A thorough search of the World Wide Web reveals that -- in addition to getting and keeping the attention of political activists and "the media" -- the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) are beginning to "get through" to students and professors. The SCP, or, rather, its Web site, has been included on the syllabi of several university and graduate level courses devoted to such subjects as theater, anarchist politics and the Internet itself. Several students have written to the SCP, asking if they can write a paper or dissertation about the group and its activities. In all cases, the SCP have agreed. Founded by two former academics, one of whom taught for several years at the university level as an assistant professor, the group sees itself -- especially when it presents its version of Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism -- as practicing a kind of street pedagogy. And so the SCP welcomes contact with the academic community, but especially with students (professors, as we will see, are another matter).
At the end of 1999, Gary Genosko, an assistant professor in Cultural Studies at Lakehead University in Winnipeg, Canada, wrote "The Art of Surveillance," which appears to be the very first academic "paper" on the SCP and its activities. While it is a very favorable review -- written by someone who is both opposed to the indiscriminate surveillance of public space and knowledgeable about "critical theories" such as those elaborated by Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, et al. -- "The Art of Surveillance" is neverthesless unacceptable.
Had it not been for the efforts of a librarian closely associated with the SCP, the group would never have known about Genosko's article, because it was researched, written and published by someone who never thought to contact the SCP, that is, neither before, during nor after the article was published. In September 2000, nine months after it appeared in a relatively obscure Canadian literary review, "The Art of Surveillance" was located in a search for "surveillance cameras" in a university library's networked database of publications. (Genosko's article didn't appear in searches of the Web because it wasn't uploaded to the Internet until the SCP found out about it.) No doubt the brevity of the article was the only reason that someone entered its text into the library database, rather than summarizing its contents in an "abstract" or, worse still, simply noting that the article had been published in such-and-such a journal on such-and-such a date.
Genosko isn't the only one who has written a review of the SCP from the point of view of the total spectator. Such reviews have become common in the last year, as the size, relevance and popularity of the group's Web site have increased. There is in fact enough good information on the site to write a short, superficial but perfectly "adequate" piece on the SCP without contacting the group. But any such piece couldn't help but be bad journalism, for the mark of a good journalist is that he or she wants (and finds) an angle or quote that no one else has seen or gotten. It is easy to forgive bad journalism when it is practiced by writers who live in Europe and do not speak English as their first language. (To pursue the SCP's comments on superficial articles about the group that were originally published in German, click here.) But it is difficult to forgive bad journalism when it is practiced by writers such as Gary Genosko, who are "native" speakers of English and who can easily get in touch with the SCP (the group's e-mail address appears on every single page of its Web site) and arrange to see a videotape or conduct a telephone interview.
More so than any of the other pieces of bad journalism written about the SCP (all of which have been "good" reviews that nevertheless include a gratuitous or sarcastic remark), Genosko's article best encapsulates the mentality of the total spectator. "If it weren't for their website," Genosko writes at the very end of his article, "the Players would have disappeared, leaving only the traces in the memory of those who watched them, opponents and supporters alike." As Monsieur Art Toad pointed out to Genosko in an e-mail sent out on 11 September 2000,
This [notion] is really quite stupid. The SCP existed well before it put up a web site, and would continue to be a thriving group even if its web site were taken down. What you really mean to say is, "If it weren't for their website, I Gary Genosko would never have heard of the Players."
At the beginning of this e-mailed message, M. Toad declared that he "[t]hought it preety strange that you [Genosko] would write a lengthy piece on the SCP without contacting the group, which is an easy thing to do." Certainly M. Toad found it easy enough to locate Genosko's e-mail address, and he doesn't have a Web site!
As a postscript to his e-mail to Genosko, M. Toad speculated that "[i]f you had read https://notbored.org/space.html or were familiar with the work of Henri Lefebvre, you'd know that guerrilla programming does not 'retake time from the surveillance mechanisms,' as you claim; it 'retakes' space." The SCP's Director focused upon this small point because, like Genosko's telling reference to the group's Web site, it amply demonstrated the untenability of writing about someone with whom you've had absolutely no contact. Though the SCP are deliberately trying to create an "art" of space, an artful detournement of space -- precisely because modern-day surveillance is a spatial phenomenon, an integral part of the general abstraction of social space -- Genosko states with utter certainty that
The guerrilla programming of surveillance cameras is an art of time, of the timely maneuver, because it lacks a space of its own, a proper autonomous place over which it has control. Tactically, guerrilla programming retakes time from the surveillance mechanisms of an environment policed in the name of business interests.
If you, dear reader, have had contact with academics, you won't be surprised that Genosko, in his 12 September 2000 response to M. Toad, completely ignored the central point (that he'd written a piece without contacting the SCP, and thus confused the group with its presence on the World Wide Web) and focused on the aside concerning space and time.
My reference [Genosko wrote] was to de Certeau rather than Lefebvre. No matter, since it is obvious that you do not retake space; rather, you merely do so for a time. To retake space implies a major strategic undertaking, which is beyond your means. The SCP are artists of time, of the timely, tactical intervention.
Your other undoubtedly heartfelt beliefs I will let deflate of their own accord.
Neither my editor nor my audience (quite different from yours, I assume) would allow me to develop the opinion piece or short column further.
The existence of a Website does not guarantee much in terms of exposure. My modest column merely extended your reach into another medium and audience.
Anyway, a timely intervention draws its strength from the fact that it does not linger any longer than necessary to make its point. So, in a way, your weakness is a major strength.
Clearly, though, you don't agree.
Because Genosko "bluntly refuse[d] to deal with my objection" -- and thus confirmed the fact that the Cultural Studies professor is indeed a total spectator -- M. Toad declared in an e-mail sent on 13 September 2000 that he (the SCP director) had "no interest in pursuing further communication with you" and asked Genosko to "not send me any e-mail of any kind." Genosko has complied.
Though M. Toad doesn't want to take up the matter of space and time with the likes of Gary Genosko, he does want to take up the matter on the pages of this Web site.
Contact the Surveillance Camera Players
By e-mail e-mail:notbored@panix.com
By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998
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