In this sensational precursor to Big Brother, two volunteers were selected from a few hundred applicants and subsequently kidnapped for a period of 48 hours.
Selected finalists were chosen at random and put under surveillance. Following this initial phase of observation of the short-listed candidates, Blast Theory selected two winners at random. On a chosen date, the performers then abducted their victims. In the documentation, we can see how hooded and tied, unable to move, a young man and woman, unacquainted to each other, were separately snatched in broad daylight from a pub and a car respectively, and taken by a van to a safe house where they were put under constant surveillance for a period of 48 hours.
Meanwhile, online, the audience could monitor the kidnap. Through a live weblink, they could see the safe house in which the victims sat together in an isolated room with scarcely anything in it, except for a couple of mattresses on the floor.
Kidnap is a complex piece about trust and surveillance, but also about art and life, politics and trade, presence, media and liveness. (source: http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/348)