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This happened a few days ago now, but I forgot to post it until I went to talk about it in my journal this week! From the article: "Over the course of three days in June, artist Kyle McDonald captured the faces of Apple patrons in two of the company's Manhattan stores. He did this by installing a program on computers in the stores, which automatically took an image every minute." His idea was that the photos constituted an art project about what people look like when they engage with technology. The Secret Service confiscated his computers after an Apple Store employee traced where the photos were being transferred to. I thought this was interesting because it's an example of visual surveillance of people's physical presence/actions in public spaces like Greenfield talks about, rather than surveillance of their digital actions, which so much of the literature focuses on. I definitely think the artist's project constitutes a violation of the privacy of the people whose photographs he took, but I can't help thinking it's also a really fascinating project that wouldn't work if people knew their photo was being taken in that moment.

This article seems to fit in with what we are discussing this week. A closed-circuit television (CCTV) video that shows an extremely drunk man staggering home through the streets of London has taken the web by storm this week (you can watch it below). Although it's primarily entertaining because of its sheer shock value, it also serves to illustrate the surprising -- and, to many, alarming -- extent of video surveillance in the U.K.