(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Now, as I write this, surveillance cameras are mounted where I live. The management of my condominium team, with 302 housing units spread over six blocks, has decided that we will be camera-monitored. The reason is the fear of vandalism in the housing cooperative, that rubbish is placed in the wrong places, and a general desire for security. If only one rubbish bag, one rape or one robbery is prevented, the surveillance cameras are legitimate. The security and order in the housing cooperative is worth all that we do in front, between and next to the blocks – and in all the common areas – to be filmed and stored.
Of course, it's not safe where I live. What may happen by violence, sexualized or not, happens in silence inside the apartments. There will be no cameras. We know each other in the block, there is social control. I know when there is a party, renovation or when the neighbor can afford to buy a new car. Divorce and death are common property. We know each other, mostly for good. What I have not even sensed is referred to in conversation with neighbors.
Groruddalen is one of the safest areas in Oslo. The landscapes with blocks, highways and greenery are pure safety utopia. Here in the valley I have hardly experienced anything scary.
Ergo, one would imagine that there will be so much dissonance between the actual conditions and the camera control of us living here that I and others protest. But no, I'm not going to complain, and I know why. I have become so used to being seen, documented, photographed and filmed that this is hardly felt anymore.
With social media, most of us have become famous – not just in a neighborhood, as Warhol predicted, but XNUMX hours a day. In social media, we are seen by friends and unknowns and receive feedback on things we do, praise for thoughts we write, pictures we share. We are followed, quoted, and referred to. Life details posted on Facebook are captured, remembered and function as ice breaker at the next social gathering.
With social media, most of us have become famous – not just in a neighborhood, as Warhol predicted, but XNUMX hours a day.
We send nude photos, take food photos, create a million boring interior blogs, turn our lives into portraits for others to see. We have become so used to visually documenting our lives, that an anxiety arises when the camera is no longer there. When things are not shared, no one confirms that it has happened. The division of our lives is the proof of our existence. What used to be a rare luxury, only for artists and writers, writing their lives or portraying themselves, has become a general exercise.
The camera is pulled forward to save the moment, so that we are raised above death and the transient. In addition, the cameras "number" us down. When we pick up the camera and look through it, or see the reflection of ourselves i that, then we use a filter when we sense, a second skin.
It has occurred a grotesque trend in recent years, where people who end up in emergency situations on planes, for example, pick up the cameras to document the noise, smoke, shaking and oxygen masks. Preferably while they themselves smile straight into the camera. The situation is no longer the way to a certain death, because time is burned into the memory card. You will be guaranteed fame. A bit of fame if the landing goes well. Incredibly much more, if you were to be lubricated in the cabin, or grilled alive, and the mobile miraculously survives.
We have become addicted to being seen, to being saved, to feeling safe. That is precisely why I do not protest when the housing association is video-surveilled. If I'm killed in front of the block, I'm still killed just as much. But I know there's a camera there while the horrible thing happens. Then it is somehow not completely useless.
Jacques Lacan became known for his theory of the gaze, the gaze. He believed that the certainty that one is seen by others makes one lose one's autonomy. Man becomes unfree in and out of the gaze of others. Freedom often stands as a binary opposite to security. Today it seems that things have turned 180 degrees. Today, the lack of autonomy is not the concern of the people. For many, the freedom of not being seen is so painful that they do anything to the contrary.
It is said that if you have nothing to hide, you should be filmed. It is easy to forget that the biggest victims when we are monitored actually have something to hide. I am not, of course, referring to terrorists and criminals; such will always be able to get away. Those who want to go beyond are the structurally weak, deviant and minorities. They will be attached to the housing association's video, even when they do something they do not want to see. Poor people who collect bottle collateral. Addicts and users who come home intoxicated. Cabinet gays from minority communities who have their love meetings in secret. Those who have an extra and shameful job, just to make it go around. Disabled people who move differently or struggle to get around. All this will be filmed.
Our contemporary photo and video culture means that documenting life is not just a matter of course, it is the norm. Not wanting to be monitored becomes suspicious. Those who then have something they want to hide, are doubly losing.
