skandalon

technology cat animal cctv camera surveillance private public uk big_brother critic system

✖ Via YouTube: UK Women Live Cat dumping

By now most of us are aware of this story : Mary Bale, a woman living in UK was caught on a CCTV camera dumping a cat in a trash bin. The video was uploaded on Youtube, went viral and made the news worldwide. The response was quick and intense : sheer outrage. Mashable has a good summary of the ways this anger was expressed all over the Internet. Quite a normal reaction, one may think. Yet, something doesn’t add up. How come suddenly nobody seems to be too concerned about the use of CCTV cameras to spy on citizens?

Those are serious topics in our times : the respect of private life, the surveillance of citizens by the Government, the rising specter of Big Brother. It’s one of the recurrent topic on Boing Boing : the rising number of CCTV cameras in big cities, specifically in the UK (try this customized search).

Looks like Big Brother isn’t the problem in this particular scenario : the problem is that we don’t want others to spy on us. But if we happen to find ourselves in a position where we can spy on our neighbors, and maybe catch them doing something we think is wrong, then CCTV cameras are ok, surveillance is good, the system is working just fine.

• Aug 31, 2010 link notes tagged: technology cat animal CCTV camera surveillance private public UK Big Brother critic system

The Big Brother isn’t a person as it turns out, it’s the collective consciousness that watches us. […] It’s not that living in public is going to be impose on us. We’re going to be conditioned to ask for it.

✖ Via Josh Harris has he appeared in Errol Morris’ series First Person (season2, episode 01).

“The 3rd millenium has been ushered into existence. No apocalypse. No Four Horsemen. No en to the world. No nothing. Nevertheless, Josh Harris, Internet entrepreneur and aspiring artist has decided that the 2nd coming is at hand. And “the new Messiah” is none other than Gilligan, that’s right, the Gilligan, from Gilligan’s Island. No, not Bob Denver, that actor playing Gilligan. He is but an avatar or the messianic life force, which is Gilligan himself. For Harris, life is a sad tug-of-war between those who control reality and those controlled by it. The weapon is media. And Harris, in an all-out onslaught on the world, has decided to make his own torpid existence into a new religion.” (errolmorris.com)

See also the documentary We Live In Public (Ondi Timoner, 2009)

• May 28, 2010 link notes tagged: technology communication art television Big Brother surveillance public private Twitter Facebook reality reality show

art illustration illustrator humor critic public disatisfaction

✖ Via The New Yorker, Feb 15 & 22, 2010, p. 50. Illustration by Christoph Niemann

Previously on Skandalon

• Apr 12, 2010 link notes tagged: art illustration illustrator humor critic public disatisfaction

art technology communication public privacy internet comic humor illustrator

✖ Via Matt Bors: I’m a social networking site…

About Matt Boors:

“Matt Bors, 25, is a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist with United Media. He began creating political cartoons in February 2003 for the student paper at The Art Institute Of Pittsburgh. After college, it moved to into alt weeklies like the Cleveland Free Times.His cartoons now appear in the Village Voice, Chico Beat, Brick Weekly, Seven Days, Funny Times, and various websites such as Cagle.com.” (more)

First spotted via Public Communication.

• Mar 02, 2010 link notes tagged: art technology communication public privacy Internet comic humor illustrator

crowd public vintage photo politic bw population society

✖ Via National Library NZ on The Commons photostream on Flickr: Election night crowd, Wellington, 1931. Photographer: William Hall Raine. Reference number: 1/2-066547-F. Original negative.

About the National Library of New Zealand : “The purpose of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa is to enrich the cultural and economic life of New Zealand and its interchange with other nations. We’re located in Wellington, New Zealand (close to the Beehive and Parliament Buildings) and have branches and offices throughout the country.

The National Library of NZ on The Commons: “We’re very proud to be part of The Commons on Flickr. We went live in November 2008 with a selection of 120 historical photographs from the Alexander Turnbull Library, the research library within the National Library.” (More)

• Jul 07, 2009 link notes [via] tagged: crowd public vintage photo politic BW population society