Phil Taylor's papers
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BACK TO : WAR & CRISIS REPORTING
The all-sseing eye (cameras everywhere) by M Farren The All-Seeing Eye Who watches the watchers? Eventually, perhaps, everyone ~ By MICK FARREN ~ When the execution of Saddam Hussein became inevitable, I wondered how soon a video clip would appear on YouTube. I was essentially joking, but, as reality played out, DVDs of the hanging went on sale on the sidewalks of Sadr City within 48 hours of Saddam's death, and the western cable news channels were showing every part of the now famous "unauthorized" camera-phone footage, except for the sprung trap and former Iraqi dictator's actual drop into the abyss. Plainly the CNN rule on prurient death was the same as for prurient sex - cut before the consummation. Far more important, however, was that a very crucial line had been crossed in news management in a world where truth is often an inconvenience and must be spun, sanitized, and made as digestible as baby food before being served to the public. Had the camera phone never recorded the noose (another traditional use for hemp, by the way) being placed around Saddam's neck, the assumption would have been - first as news, then as history - that the execution was conducted with, at the very least, the death-row decorum of The Green Mile or Dead Man Walking, with dress uniforms, a blindfold, a script, practiced choreography, and maybe a final cigarette. Only those involved would have known that it was, in fact, a homicidal clusterfuck with masked thugs screaming abuse, and only Saddam himself maintaining any vestige of dignity. Propaganda was betrayed by the ubiquitous miniature recording device, something that will happen with increasing regularity from here on out, and may actually constitute a major and far-reaching revolution in what we know and when we know it, radicalizing every level of communication from news to art. (The purpose of this piece is not to discuss the death penalty, but - since it can't be ignored in the process - I feel obligated to make clear I am totally opposed to its use under any circumstances. It fails as a deterrent, it is administered with haphazard inequality, and, as judicial revenge, it has no place in a civilized society, since it lowers the culture to the moral level of the criminal. If, however, we collectively insist on putting criminals to death, I do feel that sentences should be carried out live on television, so at least we all see what's being done in our name. And by the same token, anyone who enjoys a good steak should maybe visit a slaughterhouse.) The camera in the hands of the amateur civilian - as opposed to the sanctioned media - can be a powerful and even dangerous tool, and a potential challenge to the status quo. In 1963, when President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas, Abraham Zapruder was the lone cameraman. While others filmed earlier moments in the motorcade, Zapruder alone, with his 8mm Bell & Howell Zoomatic, recorded the fatal head shot that cast so much doubt on the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. Collusion between Life magazine and the federal government kept the film totally under wraps for a full six years, and then prevented it from being aired on national TV until as late as 1975, a dozen years after the assassination. In 1991, 28 years after the JFK killing, the VHS camcorder had become so common that, when George Holliday saw a crew of police officers abusing motorist Rodney King in Lake View Terrace, he was able to make a permanent record of the incident. At the subsequent first trial of the officers involved, defense lawyers persuaded a Simi Valley jury to disbelieve their own eyes and, in so doing, sparked some of the worst rioting in L.A. history. If these examples teach us anything, it's that those in authority view the motion picture or video camera in the hands of the public with suspicion and discomfort. From a Rolling Stones concert to an Army patrol in Baghdad, a camera phone can record and disseminate the event, and there's damned little anyone can do about it. The Rolling Stones don't like it, and the Pentagon likes it even less. Both organizations know they're losing control of the shape and flow of their own imagery, and, in a world where data is a cash commodity and perception is paramount, this is cause for serious concern. Mick Jagger is unable to collect royalties, while the Pentagon loses its capacity for propaganda spin. Not that authority doesn't have cameras of its own. Anyone who's run a red light at Hollywood and La Brea, and then received a ticket in the mail along with an incriminating picture, is well aware that some electronic-DMV version of Big Brother is watching (and recording) our traffic transgressions. And, as Winona Ryder learned to her cost and humiliation, most major stores and retail malls employ extensive surveillance systems. Maybe from a supposedly ingrained sense of privacy, the U.S. has been relatively slow to move into the Big Brother business. The British currently lead the field, with between two and three million cameras watching citizens; anyone going about their business in central London can be under virtually nonstop scrutiny by either private security or law enforcement. There's little consolation in our lagging, however. What happens in London today will be happening in Hollywood or Culver City tomorrow. In all of this, the 21st century may well be showing us the shape of things to come. On one hand, we have a booming industry in systemized surveillance, while, on the other, citizens brandishing camera phones potentially turn Big Brother on his head, making all things visible and empowering average people to become news reporters, paparazzi, visual artists, or pornographers. The clips created by camera phones and similar technology are not even subject to the editing and censorship process of mainstream media. Back in the early 1990s, George Holliday's potentially explosive cassette of the Rodney King beating required a local TV channel, and ultimately a national network, to air the damning visual evidence. Today, any video clip can be easily uploaded to YouTube or a similar wiki-style online site with only the most minimal censorship. The cry is, of course, that this overabundance of random electronic recording marks the death of individual privacy. This might indeed be true, except that many of our concepts of privacy are largely illusions of fond hindsight. From Richard Nixon to Joe McCarthy to Cotton Mather, America has never shown too much respect for citizens' privacy, and, in the small town so beloved by U.S. folklore, everyone took - and still takes - a vicious interest their neighbors' business. The trade-off for having cameras constantly pointed at us may well be a multilevel cultural revolution. The digital distortion of cell-phone visuals and security cameras have already become part of the filmmaker's palette, and we can only guess at the postpunk/body modification subculture's ultimate response. Neo-pagans and techno-primitives could easily advance from piercings and tattoos to the cyberpunk predictions of implanted processors, body-wired hard drives, miniature video cameras, infrared vision, and a new breed of electronic street-art outlaw - truly masked and anonymous - thwarting the watchers by walking around in a haze of their own electronic distortion. We all know the Chinese curse of living in interesting times. We can only wonder if an interesting future is equally ill-omened.  |