Literature and Media Series Entry #1


As of 2019, the U.S has more C.C.T.V cameras installed per capita than any other nation. China follows closely behind with what they’ve named ‘Project Skynet’ (yes really, sharing a name with this Skynet) and the U.K is third. This would have taken time: surveillance has been a giant component of our lives even before the internet. My foray into technological existential anxiety and information control began innocently enough with Rear Window: Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 American thriller. Here, James Stewart’s utter DILF of a character busts a domestic murderer living across from him by spying from his window and sending his girlfriend over to retrieve evidence. This flick paints pre-sci-fi surveillance as a heroic and lawful thing – maybe that dastardly wife-killer would have gotten away with it were it not for a meddling journalist with a broken leg being bed-bound literally metres away from him with a pair of binoculars! How quaintly these good-intentions age: Grace Kelly had to climb up a ladder, through a window and nearly get trapped in order to unearth someone's secrets. Now such a stunt would be absolutely redundant: people leave their secrets online to be found in breadcrumb trails - or, if they don't, the government can just take a peek whenever they wish. And you won't even hear a knock on the door.


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