Two spaghetti monsters go eyeballs to eyeballs

spag

If you take a bit of a spin through the Square Mile in London, you will be filmed every centimetre of the way, and it’s not even that interesting.

The whole place is packed with CCTV cameras. They’re everywhere… not as concentrated as the British Railway Stations, (where dozens of them cling to the poles like birds of prey) but The City is CCTV central.

The implication… “we can see you but you can’t see us”. It’s an unblinking black eye… or a million black eyes with wires spaghettiing back into… if not a police-state, then the police-part of the state. It’s things going on behind closed doors. It’s fear. It’s Big Brother… the sensory omnipresence of opaque hierarchy. This is the symbol of modern hierarchical power – it’s the lens of a CCTV camera.

Well I’ve got bad news for you Sunshine.

Check this out:

Especially about 2 minutes in.

Notice something?

Fucking EVERYONE has a camera.

The implication : Every single lens is a direct line to the web. It’s the sensory omnipresence of the universal mind… and isn’t hidden, it’s wide open to the world and it’s watching.

The lens of a CCTV camera is an opaque threat – there’s no way of knowing what’s at the other end. The lens of a human-held camera is fundamentally, qualatatively different – we all know exactly what’s on the receiving end… It’s the web. It’s youtube. It’s millions, billions of people – creating what Robert Axlerod describes as “The Shadow of the Future”… it’s what Mike Wesch likens to Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”. It’s the world. It’s us.

So there it is. It’s hierarchy vs network again – the defining conflict of the era… and although The Black Spaghetti Monster has violence and secrecy on it’s side… man, it is so much smaller than The Blue Spaghetti Monster.

We are big.

So you behave yourself because we’re watching.


No Comments » for Two spaghetti monsters go eyeballs to eyeballs
9 Pings/Trackbacks for "Two spaghetti monsters go eyeballs to eyeballs"
  1. […] obviously, off the back of the small rant-ette about The Internet being The Blue Spaghetti Monster, I found these rather fab chandeliers that someone in England […]

  2. […] Two spaghetti monsters go eyeballs to eyeballs […]

  3. […] a bit of a fuss going on in England at the moment because The Black Spaghetti Monster wants to make it illegal to film the police, at exactly the same time as The Blue Spaghetti monster […]

  4. […] is what things would look like if The Black Spaghetti Monster started behaving like The Blue Spaghetti […]

  5. […] wikis, blogs, VoIP and APIs. To finish in style with a little mashup, Nick Taylor’s recent quote is spot on: “It’s hierarchy vs. network again – the defining conflict of the era.” […]

  6. […] a great article about Sousveillance here – the universal panopticon, and The Blue-Spaghetti Monster that I was on about earlier. Little brother looking back up the hierarchy… which is one of […]

  7. […] UAV has been shot down over an Israeli Nuke Station. Welcome to the 20-teens. The war of the spaghetti monsters is on. Social […]

  8. […] Here Here Here Here and Here […]

  9. […] panopticon just took a massive swing (in fact probably THE massive swing), in favour of The Blue Spaghetti Monster. Bottom up […]