Taking inspiration from Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, American filmmaker and artist Jason Allen Lee subdues the explosive 1954 classic by drawing metaphorically on the act of surveillance. Lee exposes the ways we are perpetually and passively looking at strangers—on smartphones and computers—just as others are looking at us. The windows seen in the film mirror the windows we hold in our hands, which draw us into a world of infinitely recurring and mutual surveillance, even while we are in public.
The Memphis-based artist explains: "There's something very cinematic about windows, where the eye is drawn to them in a sea of dark building façades. An open window becomes an invitation to look inside—but who is watching? In the digital world, our private lives are being shared with others, and it's not always being shared voluntarily."