Category: CCTV

“CCTV surveillance which naturally invites comparisons” Norris and Armstrong 1999

Faye Rose Mcdool / / CCTV

We created a teaser for the public to see to advertise our performance. We decided to use placards for the trailer to not reveal too much about the performance and to demonstrate a brief idea of the piece. With this, we used quotes from Pearsons “Site Specific” ((Pearson, Mike 2010, Site Specific Performance, Palgrave)) and also definitions from the Oxford dictionary so who ever watches to teaser will get a grasp of our concept.

Creating the trailer did come with its difficulties as we were unable to cut and crop shots from the CCTV recording system as we had no kind of advance technology.  We explored the full use of the CCTV system and played around with using the different camera angles.

One more trailer we made was an Hangman game trailer which eventually read “West Parade”. This enabled the CCTV group and I explore with becoming technical with the equipment we are using. Also this trailer revealed more to the audience.

“CCTV surveillance which naturally invites comparisons with bentham’s nineteenth-century design for the new  model prison, with its central observation tower, allowing the augraads to see everything without ever being seen themselves” ((Norris, Clive. Armstrong, Gary, 1999 The Maximum Surveillance Society; The Rise of CCTV. Berg. p91))

After exploring with the CCTV and trailers, ideas were formed for this to be used during the performance. We wanted to focus on giving the audience a message which they could leave the house with. During the performance we will hide various placards which will only make sense when the audience arrive in the CCTV room. As the screen is split into 9 shots of the house, we thought it would be interesting to have relevant quotes stuck around the house and it would all make sense when unravel only in our room. “Explicitly provoked the reader’s self-reflective awareness of relationships between text, space and eye movement” ((Kaye, Nick, 2007 Multi Media; Video Installation Performance Routledge p101)) . Gillian Wearing, a photographer, uses placards in her work collection called “Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say”.  She expresses her thoughts and feelings by using members of the public to hold her signs up. This would again revival what we have witnessed and why we have been watching the audience member throughout the performance.

Gillian Wearing OBE, ‘'Everything is connected in life...'’ 1992-3
Gilliam Wearing ((image: online (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/wearing-everything-is-connected-in-life-p78351) accessed 05/03/2013)).

To expose the hidden message, there will be pre-recorded video which follows a person on the screen as they take a tour of the house, uncovering the messages from room to room. However, we would be using the CCTV blind spots and the CCTV 9 grid layout to create the sense of the person going from room to room in the order of the 9 grid on the CCTV screen.

IMG-20130129-00499
Taken By Faye McDool

The pre-recorded performance was influenced by Fiona Templeton and Michael Ramtomski’s Recognition performance. This piece largely influenced out idea as it involves “audience participation” were audience discomfort was at risk, “interaction” and “opportunity to take part” ((Templeton, Fiona May 2006, Audience Interaction: A Presence Workshop. accessed 05/03/2013 http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/1107)) . We wanted to play on these three concepts to for the audience to feel as they have created a relationship without them seeing us apart from on the prerecording. Again, the audience will fully understand all of your work when they enter the CCTV room.

 

Everyone’s a Performer

Lauren Hughes / / CCTV, Performance process, Uncategorized

                                                                           DESAbigbrother

Image:Online-https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=big+brother&hl=en&rlz=1C1SKPL_enGB453GB494&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=LG5AUZ-DPfS00QXdoYG4Aw&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1366&bih=643(Accessed 20/02/2013).

“There is no single ‘Big Brother’ who is watching over us but lots of little brothers each with their own agendas.” ((Norris and Armstrong (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise Of CCTV, New York: Berg p.7)). We are always being watched,  when leaving our homes each day for work, college or university it is more than likely you will be filmed or photographed through CCTV.

“Studies by Honess and Charman (1992), Squires and Measor (1996) indicate that only between one third and two thirds of the population using streets with CCTV actually know they are being monitored.” ((Norris and Armstrong (1999) The Maximum Surveillance Society: The Rise Of CCTV, New York: Berg p.92)). With this gaze constantly over them, are they performing? When we trip over in the street a rush of embarrassment takes over where our minds are telling us we are hurt however we find ourselves laughing as were all this this performance together, everyone’s watching.  When walking down a street we are always aware eyes are on us not only cameras but people in windows, across the road and in cars. When our audience enter the house on West Parade will they become aware of the cameras straight away or will they spend the whole experience thinking they are aware of whom and when people are watching them?  We can use this to our advantage and show the audience they can be part of the performance as well. As the CCTV group we have discussed how we will be involved in the performance and how the audience could discover our room and then watch us as we roam the house performing as they have for us. Through this performance we can portray how people always know they’re being watched, with subtle glances at the cameras to eventually holding signs to signify our knowledge of the cameras, similar to The Surveillance Camera Players. Another way of incorporating this into the performance is interrupting the mini performances in each room and handing a sign/ placard to an audience member or performer and asking them to hold it to the camera.

