Operation O'Gorman

Operation O'Gorman was an exercise in surveillance performance designed to allow us to engage a number of issues. It was primarily a study of how spatiality is tied to surveillance power. On the grounds of UW Campus, our professors are given great powers of observation - aside from the authority difference inherent in the staff/student relationship, professors continually provide surveillance data up the ladder, in the form of grades, examinations, small-talk, etc. However, outside the boundaries of campus the relationship changes. While still prone to a sort of disparity, our mastery of the larger Kitchener-Waterloo geographical space, combined with the widespread availability of surveillance technology, allowed us to track Dr. O'Gorman on his path home. 

Also, having been indoctrinated by such postmodern conditions as reality TV, surveillance power has become invested with desirability and pleasure. Yet we are instructed to subject ourselves to such observation, or perform it on others for no gain of our own. Considering our mandate of injecting adventure, scandal and play back into surveillance culture, Project O'Gorman provided another locus for such resistance. Moreover, personally performing such surveillance allowed us to better understand the difficulties of performing such person-specific surveillance. This helped us refine both our understanding of surveillance methodology and how it might be avoided.