Salcedo’s most recent work addresses how society is coming to terms with the rapid evolution of technology, in particular how technology has shaped our relationship to power and control. Human interaction has noticeably shifted to cyber platforms, which “catalog” nearly all informational aspects of our lives: email, social media, online banking and bill pay. Cloud technology is now crowd-sourcing these streams of data into an omnipresent, ethereal and easily accessible cyber storage space. Coupled with advancements in video, Google Earth, satellite, drone and GPS technology, vulnerability and surveillance have become common aspects of our lives, whether we realize it or not.

"Panopticon" explores human vulnerability in relation to surveillance and privacy. How much do we know about the ways our movements are tracked and analyzed? What are the consequences of our everyday internet use at home or with Smartphones? Invoking the idea of a power higher than us, both in physical and metaphysical aspects, and to explore the meaning of being watched, the exhibitions offers an aerial perspective of peoples’ heads. The images portray an anonymous “mug shot” that includes words that the US Department of Homeland Security uses to monitor social networking sites, inviting us to confront ourselves as subject and our choices within.

Elisa Salcedo is a Los Angeles based artist and art educator. Her work has been shown at Art Space Purl, in South Korea, and through out California, including The Latino Museum in Los Angeles, SomArts Cultural Center in San Francisco, Angels Gate Cultural Center, San Pedro, and a solo show at Moorpark College Gallery. Salcedo holds an MFA from Cal State University Long Beach and is a recipient of a Teaching Artist Fellowship from the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, CA, where she is a faculty member. She also teaches at Cal State University Northridge and the Children’s Institute.