Wien MMIX – Rundpanorama (Vienna MMIX – Circular Panorama) presented itself as a speculative portrait of society in the form of 17,352 single pictures taken by surveillance cameras at the Vienna Opera Ball.
Swiss artist Jules Spinatsch, who has become known for his large-scale surveillance shot panoramas, installed two computer-controlled network cameras at the Vienna Opera Ball in 2009. From the time the doors were opened at 8.32 p.m. to the end of the ball at 5.10 a.m., the cameras turned on their axes twice and saved 17,352 single frames according to a precise grid. Spinatsch assembled these pictures to a thirty-two-meter-long circular panorama that convinced the viewer through its unusual compression of time, space, and information. Opening a complex dialogue between planning and coincidence, the portrait of the society present at the ball provided the basis for a new discussion on the mechanisms and contexts of representation, voyeurism, and surveillance.