4. Art of Surveillance: 'Street Ghosts'

It's not a secret we are all being, to some extent, watched. A modern urban person might not care that much about the CCTV popping up here and there around the The question of mass watching systems is a two way street. We might believe that the surveillance systems serve us as citizens and help to prevent antisocial acts and decrease criminal rates. That sounds like what THEY want us to think. From the other side, there is a more slippery position that includes matter of privacy violation and what extent of violation can be considered as norm and justifying the security needs. The topic concerns various aspects such as mass information gathering, telephone and internet surveillance, role of technologies and all the legal issues around it. 

No wonder the topic of surveillance,  are a for artists from all over the world and is widely discussed from various angles. I would like to consider an artwork which is relevant for most of the planet's population. An artwork 'Street Ghosts' by Italian conceptual artist Paolo Cirio. The artwork exists in a real-life and digital dimensions that are meant to fulfill each other. A real-life part is an array of real-size printed photographs of people who were captured by Google satellites and appeared on Google Street View maps. The photographs are placed where the originals were taken. The locations are the big cities, that can be dictated by the pursuit of greater number of viewers. The digital part of the artwork is a Google maps page with all the locations where the photographs are pinned. I would call it pretty satirical in it's concept and smart in it's approach.  

'Street Ghosts'

Paolo Cirio

2012

What is considerable for the conceptual side of the artwork is that Cirio took the pictures without negotiating it with Google (despite the copyright requires this to be done) and this way made it a kind of response to the social issue of privacy violation, as Google didn't ask for any permission from the people who were shoot. Even though the face-blurring option occurred within the 'maps', it's  told not to be working accurately all the time. 

Further, this argument can be looked at from an economical aspect that possibly backs up the artist's intentions. It is a fact that Google didn't pay any permission fees to capture the whole world's cities and the people to it's archives. Nevertheless, the virtual spaces are effectively sold to advertisers, which makes the Google corp. a huge revenue. It is literally that the personal data of millions of people was sold and used for making profit (Investipedia.com, 2016). 

All in all, the artist seems to be deeply concerned about the fact that images of people were used without permit. Nevertheless, he also printed out same images without permit, that can actually make people more unsatisfied by what Google did, as there is more chance that you pay attention to your real-life sized photographs on the street than a small image on Google maps. This way of implementation might rise awareness about the privacy violation. As commented by the artist: 

"It’s a performance on the battlefield, playing out a war between public and private interests

 for winning control on our intimacy and habits, which can change permanently depending on the victory. "(Cirio, 2012).

Reference list:

Investipedia.com (2016). How Does Google Maps Make Money? (GOOG). [Online]. Available at:<http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/061115/how-does-google-maps-makes-money.asp>. Accessed (20 October 2017).

Cirio, P. (2012). Street Ghosts. [Online]. Available at:<http://streetghosts.net/#notes>. Accessed (20 October 2017).