Smile :) You’re on Camera.
by NELLY DANSEN: Head of Gaze Operations
Durational Performance
3 days,10 hours

“I always feel like somebody's watching me…
And I have no Privacy (oh-oh-oh)

In the age of constant surveillance, visibility isn’t always empowerment — it’s exposure. We perform ourselves, we watch and are being watched.
But watching is never neutral. A stare can pierce. A gaze can claim.
And too often, it does — without permission, without consequence.
Looking isn’t always wanted. And it’s almost never reprimanded.

In Smile :) You’re on Camera NELLY DANSEN presents her counter-surveillance fantasy. A soft revolt. A deadpan performance where her private control room becomes a weapon, the printer an accomplice, and every glance is being archived. Evoking and then subverting the logic of the panopticon, the invisible guard is at last unveiled as NELLY DANSEN blurs the boundaries between observer and observed.

The Bimbo-to-Big-Brother-pipeline is real…
Listen up: Big Boobies are Watching YOU!” - NELLY DANSEN: Head of Gaze Operations

Smile :), You’re on Camera (2025) was a performance and installation that unfolded over the course of 3 days, as NELLY DANSEN, self appointed ‘Head of Gaze Operations’- played out her counter surveillance fantasy in what had transformed into her live surveillance site.

After the incident that happened on the first day of her performance (see press link) , NELLY’s work evolved. What began as critique blurred into the system itself: a Baudrillardian collapse of simulation and reality. Smile :), You’re on Camera is now slipping into a longer-term artistic investigation—one the artist will be keeping a very close eye on.