Clandestine Art: Anonymity and Invisibility from Graffiti to Digital Arts

They are graffiti artists, street artists, hackivists or more or less famous artivists. In the street, on the web or in the media, their works are omnipresent. They, however, advance under cover: they create under a pseudonym, flee journalists and protect themselves behind all kinds of masks. In a society obsessed with visibility and the star system, their discretion is surprising: it seems contradictory with the very notion of public space. Why become invisible? What does this choice mean artistically and politically? What are the forms and tricks of invisibility? What obstacles (legal and technological in particular) does it come up against? Based on interviews and case studies, L'Art clandestin identifies the diversity of these faceless artists, and underlines the extent to which their position resonates with contemporary themes, from the mythology of the superhero to the rise of facial recognition...