenting where he travels, the food he eats, and even the toilets where the food ends up. It is a rare case of a straight male artist for whom the personal is political.