The main motif of the poem Inhale! by Attila József is surveillance: among other things, in his poem the poet steadfastly protested against the practice of the Gyula Gömbös-led National Unity Party of keeping records on voters. But surveillance is not only a problem of autocratic regimes, what is called surveillance capitalism has become a serious political and economic issue in the 21st century.
Tamás Páll’s Self Spam Simulation (S.S.S.) of 2016 is an immersive multimedia room installation that invites viewers into the prolific world of online surveillance. The installation aims to form a picture the social effects of 21st century technology-based surveillance and data markets and their philosophical interpretations from diversified and arbitrary perspectives in the mid-2010s. The project Reaction (2021) presented by OFF-Biennale takes this idea even further as a multimedia reaction to the installation Self Spam Simulation (S.S.S.). The video presents a fictional vlogger who examines the multimedia installation of 2016 on online surveillance by researching the mechanisms of the reaction videos in social media. The project Reaction applies a multi-perspective set of criteria when examining Self Spam Simulation: it researches the connections between surveillance and individualism from a technological-philosophical perspective. As Páll writes “Reaction contextualizes and criticizes the topic of the reaction by presenting examples of surveillance and artistic activism, sketching the interconnectedness of human and non-human beings and showing the stories and fake news campaigns on surveillance of the last decade. Meanwhile, the vlogger re-situates himself along the morphology of the narrative. The fictional vlogger of Reaction puts on the form of various (human or anthropomorphized) characters to taste the promise of individual multiplication and tests the mechanisms of the thought experiment of S.S.S. on himself. He applies commercial artificial intelligence-based software programs to expand the individual and creates a fictional interpersonal narrative in which the vlogger has a conversation with himself on the theoretical and techno-political issues of S.S.S.”