Reading

Reflectionism and Diffusionism : New tactics for Deconstructing the Video Surveillance Superhighway by Steve Mann

This reading left me with mixed feelings. It reminded me about the movie Minority Report and also about something that Scott Bukatman had said – “The body must become a cyborg to retain its presence in the world, resituated in technological space and reconfigured in technological terms. Whether this represents a continuation, a sacrifice, transcendence, or a surrender of "the subject" is not certain.”
This in a way does define the change that we are experiencing due to the penetration of technology to such a large extent in our lives. And somehow I have never felt threatened by the presence of cameras around me except in toilets and in my room. Especially in this country where, with just the social security number any kind of information can be obtained, the boundaries that define privacy are getting blurred. While the author’s theories of reflectionism and difussionism are both strong reactions to the existing use of camera and video surveillance, I hope that these find better use than just as means of getting back to the system that I believe maybe using it to protect the citizen body.
However the idea of monitoring our protectors seem seems like a great solution for the corrupt and lazy officers that I have seen in developing countries. Something like this has to be implemented there to keep the officers on their toes especially since bureaucracy and red-tapism is so largely prevalent there.
Among the various projects, it was the wearcam - “Cyborgian Primitive“ was something that caught my attention the most. I am currently looking up the other works that the author has done in the same direction based on the references that he has mentioned in the article.