The main focus of my practice currently is security and surveillance. Initially inspired by the security measures at an arms factory I had walked past, these themes are continuously expanding as I notice the systems and there affects increasingly in my daily life. The more you look for security systems the more you realise they truly are everywhere.
“Surveillance transcends the public/private divide.” (Richards, N. 2013 pp. 1935)
Considering sound, I understand this quote to highlight the parallels between surveillance and the sonic. The sonic transcends the public and private divide through its porous nature within space, it is not uncommon for sound to exceed the area it is released in and so often leaking from the private to the public and vice versa. My understanding of this has lead me to recognise the significance in sound as a material when surveillance is the theme.
Explorations into security and surveillance systems of interest:
Armadillo – The Armadillo VideoGuard 360, “integrates cameras, motion sensors, and remote monitoring to deliver real-time security without the need for on-site personnel.” (VP PLC ESS). This security robot highlights our current dystopian landscape, a ‘seeing’ and ‘speaking’ security system that can be hired for a small fortune. The Armadillo is what I have centred this project around, The ability to pay for ‘protection’ highlights the function of capitalism within the issue of surveillance. It also begs the question of legitimacy and corruption within private companies, both the security companies and those who rely on them.
Unlike many tools of modern surveillance, subtle and discreet, the Armadillo makes itself known with a both large visual and audible presence. I consider the Armadillo to be a digitised security guard, however with increased dystopian functions, I am curious to know what happens with the data collected by Armadillo and what it could be used for (other than notifying the police if ‘presence detected’), unfortunately this information is not freely available.
The voice used to communicate the message of being seen or captured by the security device is spoken in a Northern Irish accent. In a device such as this, all aspects of design (including the sonic) are planned with consideration to how it will be perceived and subsequently reacted to. A study presented at the conference for Postgraduate Academic Researchers in Linguistics (York) found that “the Northern Irish guise considered significantly more threatening than the London Cockney and RP [Received Pronunciation] guises.” (Tompkinson, J. 2016 pp.127). Numerous studies have also found similar outcomes, suggesting that the creators of the Armadillo intended to use the sonic device to increase the level of threat when the Armadillo is triggered, potentially as a method to intimidate those “too near” to the Armadillo or to deter “repeat offenders”
2. Panopticon – The use of surveillance in our society is reminiscent of Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon. Modern surveillance technology has formed a digital panopticon, civilians always feel watched constantly, this has lead me to consider Foucault’s stance on the issue of surveillance in comparison to the panopticon.
Foucault states that “the inmate will constantly have before his eyes the tall outline of the central tower from which he is spied upon…the inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so.” (Foucault, 1975, 201). CCTV cameras inhabit our country increasingly post millennium, the growing surveillance of Britain has become widely accepted as part of our lives, a dystopian reality uncontrollable to the individual. Civilians have become the ‘inmate’ and the camera’s the ‘watchman’ (with a ‘real watchman’ elsewhere). It is thought that the panopticon was an inhumane way of incarceration, causing phycological damage to inmates. Considering this, it begins to raise questions on the impact on individuals of a surveilled life.
3. Facial Recognition – https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/01/man-fined-refusing-show-face-police-face-recognition-software-8425143/
A key part of modern surveillance and CCTV is facial recognition technology, which emerged in the early 2000’s, became part of law enforcement in 2015. A development now used by many police forces is live facial recognition, which typically presents as a van with cameras mounted all over it parked in a location the police deem necessary. However as of 2025 a permanent and discreet set of live facial recognition cameras have been installed in Croydon.
Live facial recognition attempts to match the faces captured by the cameras with faces in a database or ‘watch list’.
In The Age of Surveillance capitalism, Shoshana Zuboff states; “automated machine processes not only know our behaviour but also shape our behaviour” (Zuboff, S. 2018, pp.18). Through the knowledge of the facial recognition technology existing, behaviour’s change for everyone, even the innocent. With surveillance technology presented so clearly, it is likely individuals anxiety about being watched increases. I can imagine that the effects on behaviour of this technology are increased within marginalised groups who have historically been disproportionately discriminated by police.
A man was fined £90 for “disorderly behaviour” when covering his face in front of a live facial recognition van. It is not illegal to cover your face in front of live facial recognition. The man stated his lack of consent to the officers who subsequently photographed him. When questioned on his unwillingness to be surveyed, the man stated live facial recognition to be a “government overreach”, the man also pointed out that this surveillance feels like a damage to his freedom. This example shows how surveillance upholds power dynamics and threatens freedom within the UK. Here it is clear that “Surveillance distorts the power relationships between the watcher and the watched, enhancing the watcher’s ability to blackmail, coerce, and discriminate against the people under its scrutiny” (Richards, N. pp.1936), the state (in this case the police) abuses their power through fining a man for disobeying there commands.
REFERENCES
- VP-ESS, PID Armadillo VideoGuard 360, Available at: https://www.vp-ess.com/products/communications/security/cctv-systems/pid-armadillo-videoguard-360/
- Liberty Human Rights, Police use of facial recognition technology: What are my rights?, Available at: https://www.libertyhumanrights.org.uk/advice_information/police-use-of-facial-recognition-technology-what-are-my-rights/
- Foucault, M. (2020) Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated from the [French] by A. Sheriden. Penguin Books.
- Richards, N. (2013). The dangers of surveillance in Harvard Law Review Vol. 126 No. 7. The Harvard Law Review Association
- Tompkinson, J 2016, ‘Accent evaluation and the perception of spoken threats’, Paper presented at Postgraduate Academic Researchers in Linguistics at York (PARLAY) Conference 2015, York, United Kingdom, Available at: https://www.york.ac.uk/language/ypl/parlay/03/YPL-PARLAY2015-09-Tompkinson.pdf
- Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Profile Books.