After talking about Inverse Surveillance (Sousveillance) with camera phones we have a small update by Paul Knight of the North Texas Daily: "Lecture cover camera´s effect on world culture".
[quote]
Thomas Levin, Princeton University professor, lectured on the progression of surveillance and its influence on pop culture. He talked about the proliferation of "personal surveillance devices," or camera phones, and how they are affecting the world. Pictures taken with a soldier's camera phone of Saddam Hussein being captured were shown to illustrate the point.
"It's the fantasy of immediate access to any spot on the globe," Levin said.
He talked about "panopticism," the idea that someone will not do something because of the fear of being watched.
...
Levin showed one artist that took his family to an automatic teller machine, got a printout of the ATM surveillance picture and used it as a family portrait. Another artist used a surveillance photo as a wedding picture.
...
Levin ended with, "At the degree to which public space is being colonized by surveillance, we can not afford to be unaware of the information that is being taken from us and how to control it."
[unquote]
A reader (activist of the Surveillance Camera Players, NYC) responded "Levin's politics are very weak, almost non-existent. Awareness of surveillance isn't enough: political and social action is necessary, and immediately."
