Secret Stasi Photos
Fascinating set of photos over at www.simonmenner.com where the photographer has curated photos from the vast, formerlly secret archive of East Germany's Stasi secret police.
"In a time that is more and more defined by mechanisms of surveillance the "gaze of the Big Brother" seems ever more omnipresent. This brings me to the point to ask myself what it really is that the Big Brother sees. Can the terror such a repressive system spreads be found in these images? Or is the "gaze of evil" pretty banal and we have to attach the terror ourselves?
Mostly the results of surveillance remain hidden. An outstanding exemption is the work of the East German Stasi, which has been made widely accessible after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I believe that these archives can broaden our understanding of the function of surveillance and repression."
10th Aug 2011 - Tumblr