Limitations Permitted
Manu Luksch, Neal White and FLIX
Peckham Square SE15, 21-28 June 2009

Peckham Space announces its fourth commission, Limitations Permitted, which will take place in Peckham Square for one week in June. In keeping with our programme so far, this work engages new media to produce a site-specific installation that invites further participation from the public.

Limitations Permitted has been developed by filmmaker Manu Luksch and artist Neal White. It will consist of two related parts: a ‘kiosk’ in Peckham Square, devised by Neal White and The Office of Experiments, and films by Manu Luksch in collaboration with FLIX.

The phenomenon of public surveillance in Britain is one that is often debated in our news media, but how do we personally regard it? How do we feel about being filmed and archived every day? What behaviour is permitted now in our public spaces? Should surveillance be limited or encouraged? Local by-laws influence behaviour in public spaces, but how apparent are these specific local controls to their communities? The apparently benign public zones of libraries, playgrounds and shopping malls are all under observation, generating information about the people who inhabit them via CCTV cameras, ATMs, and card readers, amongst others. Limitations Permitted ultimately asks us, are our liberties being compromised?

The highly visible ‘kiosk’ in Peckham Square will be manned for eight hours each day by a new type of security staff who will be available to talk to the public. Inviting us to consider our civil liberties or voice our response to the ubiquitous cameras, they will also distribute local information suggesting alternative ways to navigate the environment. Manu Luksch’s films, will question the current regulations imposed on our public spaces. Her new work will be seen through small view master devices that echo the discreet technology tracking our every move in the public realm. Made in Peckham Square, each features a person expressing a legal statement or local by-law in sign language: these ‘hidden’ rules are therefore emphatically and visibly re-inserted into their public environment.

Limitations Permitted is a temporary intervention that encourages people to think about civil liberties within the specific context of Peckham. This project will enhance the public debates about surveillance and civil liberties in a densely populated urban area that, like so many others, is now colonised by surveillance technology.

A free public talk, Civil Liberty & Art, will take place on 24 June from 6-7.30pm on the fifth floor of Peckham Library. Manu Luksch, Neal White and FLIX will be in conversation with Peter Bradwell of DEMOS. Booking 020 7514 2299 or info@peckhamspace.com

Film Production by You and I Skills