Eastern Bloc presents the second segment of our 2015-2016 three-part cycle of exhibitions and activities, BPLTC, on the general theme of biopolitics. This cycle is divided into three segments: Cellular Control, Identity Control, and Food Control. The development of computer and digital technologies enables important command of human activities, responding to major financial, corporate and political interests, sometimes for better. Advances in research and its technical applications raise complex issues that are central to communities, and are located at the heart of current political challenges. Many new media and digital contemporary artists are now incorporating theses questions into their work.

The second part of the BPLTC cycle 2015-2016 will focus more specifically on the issue of identity control as it relates to individual biometric data. One could describe the phenomenon of biometric identification as the set of scientific methods seeking to certify the identity of a person from reading fixed body data. This principle, derived from 19th-century anthropometric science, is far from new, but has grown dramatically in recent years with the rapid development of computer science, the enactment of state security control policies and the financial interests of large corporations. The works presented in this exhibition are concerned with the use of biometric data in relation to the ethical questionsthey raise about the control of citizens and privacy protection.

Jamie Allen (Canada)
Mushon Zer-Aviv (Tel Aviv, Israel)
Zach Blas (United States)