Over the past year, media artist Roos Groothuizen has been investigating the smart doorbell. Quietly, the device has been taking over the country. As of now, one in five households has a smart doorbell, a threefold increase since 2023. While the privacy risks are widely discussed, the smart doorbell also affects our sense of humanity. The research reveals a deeper mistrust in people, shows how our relationships are shifting, questions the responsibility of creators, and asks: is the surveillance camera turning from enemy to friend?
Groothuizen’s research is now coming to an end and will be made public through an online publication titled Someone is at your Front Door, which includes DIY doorbell tutorials and interactive essays you can scroll through, featuring videos and effects. Important contributions to the project were made by Laura op de Beke (Utrecht University), Dan Hassler-Forest (Utrecht University), Simoon Hermus (De Volkskrant), and Dave Borghuis (Hackerspace Tkkrlab).
For the official launch during the PublicSpaces Conference 2025, Roos Groothuizen be joined in conversation with Laura op de Beke. Together, they created a scrollytelling essay for the publication, with a touch of horror. Laura connects the controversial aspects of the smart doorbell to archetypal elements of the horror genre. She writes about how the Dutch love to peek, but are now increasingly struck by the feeling of being watched themselves. Additionally, horror vacui plays a role in our curiosity about what’s happening in front of the front door: the moment we film an otherwise uneventful space, we suddenly expect something to occur.