Cameras in the Street
The power of Bentham’s oft-cited Panopticon is the effect of knowing that somebody could be watching. “The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously,” George Orwell wrote in 1984. “How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” Surveillance cameras, an embedded sampling infrastructure, function mostly as a deterrent: because one space is connected to a network that could be projecting somewhere else, people act differently.
Left: The guard in the panopticon may watch any cell at any time, but cannot watch all at once. The prisoner, knowing the guard could be watching, disciplines him or herself. Right: Sign on sidewalk in San Francisco’s SOMA district.
In 1984—published in 1950, an era when the one-way, synchronous media of television and radio was dominant—Orwell presciently predicts a time when networked computers are found in every home, not only projecting information from the outside realm into the building, but also sampling that same environment and uploading it to the network. In Orwell’s dystopian vision, the network reinforces the hegemony of the state, allowing the government to peer into our homes and monitor its citizens’ behavior. The “telescreen” is an unparalleled deterrent, Orwell seems to say, because it is embedded in the home, synchronously projecting the message of the state while simultaneously sampling everything but a “very low whisper.”
Fortunately, the dawn of the era of ubiquitous computing has not ushered in an era of Orwell’s ubiquitous state surveillance. Malcolm McCullough writes, “As anyone who has ever tried to resolve a simple billing dispute knows, even the telephone company lacks enough internal coordination to make sense of its data about you. And as anyone who has ever dealt with a state-level bureaucracy knows, the odds of omnicompetence remain low.”[1]
Left: The guard in the panopticon may watch any cell at any time, but cannot watch all at once. The prisoner, knowing the guard could be watching, disciplines him or herself. Right: Sign on sidewalk in San Francisco’s SOMA district.
In 1984—published in 1950, an era when the one-way, synchronous media of television and radio was dominant—Orwell presciently predicts a time when networked computers are found in every home, not only projecting information from the outside realm into the building, but also sampling that same environment and uploading it to the network. In Orwell’s dystopian vision, the network reinforces the hegemony of the state, allowing the government to peer into our homes and monitor its citizens’ behavior. The “telescreen” is an unparalleled deterrent, Orwell seems to say, because it is embedded in the home, synchronously projecting the message of the state while simultaneously sampling everything but a “very low whisper.”
Fortunately, the dawn of the era of ubiquitous computing has not ushered in an era of Orwell’s ubiquitous state surveillance. Malcolm McCullough writes, “As anyone who has ever tried to resolve a simple billing dispute knows, even the telephone company lacks enough internal coordination to make sense of its data about you. And as anyone who has ever dealt with a state-level bureaucracy knows, the odds of omnicompetence remain low.”[1]
Indeed, although state-sponsored surveillance is a real and valid concern, the greater impact on people’s privacy may come not from the state, but from the people all around, each one armed with a tiny networked camera in their phone. As an expert recently complained about the non-stop coverage of contemporary college athletes, “…cellphones and digital devices ha[ve] erased the boundaries between public and private… it’s not just ESPN or Fox cameras, but it’s everyone with a cellphone.”[1] In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, the seminal sociology text, Erving Goffman describes society as a theater, in which individual actors manipulate their “settings” and “props” to create a performance for their audience.[2] The introduction of cameras into the landscape—both embedded and mobile—has effectively made much more of the world a “front stage” in Goffman’s terminology, where people are aware that they’re being watched and “perform” for their audience.
The impact of being observed by fellow citizens, however, is different from that of being observed by the state or another authority. In public space, the ubiquity of cameras has had a different effect than the placement of cameras in the home. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes that “the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers… Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.”[3] The practice of performing in public and for others to watch that performance, is an old tradition, transplanted from the urban realm to the network.
[1] Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans. “College Stars Run for Cover From Fans’ Cameras”, The New York Times. Sep 16, 2009. Accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/sports/ncaafootball/17colleges.html on 4-25-2010.
[2] Greg Smith. Erving Goffman. (New York: Routledge, 2006). 42.
[3] Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Modern Library ed. (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 45.
The impact of being observed by fellow citizens, however, is different from that of being observed by the state or another authority. In public space, the ubiquity of cameras has had a different effect than the placement of cameras in the home. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes that “the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers… Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.”[3] The practice of performing in public and for others to watch that performance, is an old tradition, transplanted from the urban realm to the network.
[1] Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans. “College Stars Run for Cover From Fans’ Cameras”, The New York Times. Sep 16, 2009. Accessed via http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/sports/ncaafootball/17colleges.html on 4-25-2010.
[2] Greg Smith. Erving Goffman. (New York: Routledge, 2006). 42.
[3] Jane Jacobs. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Modern Library ed. (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 45.
The Street With a View (2008) project demonstrates how the presence of a networked camera changes the way that people use space. The core of Street With a View is Google Streetview, and online mapping service that lets users view panoramic photographs of public streets. Google creates the images by navigating a GPS-equipped car with a special camera mount on the roof through areas where they want photographs.[1]
For the arrival of the Google Street View car, residents assembled a parade complete with marching band, confetti, and costumes.
To produce Street With a View in Pittsburgh in November, 2008, two artists, Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley, coordinated with Google Streetview and local residents to perform for the arrival of Google’s special car. As the vehicle cruised down a series of back alleys, marching bands played, runners competed in a faux marathon, and medieval re-enactors staged epic battles. For a day, the neighborhood was transformed because of the arrival of a camera that uploaded images to the Internet. Google’s sampling of the environment induced a change in the use of the neighborhood at a specific moment. Digital “eyes on the street” helped activate a back-alley of the city. [2]
[1] Although there has been little resistance to Google’s efforts to photograph streets in the U.S., the process in Europe has been legally more complicated. Struan Robertson. “Google Street View may be illegal in Europe.” Times Online. June 6, 2007. Accessed via http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1893385.ece on 4-25-2010.
[2] Street With a View (website.) http://www.streetwithaview.com/ accessed on 2-25-2010.
For the arrival of the Google Street View car, residents assembled a parade complete with marching band, confetti, and costumes.
To produce Street With a View in Pittsburgh in November, 2008, two artists, Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley, coordinated with Google Streetview and local residents to perform for the arrival of Google’s special car. As the vehicle cruised down a series of back alleys, marching bands played, runners competed in a faux marathon, and medieval re-enactors staged epic battles. For a day, the neighborhood was transformed because of the arrival of a camera that uploaded images to the Internet. Google’s sampling of the environment induced a change in the use of the neighborhood at a specific moment. Digital “eyes on the street” helped activate a back-alley of the city. [2]
[1] Although there has been little resistance to Google’s efforts to photograph streets in the U.S., the process in Europe has been legally more complicated. Struan Robertson. “Google Street View may be illegal in Europe.” Times Online. June 6, 2007. Accessed via http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1893385.ece on 4-25-2010.
[2] Street With a View (website.) http://www.streetwithaview.com/ accessed on 2-25-2010.
