Russian hacktivists are using CCTV networks to protest Putin

Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Kurt Caviezel doesn’t own a cam­era. At least, not in the tra­di­tion­al sense. He doesn’t see the need for one. ​“Why take pic­tures of what’s already been pho­tographed?” he asks. For the Zürich-based artist, pho­tog­ra­phy is the act of see­ing and select­ing. ​“I am a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, yes,” he affirms, before adding, ​“Well, an artist who works with pho­tog­ra­phy – that’s me.”

For over two decades, Caviezel has been doc­u­ment­ing the world not through a cam­era lens, but instead via the end­less net­work of CCTV net­works and web­cams scat­tered across the globe, a project he calls Watch­ing the World. Using pub­licly acces­si­ble sur­veil­lance sys­tems and cap­tur­ing them via sim­ple screen­shots, Caviezel has built an expan­sive, real-time archive of unfil­tered images from around the world. His work rede­fines the notion of tra­di­tion­al pho­tog­ra­phy, while chal­leng­ing ideas of authen­tic­i­ty in an age of omnipresent cameras.

It’s best seen in Caviezel’s most provoca­tive work, Putin’s Jail. Focus­ing on Rus­sia​’s net­work of cam­eras, the series blends the mun­dane with the rad­i­cal, while expos­ing cracks in the country’s sur­veil­lance state. Grainy images of stair­wells, snowy back­yards, and indus­tri­al sites are sud­den­ly inter­rupt­ed by mes­sages of resis­tance: Russ­ian anti-war, pro-Ukraine, and anti-Putin slo­gans. In a super­mar­ket, unsus­pect­ing cus­tomers check out beneath a stark mes­sage writ­ten in Russ­ian: ​“Putin is a crim­i­nal dic­ta­tor, 16,000 Russ­ian sol­diers died! Rus­sia Blocks Google News!” In a children’s can­teen, kids eat their lunch under the words: ​“No war. Sla­va Ukrai­ni.” These mes­sages aren’t Caviezel’s addi­tions, but the work of anony­mous hack­ers who manip­u­late feeds to turn state sur­veil­lance into a tool of dissent.

The work spot­lights a niche, micro­scop­ic-scaled form of resis­tance in Rus­sia, giv­en that very few peo­ple ever see CCTV screens. But in Rus­sia, polit­i­cal dis­sent is often treat­ed with sever­i­ty, and has ramped up since launch­ing its full scale inva­sion of Ukraine in 2022 and the intro­duc­tion of wartime cen­sor­ship laws. Mean­while, accord­ing to Memo­r­i­al, a group found­ed by human rights lawyer Grig­o­ry Vay­pan, there are over 680 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Rus­sia. And that’s per­haps where the pow­er lies, with the closed net­works pro­vid­ing a low risk, dif­fi­cult to trace can­vas for rebellion.

For Caviezel, photography’s essence lies in being at the right place at the right time, a prin­ci­ple he describes while ges­tic­u­lat­ing with a pen in hand as if sketch­ing the idea in the air. ​“With tra­di­tion­al pho­tog­ra­phy, you must phys­i­cal­ly be in the right place with your cam­era at the right time,” he says, his move­ments empha­sis­ing the thought. ​“With sur­veil­lance cam­eras, the same rule applies, but dif­fer­ent­ly. You need to find the right cam­era at the right moment. Maybe a bird or a cat pass­es by.” He paus­es, let­ting the thought set­tle, before con­tin­u­ing. ​“This ele­ment of chance, it’s fas­ci­nat­ing. It’s cap­tur­ing moments you couldn’t cre­ate or even imag­ine yourself.”

As resis­tance unfolds, it is Caviezel’s voyeuris­tic all-see­ing posi­tion in Putin’s Jail that makes the project such a mov­ing, real time call to wit­ness. ​“I don’t cre­ate the mes­sages,” he clar­i­fies. ​“I’m just the plat­form. With­out my archive, this activism might go unseen. But even so, I don’t see myself as a polit­i­cal artist. My work isn’t about push­ing a mes­sage. It’s about show­ing what’s already there.”

He con­tin­ues: ​“The ques­tion is, how many peo­ple are actu­al­ly watch­ing these sur­veil­lance cam­eras? Maybe me, a few oth­ers, and that’s it. The mes­sages aren’t reach­ing a broad audi­ence direct­ly. But once you col­lect and share these images, they can be brought to the pub­lic. It’s a way to inform peo­ple about what’s hap­pen­ing inside Russia.”

So what keeps him going after 25 years of relent­less, every­day obser­va­tion? Caviezel leans for­wards slight­ly, his words both delib­er­ate and ani­mat­ed. ​“The authen­tic­i­ty,” he says. ​“These images are cre­at­ed auto­mat­i­cal­ly. They force you to ask: who is the author? Me? The tech­ni­cian who set up the cam­era? These sys­tems record gen­uine, unin­flu­enced human behav­ior. That’s what draws me in. It’s a para­dox: being phys­i­cal­ly far away allows you to cap­ture some­thing more genuine.”

See more from Kurt Caviezel’s project Watch­ing the World at his offi­cial web­site.

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