“For the Greater Good”
This photographic investigation of “Safety Cameras” in and around Cardiff resulted in 496 images being produced of various static and mobile camera locations designed to generate surveillance pictures and video of vehicle drivers – these drivers being people who would mostly otherwise be law-abiding citizens and supportive of Police and other security forces, but who are becoming increasingly concerned by the imposition of “Surveillance Photography” to control their behaviour – and that being the “Enforcement” Cameras (or Safety Cameras as they are officially known). Effective surveillance, of course, is one that modifies the behaviour of the surveilled as well as imposing a sense of superiority upon the surveiller. Non-vehicle surveillance cameras are not very effective at modifying general behaviours because of identification problems, but with vehicle-related surveillance the security services have ready-made identification by means of Number Plates, which can now be recognised automatically. Therefore, at the same time as the validity of the claims about “Safety Cameras” are being bought into question by seriously flawed statistics, many “normal” citizens are becoming alarmed by what they see as a slowly growing “Police State” with increased surveillance in what should be a democracy where the majority of the population are entitled to ask who actually benefits from and promotes the potentially insidious slide towards a less, truly democratic state and what individuals can do about halting that slide.
It may be interesting to note that, during the photographing of this project, only 8 vehicles were observed to have triggered the flash of the static Gatso cameras. Two ambulances, One Police Van, Two marked police cars, one unmarked police car and one white builders truck.
Where can the police, councils and camera partnerships place speed cameras? The government have a set of guidelines that authorities must adhere to when considering the location for a new camera.
“The Subject as Object. Photography & Control”
My understanding, and the way I have interpreted the project, is that Photography can be one of the ways to control the behaviour of individuals by using the photography as either an overt or covert form of surveillance. In many respects, I found it too easy to think about taking set-up scenarios using friends or models to role-play a situation that I could impose an external value on and claim “This” was an example of Photography turning the photographed into an object and seeking to impose a control on that individual or group – so I looked at the use of photography in the “Real World” to perhaps investigate how photography was actually used to impose a sense of control in an every-day situation and how that may modify the behaviour or actions of those subject to that control.
Town-centre “Video Surveillance Cameras” were the obvious 1 st choice for me, but on further investigation, it appeared that in many cases they did not really modify behaviour in a major way because of identification problems and response times to what could be a transient transgression that could have moved on, out of the area of view fairly quickly.
“Speed Cameras” – or “Safety Cameras” as they are officially known then became the obvious choice for a number of reasons.
Firstly, they are acknowledged by virtually every driver and every authority that installs the systems to modify the behaviour of the subjects being surveilled.
They therefore offer a very tangible example of cameras controlling the actions of the subject being targeted by the lens and reduce that subject to an object that can be “interrogated” electronically by potentially being identified individually and having the time, date, location and supposed speed of the object imposed on the record of that object.
Secondly, there are many heated and diverse ethical arguments about the use, accuracy and even legality of the use of “Safety Cameras”.
With the help of research from the Department of Transport, “The Safety Camera Partnership”, the Association of Chief Police Officers, many Newspapers, Magazines, the BBC and various Vehicle Drivers organisations, it starts to become obvious that similar statistics can be distorted to offer wildly different conclusions about the use of “Safety Cameras”.
However, it should be borne in mind that “Safety Cameras” generated over £12,000,000 from drivers in Wales during 2006 (authorities are reluctant to provide up to date data) – and that many of those fines were from cameras placed, not in high risk accident areas as they are supposed to be (ACPO Guidelines on Enforcement Technology Devices), but in locations such as motorways, dual carriage ways or other higher speed roads – and from covert camera locations that also contravene ACPO Guidelines and current legislation. Therefore, the Ethics of the use of “Safety Cameras” because of the revenue generation aspect being a prime motivator has to be viewed as highly suspicious. A report by the Association of British Drivers, using the government’s own data clearly shows that although the number of fines in the UK from 1995 to 2005 appeared to rise from £20,690,000 to a staggering £187,200,000, the number of road deaths from all factors dropped from 3,213 to 2,915 over the same period – and with the improved safety of vehicles more than accounting for the drop, it could be argued that the death toll on the roads would have actually increased during the period without the new vehicle safety features.
It can be seen, therefore, that there is a strong financial incentive for “Camera Partnerships” to install more and more cameras in places where drivers may exceed the speed limit slightly in order to generate more income for themselves, but that the cameras do not seem to be installed in areas where they can effectively reduce serious accidents and therefore injury and fatalities.
During the photographic phase of this project, I shot “Safety cameras” both during the day and at night – and I decided that the final choice of images would be two night-time pictures with the infamous “Gatso” camera sitting in one corner of the image like a money-hungry vulture ready to pounce on a victim – and a composite of day-time pictures showing some of the ways in which “Safety Camera” partnerships seek to hide or semi-conceal their cameras. All of those shown contravene the guidelines of ACPO in one way or another – and some of the installations are actually a danger to road users and pedestrians because of the possibility of last minute breaking. While the overall image of the photographs at night could be said to be quite attractive with a trail of lights – and the occasional flashing blue of an emergency vehicle, the spectre of the photographic vulture, controlling, and silently observing it’s potential victims is one that many drivers will relate to.
Who decides where cameras are located ? The local “Safety Camera Partnership” – and it can be seen in many case that the locations and signage contravene current regulations.
During the research into this project, it was difficult to find any directly relevant work from Photographers, as most available photographic literature concentrates on either set-up or contrived situations – or instances of photography such as Walker Evans, etc., where the camera often did reduce the Subject to an Object (for study) – but where there was little or no modification of the behaviour. My “Safety Camera” series can therefore be more likened to the “Panopticon” Prison Design, where the inmates feel that they may be under constant visual surveillance and therefore conform to a set , acceptable behaviour, thereby modifying their own behaviour, with minimal personal intervention from the Guards – or Surveillance Camera Operators.
Looking for other lens-based artists who have made work as a direct confrontation to genuine surveillance, there appears to be very few who have taken on the subject. Perhaps Willie Doherty (Turner Prize 1994 and 2003 and also represented Northern Ireland at the Venice Biennale in 2007 ) could be considered as one of the few, although the troubles in Northern Ireland which Doherty’s work relates to is far more violent than the creeping surveillance-state in Wales and England at the current time – and his work is far “darker” than mine as a result.
As a very important part of this project – and perhaps a factor that seems to be forgotten – Britain is a democratic country, with a government, both locally and nationally, voted into a position of power by the majority of the population. However, it would be difficult to find any obvious reference for promotion by those in a position of power of what could be deemed a creeping and insidious “Police State” with an ever increasing use of both covert and overt surveillance tactics on otherwise law-abiding individuals. Tactics and sanctions that now cost British voters Billions of pounds a year in “Fines” and deprive thousands of wage earners of their living under the “totting up” system of points – many of which are from illegal cameras and speed restrictions that are actually enforced in error. While the actual images proposed for the exhibition appear quite light-hearted, it should be remembered that there is a deeper, darker message behind the project – and that is: Just Who Agreed to this slow, creeping and unelected Police State that is selling us all the message of “For The Greater Good” ? This project has, perhaps, a less “Glamorous” image compared to some other possible projects, but is intended to be more than a little politically subversive when the potential for implications relating to the use of targeted surveillance photography that can cost families their income and future at the whim of an unelected civil servant, operating in contravention of both the Court of Human Rights at La Hague as well as in breach of ACPO Guidelines should not be underestimated.
