We don't need any more reason to be terrified of today’s technology, but surveillance is pretty much everywhere these days – even our phones are watching us. It was this super-scary fact that inspired Jo Duck’s latest exhibition showing at this year’s PHOTO 2024, Razzle Dazzle, named after the dazzle camouflage painted onto WWII ships, featuring a cast of characters attempting to disguise and hide away from facial recognition technology. Jo was nice enough to chat with us about this new photo series, how it came to be, and the relationship between art and technology.

Hi Jo! When did you first fall in love with photography? I discovered photography in high school, and my friend at the time was doing black and white darkroom-printed photos and I remember being so enamoured by it. My dad was also interested in photography and started taking me to these dorky camera clubs, where there were a lot of old dudes showing sunsets and silhouetted birds and it was really sweet – they’d all encourage each other.

I then got myself a camera and took photos of friends at parties, and I studied photography for three years. Over the years, I’ve just made it work.

Who are your biggest creative inspirations? I’ve got so many, it depends. I kind of have waves of inspiration for stuff I’m into, but if I’m ever stuck then I go back to watching the big musicals of the ‘50s. I think it’s a good place to get inspiration because the colours and costumes are so lovely.

Your photo series, Razzle Dazzle, explores how technology and art can interact. How would you describe the relationship between the two? My current series is about people – from various degrees of success – trying to evade facial recognition technology by doing a DIY disguise. It’s a bit absurd but with a sense of humour. I’ve been diving pretty deep into this world of facial recognition technology, and AI is also an important issue with artists.

AI can help with things in the healthcare industry and make waves by helping fight climate change and with renewable energy, which I think is a good use of the technology. People are using AI for a variety of different things, but I think the fear of it comes from the idea of creating a singularity and creating robot overlords – which I’m not ready for.

What inspired this project? PHOTO 2024 were doing an open call and the theme was about the future, and one of the categories was about technology. I responded to it because this is when the discourse about AI photography was happening, and it got me thinking about other technologies. Facial recognition technology is everywhere; even the supermarket films our faces! We give away so much of our biometric data all the time.

There’s an artist called Adam Harvey who made something called CV Dazzle, where he used hair and makeup to hide from this technology, and I just loved that idea. I started thinking about how to include these visual tricks into photography, which led to Razzle Dazzle.

What do you hope people will get out of this series? I hope they like it! It’s a colourful series presented in Melbourne, drawing people in with the characters I’ve presented. I feel like privacy is a river that we’re all swimming in and it’s just getting smaller and smaller – it’s a bit scary! I want more people to be more aware of surveillance technology and how it’s everywhere.

PHOTO 2024 will be running from the 1st of March to the 24th of March. Grab all the info you'll need over here.