Stars of CCTV

[andygates]

The Open Rights Group have a community photocall for snaps of public surveillance, which was enough to get me wandering around town on my lunch-break snapping the ubiquitous cameras.

Paranoia-heads can rest easy in the reassurance most of the cameras I found were badly set up, pointing in funny directions or overgrown; from experience most will be looping crummy compressed video of such low quality that it could never identify a person beyond their rough statistics; and that the operator probably doesn't know how to work it anyway. The Death of Privacy, though it marches on apace, is mostly not threatened by CCTV until it gets networked, and then we can turn it on the custodes and sousveille the bastards right back.

So what's with the addiction to this modern Panopticon? Wandering around seeing more cameras in scummy and public places, I first thought it was a class thing: that somehow in an attempt to modify behaviour to get a polite society, the cameras had created a surveilled underclass: instead of the Federation, it's Morlocks and Eloi.

On reflection though, that's not quite it. The sheer uselessness of most of the cameras makes them less technical and more superstitious - they're theatre, props: gargoyles. Watching, making sure nobody does anything naughty, because the Big Guy might be watching (though he probably isn't).

It makes me think that some artist needs to fuse the medieval superstition and the modern one, and make gargoyle sculptures with CCTV heads, with lens eyes and infra-red lamp eyes and solar panels on their batwings, all watching and tracking movement from their epoxied clawholds in public space. Hell, they could even flock 'em, all wireless and internetty, around the halls of the watchers. They'd hate that: called out on the intimidatio and pointlessness of the gear, and maybe watched as well. Probably not, but maybe. ;)

Comments

[skean.livejournal.com]

"photographing non aesthetic items" is right up there on the list of suspicious activities indicating increased likliehood of being a terrorist.

Luckily, you snaps are aesthetic. In my opinion. Who judges it though?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Well, I did get a couple of funny looks, and these are the best of a bad lot. I was half expecting some hassle from random security bods, and did get some funny looks.

Luckily, I know my rights. ;)

[justoneway.livejournal.com]

And why are you not that artist Andy?
I cannot think of someone more approprite to do it than you. The idea is what counts in art like that and you have had it. And your l33t ebay and welding skillz are surely sufficient to do the deed itself.
You would get more credit for activity the Damian Hirst.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Well, I *was* looking out for oversize action figures to use as the armatures ;)

(The main reason is that I never, ever, finish a project, and I'd rather throw the idea up and see it happen than hold onto it until I forget it and go "ooh, shiny!" about something else.)

[(Anonymous)]

I'd love to see those gargoyles. With motion/noise sensors and automatic moving heads.

I know our local uni has some people studying movement so office security cameras will be able to pick out suspicious behaviours, putting that in a tracking, glowing gargoyle head would be nice.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I was sticking a cheapy gooseneck USB webcam in the eye-sockect of a sheep's skull I won on our last field shoot last night...

Let's see, how to do it cheaply. PIR will wake the thing up. Easy enough to bodge a PIR sensor that operates a lamp to instead work a worm gear. Tracking is harder. Ultrasound, use two sensors, and have them each work a servo to pull the thigh's neck left and right, kinda phototropism (for the cyborg art generation?

Since the intent is not to monitor - which is difficult, sensitive and requires manpower - but to intimidate into compliance, it should be effective.

[(Anonymous)]

drat it.
Yeah that was me (Carl) again.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Dude, get an alt.