In George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four people are watched constantly by "Big Brother," a name for the State. Infractions against the rules are seen and noted. The guilty party is punished. When Orwell wrote this futuristic novel, such technology did not exist, or was not in common use. Readers of the book would think the notion of being watched constantly was not possible. Yet this has come to be. When people think they are being watched it is not necessarily paranoia. Bruce Robbins would include this in his notion of the "sublime," a technology that is so far-reaching and seemingly everywhere that it ultimately beggars comprehension: where does the surveillance by the State, or private citizens for that matter, leave off. For a better understanding of the surveillance camera in Sammy's world we need to look at when they were introduced and why in Great Britain.
Video surveillance using technology began in the late 1960s. Through the 1970s and 1980s , video surveillance systems used VCR tapes that frequently had to be changed as they became full. In the 1990s, however, video surveillance switched to digital video recording (DVR) in which information is recorded and stored digitally. Three are no tapes to change. Through the 70s and 80s, the retail sector became full of surveillance cameras. Until the mid-80s in Britain, however, the use of surveillance publically was somewhat limited. In 1985 in Britain, the first large scale space surveillance was created in Bournemouth. This idea was very slow in spreading until, in 1993, the kidnapping of a toddler from a shopping center was caught on surveillance cameras. The boy has subsequently been murdered by his 10 year old kidnappers. The crime, being high profile and age of the killers making it "sensational,' this footage his kidnapping was played over and over again on television. The forces of rising crime and public anxiety then coupled with government funding caused an enormous increase in public video surveillance systems. This would have been the situation when How Late it Was, How Late was written. The sudden bourgeoning of the surveillance state. Certainly, having just started spreading so rapidly, one can understand there being much suspicion and anxiety about being watched all the time.
The first time that Sammy, the main protagonist in How Late it Was, How Late encounters a video camera--or thinks he does--in the book is when he is thrown in a jail cell after having been "straightened [...] out" by the police (sodjers). He was 'bursting for a piss." He urinated in a pail in the jail cell. Unfortunately, partly because he was "trembling like fuck," he urinated on the floor. At that point "he imagined the sodjers watching him on VTR, notebook in hand: 'peed the floor.'" Sammy wiped up the mess. He thought to himself, or the narrator thought for him, "he hadnay reached that fucking stage." Subsequent to this episode, throughout the book, Sammy is not overly concerned with cleaning up after himself or even bathing. What was it about being viewed on the VTR, real or imagined, that motivated him to clean up the urine? It seems that it was the remnants of pride, or at least, self-esteem. He did not want the police watching him to think that he was the kind of person who would urinate on the floor and not clean it up. This is ironic as throughout the book he does not seem overly concerned with what people think of him. His motivation was to appear as something he was not, something he wanted to be.
In the previous instance Sammy was not yet blind, though he would be shortly. After he had become blind, he needs to use and elevator. The paranoia of being watched starts when Sammy says, "this is fucking lovely!" when he gets on the elevator and coughs to cover up he fact that he had spoken out loud. He figures the elevator is "probably fucking bugger man know what I'm talking about, or else a VCR, probably there was a VCR" and fears "that security cunt was sitting watching him right this very minute, having a week laugh to himself cause Sammy was talking and there was naybody there. Aye fuck you he said and moved his head around, Fuck you." It's odd that Sammy is so concerned immediately after speaking, and that he's so paranoid since he didn't say anything that would be a problem if anyone was indeed watching. Sammy has this odd fear of being judged and just verbally lashed out whenever he feels like it--he says "fuck you" in his thoughts and out loud. Why would he be so defensive/scared about this?
Why would this be the case. It seems only when he thinks that a surveillance camera or an audio "bug" is monitoring him that he is concerned with his actions. This may be explained by the possibility that has projected a "power" on the electronic devices--the ever present eye--that watches and records his actions. Human eyes do not bother him. It is his awe of the electronics, the "sublime," and his thinking of the seemingly endless potential of where the films of him will go--a record of his life that he fears will be shameful if observed. Human eyes are finite, the world of recorded surveillance is infinite.
Amanda Alers
Nikki Darrow
Wayne Alber
The world can now record everything and keep it forever. It's as data collection has entered the world of the sublime; all of our lives have risen up into the atmosphere and billions of words orbit the earth in the black sky. Outer space in all its infinity is the ultimate sublime thought -- and now the infinitesimal parts of our lives have become linked to infinity. How do we truly understand the concept of the sublime in sweatshops or in space? Infinite space was always a brain buster, but now with the globalization of everything here on earth it seems that anything can have a sublime aspect to it. We were once in awe of stars that are millions of light years from us even though we can see them from our backyards, now the globalization of commerce is triggering a similar reaction in our brains -- it's just too much for us. Better to just boil water in the teakettle or lie in a hammock in the backyard -- that we can understand and control.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting approach to the idea of the "sweatshop sublime" from Robbins' article. As I agree with the interpretation of the "surveillance state" as being problematic for Sammy and many citizens in the world today, I can't help but recall a past commercial for Coke (link at end of comment) that broadcasted surveillance cameras in a different light and also calls to mind the idea of the "sweatshop sublime." This commercial shows people being caught on camera doing positive things, like "stealing kisses" and "dealing" potato ships to homeless people. This shows the kindness in the world and the commercial asks viewers to "think of the world differently."
