Internationally renowned artist Hasan Elahi, an associate professor of art at the University of Maryland, will be on campus at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21 in the Liberal Arts Building, room 106, for a public lecture titled “Hiding in Plain Sight.”
Do you ever feel like you are being watched? This feeling was very real for Elahi, when in 2002, an erroneous tip accusing him of terrorist activities led to a six-month investigation by the FBI. Elahi reacted to this by creating a long-term project, “Tracking Transience,” which resulted in him being watched by millions more people on The Colbert Report, as well as CNN, CBS, Al Jazeera and Fox News.
Elahi’s work examines issues of surveillance, citizenship, migration, transport, and borders and frontiers, and has been presented in numerous exhibitions at venues such as SITE Santa Fe, Centre Georges Pompidou, Sundance Film Festival, Kassel Kulturbahnhof, The Hermitage, and at the Venice Biennale. Elahi recently was invited to speak about his work at the Tate Modern, Einstein Forum, the American Association of Artificial Intelligence, the International Association of Privacy Professionals, World Economic Forum and at TED Global.
This talk is sponsored by the art department’s Visiting Artist and Scholar Program. It is free and open to the public; following Elahi’s talk, there will be a 7:30 p.m. reception hosted at Surel’s Place (212 E. 33rd St., Garden City).
For more information, please contact Jodi Eichelberger, (917) 495-5840, jodi@surelsplace.org or Kate Walker, Katewalker1@boisestate.edu.
BY: CIENNA MADRID PUBLISHED 2:57 PM / SEPTEMBER 18, 2017