Artist in Person

Today we take for granted that we are observed. Surveillance cameras abound, monitoring property, locations, and activities. From the earliest days of photography, people have watched others without their knowledge. Turn-of-the-century handheld cameras that allowed for candid photography fed public anxiety about the new medium's potential to infiltrate private life. In the late thirties and forties, a movement arose that was part amateur snooping, part amateur ethnography: Mass Observation sought to survey the British public, inquiring into such diverse topics as anti-Semitism, shouts and gestures of motorists, and behavior in bathrooms. This list of subjects, and the participation of filmmaker Humphrey Jennings among many others, suggest the movement's ties to Surrealism. Rebecca Baron's fascinating documentary examines the history of Mass Observation and its evolving functions, from volunteer observation to civilian spying and finally market research, and links it to a larger cultural history of watching people unawares.