“The real power of site-specific work is that it somehow activates, or engages with, the narratives of the site in some kind of way. That might be with its formal architecture, or it might be with the character of the building.” ((Pearson, Mike (2010) Site-Specific Performance, London:Macmillan p.35)). When entering the house other than there being a television in the front room, it’s very bear and uninviting, it’s not an ideological notion of a modern home. The architectural design of the house makes the CCTV room one of the last rooms you may see which changes your whole outlook on the house when discovering it and extends that feeling of it being unappealing even more. It crosses the boundary between the outside world and the privacy within a home with inhabitants being aware they’re always being watched which you shouldn’t feel within a home. This ‘Big Brother’ feel the house has is a great characteristic we can work with for our performance. The most eerie room for most of us in the house is the cot room mainly as it’s the coldest room and the fact it has a cot gives it a lot of potential to play on that creepiness for the performance and we have incorporated this room into both our trailers so far. The character of the house instantly triggers narratives for performance ideas as you explore all its rooms.

As the CCTV group we have decided to take our filming to other people’s homes and interview them on their thoughts of home. What is ‘home’ to them? Starting by asking them to take us to the room/ place in which they feel most comfortable and asking them why they feel so attached to that part of their home. And if they’re a student whether their ‘home from home’ feels homely or just a place to stay. Then we suggested the idea of making negative comments about aspects of their home to see if they would defend it or agree, filming their reaction to this. These recordings will either be used for a trailer or within the piece or just for our own research.

 

 

Are we ever private?

Jake Robinson / / CCTV, Home, Rooms

Our homes are the most private place which we inhabit. At home we can act as we please without the fear of being watched or judged. But what happens if a house stops being a private space, and becomes a space in which you are watched more than any other. Does it stop being a home? This is what has happened in our house on West Parade. The whole house is fitted with CCTV cameras. From the moment you walk in until the moment you leave you are under surveillance. The house is not private. Is this wrong, are there some places which should not be intruded upon and is a house, a home, one of them?

Perhaps some rooms in a house such as the living room and kitchen are not as personal, not as private as other rooms; such as the bedroom and bathroom. Perhaps it is possible to be under surveillance in the more communal rooms of the house without feeling invaded. Whereas being watched while “you are most vulnerable, asleep and unaware” ((Heathcote, E (2012) The Meaning of Home,London:Frances Lincoln p.71 )) in the bedroom is simply a step too far. There are groups who feel that being under surveillance at all is wrong. The Surveillance Camera players are a group based in New York who believe that surveillance cameras of any kind “violate our constitutional protected right to privacy” ((Surveillance Camera Players (2001) Who We Are & Why We’re Here, online: http://www.notbored.org/generic.jpg (accessed 25/02/2013))). They express these views by carrying out silent performances in front of surveillance cameras. These performances are rehearsed but are not announced or advertised.

The right to privacy which the Surveillance Camera Players talk about is most definitely broken in our house. It is impossible to get away from the surveillance and have a private space. Or is it? There are places which the cameras do not cover. For example both the toilet and the bathroom are not covered by the CCTV cameras. These spaces are ones which you would expect to be completely private, to film these areas of a house would certainly bring up an ethical debate. However there are also other, less obvious, areas which the CCTV cameras do not cover. There are black spots which the cameras do not pick up. For example in the bedroom if you sit or stand directly underneath the camera in the corner of the room the camera does not pick you up.

These areas away from the gaze of the CCTV could be very interesting for us to use in our performance. We may be able to demonstrate to the audience just how much they are being watched, this could make them feel on edge. I do not expect the audience to be pleased about being observed throughout the performance. It may therefore be interesting to introduce them to these places where they are away from the cameras. Whether they would feel more comfortable in areas where they know for definite that they are not being watched by anyone outside of the room they are currently occupying.

We have decided in the bedroom to seat our Voyeur in one of these black spots. They sit directly underneath the CCTV camera – they are therefore seen by nobody. We think this increases the power which the Voyeur holds, they are observing three people in a vunerable situation, two in bed and one in a cupboard and there is no understanding of that shown outside of the room. They are watching but in no way being watched.

Through this process I think they, the audience, will gain a new sense of appreciation for the privacy which we have become accustomed to, and now expect, inside our own homes.

Safe House

Lizzy Hayes / / CCTV, Home, Rooms, Uncategorized

In getting a ticket for our performance our audience members fall subject to a false sense of security- they are welcome in the house because we have allowed them to be there but we do not actually live there. Is it really our home to invite them into? Are they really welcome? And are they really safe?

