103 // MSN2 / Research / Map of Surveillance
While reading the novum design magazine, I came across this interesting project by two young designers. A simple, reduced design, a strong and significant statement and an interesting interactive installation. Have a look:
“The Surveillance Map of the World”
by Raul Mandru and Tim Gatzky
The surveillance of people and instances of encroachment into private data are constantly on the rise – be it through video surveillance of public buildings or entire cities as a measure to prevent crime, or in shops to prevent shoplifting; be it through collecting and sharing personal data on the Internet, or last but not least in the form of scanning and storing a person’s biometric data including fingerprints in his or her passport.
The portable and interactive installation “Surveillance Map of the World” gives not only an example, but a real experience of how much surveillance of our everyday life is actually conducted. Users navigate with their mobile phones on a projected world map consisting of thousands of pictograms taken from bird’s eye views. The pictograms symbolise satellites, computers and shopping carts, as well as the Patriot Act signed into law by US President Bush after 11 September 2001. The density of the pictograms at different points on the map reflects the level of surveillance that individual countries have reached. Based on data collected by the Privacy International NPO, the installation allows the user to make worldwide comparisons, and thus turns users into surveillants themselves – an experience that becomes intensively real when users click on their present location and see themselves in real time.
