By: Yasmin Smith
The blurred lines between politics and art
Doing a creative course at UAL allows for one’s artwork and projects to be as creative as one wants it to be. This also allows for their projects to hold as much political meaning as they choose.
On several occasions, UAL has been subject to political protests, some even at the hands of their students, on issues regarding the university’s relationship with Israel and their alleged funding and support of the country in the Palestine-Israel conflict.
So it is not a secret that the students of UAL are highly opinionated in a political sense and unafraid to speak their minds or fight for something they believe in. Thus it would make sense for their projects to hold a strong aspect of political influence.
Art and politics have always been intertwined, but in today’s world, the lines between them have become almost indistinguishable. Art can be used as a tool of protest, a method of resistance, and a way to interrogate power structures. Meanwhile, politics- particularly in its performance and control- often borrows from the aesthetics and strategies of art. This intersection is significantly evident in Zitong Wang’s interactive installation, an incisive exploration of pseudo-public spaces and the hidden framework of control embedded within them.
At first glance, the piece is somewhat disorienting.
A television screen, partially draped in a high-visibility jacket, plays fragmented footage of urban landscapes; familiar yet inaccessible. The imagery of London’s riverside developments, blocked-off walkways, and surveillance-saturated environments hints at something deeply political: the privatization of public space, the illusion of access, and the silent yet prevalent grip of authority. A simple yet effective black tape structure on the wall creates an abstract framework, resonating with the rigid, unseen boundaries imposed on movement within these confined spaces.
However, Wang’s work doesn’t merely illustrate these issues; it immerses the viewer in them. The presence of CCTV cameras, a typical tool for control, turned into interactive artistic objects forces the audience to confront their own role within this system. When a viewer steps onto a specific marked area, the cameras react, moving to track their feet. This programmed movement transforms the passive act of observation into something unnervingly responsive, blurring the boundary between observer and observed.
Up until this point, one may have felt in control of themselves and their surroundings, being the ones actively doing the looking but, now a sense of confusion is set… did we really have control, or were we just under the illusion we did? Are we the watchers, the watched, or both?
This perfectly mimics everyday life situations in public where a person is under the pretense that they have done no wrong until they are standing or sitting somewhere they aren’t ‘meant to be’, or parking in a place that ‘isn’t allowed’ and are thrust back into the reality that in a society such as this- where democracy prevails and we have the freedom of movement and expression- it is perhaps actually far more monitored and limited than we thought.
This exhibition highlights a crucial paradox: pseudo-public spaces present themselves as democratic, open environments, yet they enforce strict, often arbitrary rules that blur the line between legality and criminality. As Wang notes in the accompanying text, navigating these spaces requires an act of “doing wrong to discern what is right.” This statement cuts to the heart of politics today, where disruption becomes a form of clarity, and trespass becomes a method of critique.
Wang’s piece doesn’t simply evoke questions, it implicates the viewer, obliging them to be complicit in the systems they might otherwise overlook.
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