Shadow Witness: Surveillance and the camera

In Gretchen Garner's book, Disappearing Witness: Change in 20th Century American Photography, she talks about the camera's role initially as a spontaneous witness - out on the streets observing the world and reporting back. She states, this style "emphasized chance, alert presence in the real world and quick response" and was dominant in most types of photography. But in the 60's there was a shift in American photography towards "increasing control," and more "private concerns." A style she refers to as the disappearing witness. This idea also relates to John Szarkowski's exhibition, "Mirrors and Windows," which was a metaphor for either photographs that were "windows" looking out on the world, or "mirrors" looking inward.

But there is another style of photography. For lack of a better term, I will call it the shadow witness. The most obvious aspect of this style is the growing presence of surveillance cameras in public and private spaces. At this point they are so common, it would be foolish to assume that cameras were not recording activities in most businesses and on the streets of many densely populated metropolitan areas.

The most recent case of the shadow witness is an investigation into the Pennsylvania school district that was allegedly spying on high school students through their required, school-issued, laptop's webcam. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that -  nearly 56,000 images that included photos of students, pictures inside their homes and copies of the programs or files running on their screens, district investigators have concluded.

But I would like to turn this in a couple of other directions also.

Now that cell phones have cameras, and video cameras are so cheap (and even come on cell phones), it has become common to expect that every little thing be captured by someone at an event. The most recent  incident occured at the protest outside the Capitol when a health care reform opponent spat on Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II of Missouri. The veracity of the report was immediately called into question, because there were no pictures posted to the internet. Once a reward of 15K was offered a video quickly surfaced. (incident at 1:23)

Other aspects include: the popularity of reality shows, the early TV show - "Candid Camera," confessional interviews, TV trials, etc..

At a concert recently, I was struck by how many people watched the concert through their cell phone display. The shadow witness uses the camera to watch.

Perhaps the most interesting artist to look at regarding this idea is the French conceptual artist, Sophie Calle. In one of her earliest pieces, "The Hotel," she worked as a hotel maid for a year and photographed the objects found in rooms while she was cleaning. In the body of work, "La Filature - The Shadow." from 1981, Calle asked her mother to hire a private detective to follow her and provide photographic proof of her existence.  Calle's work continues to explore the boundaries of personal and private space, and remains challenging. In 2007, she became the darling of the Venice Biennale with a piece about her boyfriend dumping her by email.

...she distributed the missive to 107 women professionals, photographed them reading it and invited them to analyse it, according to their job. The ex's grammar and syntax have been torn apart by a copy editor, his manners rubbished by an etiquette consultant and his lines pored over by Talmudic scholars...    - Guardian UK

The women's responses were photographed and presented as large scale prints in an installation that also included video projections. (embedded viddie above)

So while reading Garner's book, I've also been thinking about this other type of witness that is becoming prevalent in our culture, and the role the camera plays.