When I think of a ‘safe house’ I think of a discreet property that houses an occupant who needs to be kept safe from something or one. It is a temporary base for a hidden person. It is structurally a house, but very rarely a home, just as our property is, blending in nicely with the surrounding area.

Performance Process

Image by Jozey Wade 2013

In my experience of fictional ‘safe houses’ on television or in film the houses are very rarely safe and are often infiltrated by the enemy. While this is obviously for entertainment purposes the characters responsible for the victim are left shocked and confused as to how anyone could have seen past their high security system. But the answer is clear to me: a safe house is only as safe as or maybe even less safe than any other house on the street: it is just as easy to break into, just as likely to be burgled and because of its ‘secret’ resident, a much higher target of crime.

It is also easy to assume that those kept in safe houses are there under the protection of the law: someone in danger, someone on parole, someone whose identity is too precious to be introducing themselves to their neighbours without an alias. However, research has shown that ‘safe houses’ are often used against the legal system for other purposes. Human smuggling and trafficking for example require safe houses in which illegal migrants can be housed without being discovered.  Leman and Jansses state that in some countries “large smuggling networks in which the victims have a long way to travel need safe houses to conduct their business.” (( Leman, J, & Jansses, S “The Various ‘Safe’-House Profiles in East-European Human Smuggling and Trafficking.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies Vol. 33, No. 8, November 2007, pp. 1380 )). It has been found that in these situations the safe houses may not only be used for temporary accommodation, but as a prison in which the migrants are held as hostage while their families are forced to pay more money for their safety or a brothel like establishment. Statistics suggest “that a minimum of 50 percent and upward of 80 percent of human trafficking victims worldwide are women (U.S. Department of State 2005; U.S. Department of State 2010). Seventy percent of female victims are trafficked into the sex trade…” (( Perdue, T, Williamson, C, Billings, M, Schart, J, & Boston-Gromer, R 2011, ‘In the Matter of Human Trafficking in Ohio: The Pursuit for Justice Continues’, Women’s Policy Journal Of Harvard, 8, pp. 4, viewed 17 April 2013. )).

While this statistic is disturbing, it appears that one room in our house has accidentally created a performance that could, when paired with the title of our piece, have a deeper meaning than was previously intended. The set up of the sexual element of the bedroom piece could easily represent not only a sex slave in terms of a BDSM arrangement but also a hostage situation in which a woman kept as a sex slave in a ‘safe house’.

While the bedroom is perhaps the most controversial room in our house, I’m not sure our audience will feel safe in the hostile living room environment or the peculiar child’s room environment either, especially considering that the technology normally used for a persons security is being used to scrutinise their every move.

The Art of the Eavesdropper

Lauren Simpson / / CCTV, Performance process

It is proposed that the ‘eavesdropper, perhaps, would be the auditory equivalent of the voyeur’ ((Fitzgerald in Iddon, Martin (2010) “Plato’s Chamber of Secrets On Eavesdropping and Truth(s)”, Performance Research, Vol 15, Issue 3 p. 6-10)). The voyeur seems to be a common theme emerging through our performance so it would be nice to extend that theme to listening. Making it clear to the audience that they are not only being watched but also heard in specific rooms could be interesting. They would act differently in those rooms to how they would when they think there is no surveillance e.g. the bathroom and toilet.

The act of ‘listening in’ implies that there is something to overhear. So, ‘to be, listening, is to be aware that there is a secret:’ ((Iddon, Martin (2010) “Plato’s Chamber of Secrets On Eavesdropping and Truth(s)”, Performance Research, Vol 15, Issue 3 p. 6-10)). This implies a breach of privacy, which is something we would have to take into consideration with our performance. The audience would probably have to be made slightly mindful that the CCTV is in operation. This doesn’t have to be a hindrance to performance, however. We could make them slightly knowledgeable without overdoing it, in the hope that they forget about the cameras during the performance. Or, we can make them too aware and monitor their reactions. A couple of ways to do this could be put a poster of Banksy’s iconic image in the waiting area for them to subconsciously notice.

one nation under cctv

http://www.adambowie.com/weblog/archive/2008_04.html (accessed 23/02/13)

Another possibility is to highlight the CCTV camera in every room. This could be done with signs or lights. It could be as obvious as arrows pointing towards the camera or just subtle signs.

cctv camera SSP

http://snippits-and-slappits.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/top-11-ways-big-brother-or-sister-loves.html (accessed 23/02/13)

This idea could spark many reactions depending on the audience member, which will mean every performance is radically different. We won’t know until the performance happens.