I find this project fascinating and poignant for several reasons. First, is presents another way of using surveillance technologies as a form of new media art. In a similar manner to Manu Luksch, Elahi sees the opportunity present in increasing surveillance for art, expression and cultural criticism. Second, it presents a very interesting twist on the traditional fear and paranoia of Orwellian surveillance. Instead of feeling trapped by mandatory and pervasive surveillance, Elahi proposes voluntarily cataloguing his own movement in meticulous fashion to serve as an alibi.

Elahi’s project also presents interesting possibilities spatial mapping to discover habits of movement through the urban environment. If patterns of use or desired use could be determined it may present opportunities to plan buildings and urban space to better suite people, rather than people conforming to the patterns of the built environment.

Further, Elahi’s project opens up the possibility of creating a minutely detailed account of one’s life, a streaming autobiography available in real time as it happens. This autobiography could capture not only events but also sights, locations, purchases, movements, etc. all finely captured for those who may care to see. I’m not sure if there is a practical (and non-panoptic) purpose for it, but it may become an interesting experiment or serve to fill the increasingly media obsessed and narcissistic desires of our society.

Related articles:

• [MISP] HASAN ELAHI-artist talk on 2/2 (nm-mediatalk.blogspot.com)
• Hasan Elahi: Tracking Transience (coolhunting.com)

Image via Wikipedia

To me, this situation is quite reminiscent of the fall of 2008 when Denver hosted the Democratic National Convention. Part of the $50 million provided to the city for security purposes were used to install advanced surveillance cameras to be used during the convention. In addition, many private business owners installed their own cameras in preparation for possible civil unrest. Although intended for the duration of the convention, the cameras have remained in use since that time. With such a dramatic increase in the number of surveillance cameras in such a short time, and so many from private businesses, no one is sure just how many surveillance cameras are in the downtown areas.

As expected, there are both critics and supporters of the change. Police maintain that First and Fourth Amendment rights will not be violated, and that the cameras are “not an Orwellian type of thing…It’s a crime thing.”

Critics question the effectiveness of cameras and cite the London study showing how ineffectual cameras have been at reducing crime.

It seems, however, that the trend if increasing urban surveillance will not slow. At this point the public seems happy enough to hold onto the belief that the cameras are making them more secure. As this trend continues, I always find it interesting to sidestep the public/private/security debate and explore new media opportunities á la Manu Luksch, as well as the culture behind the growing trend.

Related articles:

• Public not worried about increased public surveillance: report (nationalpost.com)
• Big brother increasingly watching over Canada’s streets: report (canada.com)
• Do You Have Any Legal Right To Privacy For Information Stored Online? (techdirt.com)

Smith goes on to reference a post by Clive Thompson that questions the power of self-fulfilling prophecies in pop culture. Sociologist Robert Merton wrote an essay in 1949 on “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.” The thesis was that “it was indeed possible to convince people of a false proposition merely by telling them that lots of other folks believe it to be true.” Merton’s own definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy was:

“a false definition of the situation evoking new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.”

I think it is very interesting to consider how self-fulfilling prophecy can influence culture, including cultural views on surveillance. Given the power of storytelling in cultural transmission and well as several anthropology studies on social influence and conforming to social norms, it seem entirely possible that these mechanism could promote the popularity of surveillance, despite solid evidence against their effectiveness.

A previous post, Storytelling and the Kingdom of Fear, was about the power of stories and media to influence people’s perception of the risk of crime or murder. Since the boom in media coverage of crime, the public’s fear of crime has consistently been higher than the actual risk. The post also referenced a New York Times article about the fable vs. reality of crime in New Orleans following Hurrican Katrina. In one part, the paper interviewed dozens people including police officers, medical workers and city officials to piece together an idea of the crime. What they found was that:

“Though many provided concrete, firsthand accounts, other passed along secondhand information or rumor that after multiple tellings had ossified into what became accepted as fact.”

What is more interesting is that the rumors-turned-fact influenced the emergency response; evoked a new behavior taking for truth what had been false. Back to the surveillance debate, enough rumors and secondhand information floating around describing their success, and people will begin to believe it.

