An interactive video installation dealing with CCTV and the way it influences our reality.

I am always here is a seemingly normal CCTV-system. It hangs fairly unnoticed on the wall of the room and most people will walk past without noticing.

But once it is noticed and a visitor looks up trying to see himself, he will only see the surrounding room and just a glimpse of his own image quickly fading out. It is as if he views the room as it would look without him being present.

The CCTV-system creates its own reality by filtering out those things that it finds ‘uninteresting’. In the case of I am always here it filters out the people who are aware of its existence.

CCTV’s preventive powers are claimed to be based upon awareness. A person looking straight into the camera is fully aware of being surveilled and won’t be seen as a possible suspect and is uninteresting from a surveillers point of view.

I am always here exaggerates this logical fallacy by developing a ‘blind spot’ for non-suspects and removing them from the actual surveilled footage.

The system was created using OpenCV and openFrameworks, which was later replaced with Cinder.