Initial ideas and research

After watching film Her, City of lost children and The Truman show I realized that nowadays we are always being watch. Security cameras, GPS, internet are always keeping track of what we are doing.

 

Over the past ten years, closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras have become an increasingly familiar part of the urban landscape in many developed countries. Throughout Europe, despite early concerns about the possible implications for human rights, governments have now begun to regard video surveillance technology as a "magic bullet" in the fight against crime and public disorder.
CCTV cameras has support of local government, the police and other law enforcement agencies and are free to monitor public spaces such as streets, parks, and open malls with little regard for the concerns of private citizens.

CCTV cameras are almost everywhere: 

• City parks
• City buses
• Car washes
• Side-walks
• At work
• Traffic lights and parking lots
• Businesses and retailers

In the U.S., an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras are in force, recording a stunning 4 billion hours of footage every week. There are up to 4.2m CCTV cameras in Britain - about one for every 14 people - making it one of the most watched places on earth. London, for example, has close to 500,000 surveillance cameras.

Cameras are for security reasons. They were created to prevent people from crime. CCTV cameras in stores monitor shoplifters, those in cash machines look for fraud gangs, those on public transport watch vandals and thugs. But they also watch ordinary people at the same time.

The question that comes to my mind is how is it different being watched by CCTV camera and a stranger staring at you on the street? The true fact is that we don't have any more privacy in public.

Reference: Goold, BJ 2002, 'Privacy Rights and Public Spaces: CCTV and the Problem of the 'Unobservable Observer.'', Criminal Justice Ethics, 21, 1, p. 21, Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost

How are we being watched?

• CCTV cameras - they can be used face-recognition and look for criminal suspects.
• Automatic number plate recognition - this technology is used for speed cameras, traffic enforcement cameras and in London's congestion charging zone.
• Shop radio frequency ID tags - currently they are used just for surveillance of objects only and it stops at the door of the shop, however RFID could eventually be used to monitor every object bought from a shop.
• Mobile phone triangulation - the police now frequently use mobile's communication with different masts to triangulate the position of a suspect.
• Credit card transactions - every time we buy something with a credit or debit card we let the firm know where we are and what we are buying.
• Satellites - Google earth lets us guess that military might have something a whole lot better.
• Worker call monitoring - there are thousands in the UK who have their phone conversations recorded every day.
• Cookies -  HTTP cookies are small packets of data that are used to communicate between websites and personal computer. They are used to set peoples preferences when they visit a website for a second time and for a host of other reasons.

Inspired by this idea I tried to create collage using Photoshop. I tried to include CCTV cameras and make my person look like a cyborg, who has a electronic eye.

Using images that I found on the internet I tried to play with them on Photoshop. I tried to add shadows to make it look more realistic.