Space and Time

It seems obvious to the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) that their performances are primarily spatial phenomena and are only secondarily temporal. One needn't be a philosopher of space and time to realize that the group defines itself as a theater group, and not as a group of video artists (despite the fact that its members perform in front of video cameras), and that theater is clearly a spatial art, while film and video are predominantly arts of time.

And yet the SCP has been confronted by people who insist on seeing time as the primary location of the group's performances and who pay no attention whatsoever to space. Let us recall the remarks of one Professor Gary Genosko, someone who sees himself as both a fan and a "good reader" of the texts written by the group.

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.

As we remarked in our review of Genosko's comments:

This formulation isn't right, and can't be right, for the simple reason that -- in stark contrast to "traditional" surveillance, which focused upon moments in which the suspect(s) might say something incriminating -- contemporary surveillance focuses upon spaces in which crime is likely to occur. (For an analysis of this "militarization" of domestic surveillance, see the SCP's text The Theater of Our Operations.) The duration of the plays, the exact times at which SCP performs, the dates on which the group performs -- these decisions are made on the basis of convenience to the group, not in accordance with the inflexible parameters established by "the surveillance mechanisms." If anything is in fact determined by these mechanisms, it's the locations in which the SCP chooses to perform. The group only performs in locations in which surveillance cameras are present. That's why the SCP makes maps and not chronometric measurements!

And yet Genosko continued to talk about the SCP in terms of time, not space, even after he was told that the group disagreed with him:

[I]t 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. [...] 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.

As a matter of fact, the SCP did not agree, and more to the point, did not want to engage in further discussion about the issue with someone like Genosko. A bad reader of the SCP, he clearly and uncritically privileges time over space -- even before he's thought about surveillance cameras. Note that for him "retaking space" is identified with strategy ("a major strategic undertaking"), while "the timely intervention" is identified with tactics. Strategy -- "it is obvious" -- is the superior level of battle. The image of "weakness" is not associated with strategy; the image is only associated with tactics. Where did all this bullshit come from?

As NOT BORED! pointed out in its essay on Henri Lefebvre's book The Production of Space, the privileging of time at the expense of space is quite common in Western philosophy, especially in intellectual circles strongly influenced by Hegel. (It appears that the only philosophers who place space at the center of their analysis are Nietzsche, Foucault and Deleuze & Guattari.) A measure of the difficulty of thinking about surveillance and contemporary society in terms of space, not time, can be found in a remarkable videotape entitled Ohio #7.

The seventh issue of what its makers (located in Cologne, Germany) describe as "an art project in magazine form," Ohio #7 contains 54 sequences of images, all of them taken from Internet webcams. Significantly, the 54 sequences are identified not by the webcams that took the images, but by geographical location. Over the course of 45 minutes, most of which are completely silent, the viewer sees images captured in outer space and in countries all around the world: the USA, Mexico City, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Scotland, England, Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden. The range of people, places and things captured is also very broad, and includes jungles, beaches, an ocean, mountains, penguins, cow pastures and stables, chicken farms, geese ponds, zoos, aquarium, parks, rivers, harbors, border-crossings, roadside diners, highways, bridges, city streets, construction sites, packing garages, university campuses, political conventions, offices, living-rooms and bedrooms, fashion shows, dance clubs, holiday resorts, tennis courts, solar eclipses, manned space-stations and the Earth itself.< (It should not go without mentioning that several of the sequences contain the faces of people who probably didn't know they were on camera to begin with, and who certainly have no idea that their faces appear in this videotape.)

Despite the incredibly varied nature of the material presented in it, the videotape elicits very predictable responses, such as All this came from the Internet? and I had no idea there were so many webcams in the world! and I had no idea that so much of the world was on camera! No doubt these responses lead to superficial insights, such as It's a small world after all and the Internet is making it smaller every day and Everything is becoming the same all over the world.

What else is one supposed to think? focus shifts away: lighting speed of refreshing images duration of the sequences, arbitrary? only ignorance allows this: USA: NJ Calif 24

Contact the Surveillance Camera Players

By e-mail Info@notbored.org

By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998