P r o j e c t s : I S p yA twist on the roles of surveillance (and its citizen-based inversion, sousveillance) in urban cultures. Specially installed Wi-Fi cameras transmit images to large display screens at street level and passersby are invited to control, manipulate and record the images of themselves (either for future users to stumble upon or as a take-away downloaded to their phones). The always-on nature of the surveillance apparatus provides a further introduction to users to move from passive to active participants. In this case they are able to combine the image of themselves with images of other locations along the street through keystrokes and the actual movement of their bodies within the frame. Current images can be blended with past images, highlighting for example the contrast and tension between daytime use of this street and its transformation after hours into the most tensely packed nightclub district in North America.
In rapid prototyping sessions, or charettes, we erased the thematic of surveillance and highlighted the technological possibilities. By removing the context of surveillance –which our project team was deeply committed to understanding in relationship to social surveillance context of city life and users of mobile phones—our team (led by designers engineering on open source platforms) created an imaginative and playful re-purposing of the surveillance camera as one leg in a system of linked screens, cameras and phones. By playing with these items, we came to understand surveillance cameras as something that can be reimagined as other types of devices with roles that differ from the standard practices of and dynamics produced by photographic cameras. In one instance, for example, we, critically, turned the camera on itself, making it a tool that allows one to consciously insert herself into a social narrative of her own making. More, we repurposed the cameras to overlay or fill the surveilled image. As such, users approaching surveillance cameras can control – not the angle, or focal point of the camera but instead, the actual image. As such, the surveilled subject is no longer subjected in the usual case of photographic images. This image, instead, can be entirely distorted by the image of the user approaching the camera, making the surveillance camera something that subjects the conscious user, by choice, rather than the unsuspecting passerby who is unintentionally caught on camera. The surveilled subject views this manipulation either through the public screen or via her cellphone. What is surprising and exciting about this new technology is not that erasing the context creates innovation. Rather, the inherent bias of the technology – that surveillance cameras surveil – was not eliminated. Rather, it is maintained and repurposed in a manner that reveals and critiques the notion of surveillance. This illustrates the difference “between the practice of data processing and its narrative”. (Castells) Phenomenologically there is something very interesting that occurs here, because the experience is inherently both playful and irreverent. To erase another subject with one’s self, and to supplant pieces of their image with one’s self is an act of power – that is simultaneously playful and teasing, even as it is willful and manipulative. More importantly, this experience occurs in a different context that is both mobile and urban. Were game producers to place screens and cameras in the street for play, the experience would be akin to a simple movie set, where the film created was live and interactive, and where camera movement and control is replaced by users who manipulate the image via the movement of their bodies through space. While anyone in the public space can view the experience on the public screen, the mobile user, who is actually surveilled can view herself as the subject of her phone, as she moves in real time, or on the public screen, as the subject of what can be termed a public film. Overall Architecture:Network-enabled camera streams captured video footage constantly to control server Server performs post-processing on video stream (e.g. image blending and filtering), and sends it to user’s mobile device User receives video on his mobile device (which is updated in real-time) Communication Schemes:
|
|