ReplyDeleteHowever, the ability of this commercial to successfully present this message of "change" for the world relies on the universality of the product itself, in this case Coca Cola. Brands that are internationally known have more ability to inspire and promote change around the world because of the globalization of world. Even if we do not think of it along the lines of a world power, the Coke corporation is world wide and has a bigger clientele than an organization like the UN, which creates a perfect platform for change and understanding throughout the world. So even if drinking a Coke doesn't make you want to fight equality and peace throughout the world, it has a better job of cluing a consumer into what happening in the world than a government speech on CNN or Fox. How's that for "subliminal" advertising, Robbins?
Link for the commercial: (Don't hold back your happy, little tears of joy for your restored faith in humanity after watching)
http://www.wimp.com/colacameras/
I enjoy thinking of Sammy's elevator outburst in this context, it provides us with an alternate take than anything we discussed in class. Perhaps he is acting out against the state, as Christina mentioned. Sammy is reacting to the fact that he cannot escape the sublime technology. I know that London is covered in surveillance cameras but this state of constant surveillance has yet to achieve any measurable effect on the crime rate. Sammy is afraid then of an ineffectual sublime, a sublime technology that has not proven capable of achieving what it was made for.
ReplyDeleteOh here's a link to an article talking about the CCTV effects on crime rates.
Deletehttp://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1
Sammy is definitely sensitive to being surveiled (or at least to imaging being surveiled), as we see in the two scenes that you discuss. I don't think though that this stops with electronic surveliance though. I think that he is constantly aware of how is perceived by others. When we first meet him in the alley he is concerned about the way in which the "business men/investors" will imagine him based upon his appearance. He also avoids the pub for some time because of the way that he thinks that people will treat him when they see that he is blind. When he finally goes to the pub he is conscious of the way that people[ercive him and imagines them loking at him. This seems like a more justifiable imagining than his thoughts about the security camera. We know that one has a factual counterpart; the others, although likely, are not certain. Even Sammy's attempts to be reclassified at the job office are attempts at altering the way in which he is perceived; he wants to change his status within the system so that he will properly fit into it and be seen for what he is so that nothing more will be expected of him. In this instance he attempts not only to conform to the rules but buys into them on the level of his being seen in order to use them to his advantage.
ReplyDeleteThe connection that Amanda, Nikki and Wayne draw between electronic surveillance and the seeming "infinity" of global economic networks is really promising and provocative. If that's the case, then quite literally everything is "on the network" and we wonder whether or where there could possibly be space to "boil the kettle and lie in a hammock," as Sandra puts it. That is, is "private" space and the autonomous self that resides within it a relic of a past mode of labor and governance? I find Christina's Coke commercial really fascinating in this regard because it seems to be casting this new "totally networked" style of life as full of positive, even humanistic, possibilities. It seems to celebrate total networked surveillance as a means of opening up a shared humanity rather than infringing upon private space and lives. In other words, if economic "globalization" is indeed part of a paradigm shift in the concept of the subject in general, then we would have to see surveillance as something different too--a way of possibly mapping and apprehending the world in the manner of cast consumer networks and markets rather than an infringement upon individual private lives (which don't have much of a place in the "networks" anyway--of which Sammy's total openness to the tides of post-industrial Glasgow and neoliberal Britain are case in point).
ReplyDeleteI find the camera aspect fascinating! I love that you brought in 1984 as a means to introduce the surveillance state. 1984 is about social control and as this scene in the elevator shows, Sammy is clearly concerned with social judgment. He imagines being viewed by stuffy people in a room, but more importantly he is concerned with being laughed at. As Jeremy points out, Sammy's hesitation in going to the bar is about the manner in which he will be received. Jeremy wrote that he's anxious about the "way that people will treat him when they see that he is blind." That comment just made me think about "seeing" that he is blind because it's a fascinating juxtaposition. Sammy is blind and cannot properly assess social situations because he cannot pick up on any body language, but others can see his blindness, and they can see his outbursts because of his discomfort with his blindness. In the context of a surveillance camera, Sammy can't survey anything, realistically, Sammy can't even tell if he is being watched. Sammy is then an excellent example of the sublime because not only can we as a whole society NOT comprehend the massive surveillance that is constantly happening, but Sammy can't even recognize that he is being watched. He relies on this feeling of anxiety to be cued in on whether or not he is in a situation in which he can potentially be watched, but he never truly knows. This makes me think that none of us can ever truly know if we are being watched, and more so we can never truly know what or how we are connected. By watching society so that social conduct can be regulated internally, as you pointed out by connecting both "pride" and "self-esteem" to Sammy's urination, then society can be controlled through surveillance because we do not want to be embarrassed by actions that we may have previously done while being watched. People can then be held accountable for their actions as their actions are always being recorded. I think that this goes beyond the scope of Robbin's article because as he talks about pushing our minds out far enough to attempt to understand large scale global operations only to feel overwhelmed and pull our minds back into the immediate object, the surveillance camera allows us to propel our actions into the scope of all society only to pull this comprehension back internally and adjust our behaviors as to not reflect poorly upon "all society" or rather, as not to have our self-esteem effected negatively because of this large scale surveillance operation.
ReplyDeleteI too like your 1984 reference. Because at its core, How Late, How Late is essentially a novel about social control. Just how much of a victim Sammy is to the system he cannot escape is a mystery, but we know he is victimized in the novel, and there is every reason to believe he had been previously victimized. Sammy's socioeconomic state is unfortunately very complex, and we are presented with very limited information (all from Sammy's perspective) regarding his socioeconomic state, but we know it's bad.
ReplyDeleteI also think both novels have in common a thread of dystopianism. Obviously 1984 is very intentionally dystopian, but How Late, How Late is almost accidental in how it is dystopian, as if it is an accident of perspective--that Sammy's world is dystopian, but everyone else's around him is relatively normal.