WhatYouSee

In our image-obsessed society, we expect to see cameras everywhere. We see ourselves on CCTV monitors in stores, cameras point at us on the street, we even see signs warning us that a camera is about to take our picture. Whether we want it to, or not. Photography without permission. Then I became aware of the surveillance cameras in my own home, the ones that show up constantly in movies and television shows. These photographs from WhatYouSee are shot directly off my television screen. News shows, crime dramas, we might expect to see a surveillance camera there, but they are more pervasive than that. Comedies, science fiction, hospital dramas, even The Simpsons, all seem to be including these cameras as part of the show, part of the set design. Sometimes the cameras are even framed in a close-up, the hero shot, a character in the stories of our times. The media is normalizing surveillance. And the more we see those cameras, the less we pay attention. Because it’s natural. Get used to it.