The Observatory

Arranging a number of industrially-embossed glass screens in a tight almost sculptural circle and making use of the properties of the glass to either reveal or refelect a wealth of contemporary and historical imagery, Robertshaw appears to have arrived at a consumate form of expression for the themes of surveillance and social control that have for so long been a feature of his work. The piece also shows how the incorporation of the so called 'new technologies' has clarified rather than complicated his ideas. Video images now function as a precise component element in a larger, more reverberent setting, while the interactive dimension that Robertshaw seems keen on exploring is used, in the main, to dramatise an equally pivotal shift-of-perspective, in this case the means by which an apparently transparent point-of-view (in optical and ideological terms) is revealed to be completely constructed, particularly striking when a person at the centre of the installation discovers they are also the subject of someone else's gaze.