The Irish artist spent two years capturing the journeys of migrants into Europe using the camera, which can detect a human body from 30km and identify an individual from 6.3km. As the equipment is subject to the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, Mosse hired lawyers to obtain an export document for each trip. “The camera was designed to control borders and target the enemy,” says Mosse, 36, who lives in New York and County Clare, Ireland. “By using it to tell the refugee crisis, I’m putting viewers in a state of discomfort to disorient them.”
The resulting work, titled Incoming, will be exhibited at the Barbican from today. It’s remarkably intimate, even if using military equipment has its challenges: “It’s operated through a laptop, so when you’re switching tabs, you suddenly realise the Henri Cartier-Bresson ‘decisive moment’ was 10 minutes ago.”