Surveillance Art

There's a new article up at The Intercept, this one by Peter Maass on art and surveillance.  I did find it interesting, though I think some of the projects themselves are downright creepy.

But hey -  it got me inspired to try to do something artistically and that certainly can't be bad.  If you read the article and check out the links he provides you'll notice that in addition to the visual arts, there was also a musical project and a book of poetry (why didn't I know about that before?).

I would like to do something visual as that would be something different (keep watching this space; although my artistic ability is quite limited I might come up with something). I guess I'm more language oriented, so first out is a poem! 

The Gaze 

All seeing eyes

But who gets the prize

When peek-a-boo is not a game

And prying queries have no shame

All seeing eyes

Classify and categorize

But this arbitrary gaze

Can fracture the ordinariness of days

All seeing eyes

Sifting through social ties

Never taking the time to blink

Recording, then storing in digital ink

All seeing eyes, though you can patterns perceive

Humanity’s essence you cannot digitally retrieve.