Chess For CCTV Operators

“Chess For CCTV Operators” is a performance for which surveilled urban spaces are the stage. For their urban hack !Mediengruppe BITNIK fitted a portable suitcase with a video transmitter, an antenna and a chess computer. Equipped with this suitcase they went, during the three day intervention in the city, in search of security camera signals to take over and camera operators to challenge to a game of chess. The take-over made the surveillance camera image on the operators screen suddenly disappear showing instead a chess board and the text “Will you play chess with me? – You are white, I am black”, and stating a telephone number for communication. Surveillance systems work one-directionally; they do not fulfil any communicative purpose.