An anthropological study is relevant to this discussion. The forgotten variable in conformity research: Impact of task importance on social influence, was performed by researchers to determine how task difficulty and importance could influence decisions. They found that subjects would conform more to common answers when difficulty and importance was high. This held true when confederates were used in the study to agree on inaccurate answers. When they agreed on the inaccurate answers, the other subjects were more likely to conform as well.

Surveillance and safety are very important and difficult issues. Given the evidence from these sources, it seems likely that the behavior and stories of others could influence what the popular consensus is. Despite evidence, false stories about the effectiveness of surveillance cameras can change the behavior of officials and the public.

Related articles:

• How Groupthink Rules What We Like (wired.com)

Related articles:

• Chairs placed on streets of NYC, then tracked with GPS (boingboing.net)

Greenwald points out that there is simply so much data to fish through and so much gathered through broad and indiscriminate collecting that there is too much information to handle. Even with suspicious connections, communications and other warning gathered, no one was able to clearly see the whole picture. In an age of unprecedented surveillance perhaps we are learning to rely too readily on overwhelming technological efforts than on our own senses.

Related articles:

• More Surveillance Can Make Us Less Safe (techdirt.com)
• The Backfiring of the Surveillance State (angryindian.blogspot.com)
• Report on failed Christmas terror attack released (cnn.com)
• When perceptions cloud one’s judgment (washingtonmonthly.com)
• ‘The Buck Stops with Me’: Obama Releases Security Review of Attempted Bombing (abcnews.go.com)

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So why the positive assessment of this change? Author Julian Sanchez suspects that it may be more of a vote of confidence than a specific opinion; that many people polled simply hope that the increase positively correlates with a safer environment rather than a rational response. Despite studies in San Francisco and London indicating that increased surveillance has little positive effect on reducing crime, many people are either unaware of these studies or would rather cling to the illusion of safety. San Francisco completed a five year study of surveillance cameras and found that petty theft was somewhat reduced (up to 23%) while there was no effect on violent crime. Cameras, if failing in a preventative measure, can only be used in a retrospective manner to try to give authorities a clue as to the perpetrators ID. Does this fact make us feel better, that even if we are violently attacked, at least we may one day learn who was responsible and hopefully have them brought to justice? Perhaps it cuts down on the unknown and boosts the perceived potential for justice. Perhaps, but it seems pretty thin.

What is more interesting to question is why a society in which many voters value freedom and are wary of too much government control would support increased surveillance measures, especially with no tangible results. Even London, with the most dense surveillance network on the face of the Earth, was victim of a bombing on the Tube. The cameras did not deter the perpetrators, nor identify who they were. But still more cameras are added under the auspices of increased safety.

Well, and perhaps in the end that is the point, the illusion or hope of increased safety; the cultural fairytale that we are safer than before, even if in less control. With a fast-paced world seeming ever more chaotic, maybe these cameras serve as a symbol that someone, somewhere, is still in control.

For more insight into this phenomenon, see David Murakami Wood’s blog.

Related articles:

• Out with the Aughts: Big Brother has nothing on this (nationalpost.com)
• A Decade of Innovation: How We See the Internet 10 Years After the Boom (readwriteweb.com)

“In a society under the reformed ‘Real-Time’ Calendar, without history nor future, everybody is faceless. A woman panics when she wakes up one day with a face. With the help of the Spectral Children she slowly finds out more about the lost power and history of the human face and begins the search for its future.”

Image via Wikipedia

This is a fascinating example of how one may sidestep the usual privacy/control/security debate and look at the inherent opportunities of surveillance, particularly huge systems like the one found in London. My architectural thesis project similarly sought to take advantage of surveillance technologies and cultural obsessions of the media image for new explorations in new media art. It will be interesting to see how Faceless is received and what future projects it may inspire.

Related articles:

• Cameras or Cops? (freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Explainer: CCTV (guardian.co.uk)
• The real cost – and value – of CCTV | Tom Reeve (guardian.co.uk)