In Raimondi’s Adam And Eve, an engraving from c. 1512, Adam offers Eve two small apples while a human-headed serpent looks on (Met). (The town in the background is from Raimondi, but the car in the middle is Boyd’s.)
In Leo Boyd’s reworking, all the heads have been turned into surveillance cameras – including the snake in the tree, the private parts have been covered by “Fig. 1” and “Fig. 2”, and the forbidden fruit is now a heart emoji, which in this instance has literally been cut out of the print. Our surveillance culture (inlcuding “social” media) perhaps makes emotional connection more difficult and more dangerous than ever – we are ashamed to appear naked.
The paste-up is on the hoarding in Donegall Quay, below a ring of surveillance cameras. Belfast is the 100th-most surveilled city in the world, per capita (CEOWorld).
For information about the production of the piece, and images that include the heart that has been torn out, see Leo Boyd Prints.
Previous posts featuring Boyd’s work.
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