Front404

FILTER: DATA AND SURVEILLANCE

That city centers are filled with surveillance cameras is slowly becoming a widely accepted reality. It’s for our own safety after all. And if you have nothing to hide, why should this be a problem? 24/7 surveillance is almost a natural part of life in a city. But how normal is this actually? Front 404 poses this question with its work PanoptICONS. They placed birds in the center of Utrecht with cameras in place of heads. Birds that ‘feed’ themselves on the presence of regular citizens. The daily violation of our privacy is made personal and tangible by PanoptICONS.

The panopticon (‘all-seeing’) is an architectural principle used for controlling, monitoring, studying, comparing and disciplining groups. From a single point you can keep watch over a complete building – a school, a workplace, a hospital or a prison.

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