EMMA DYASON

In 1967, the American writer Richard Brautigan wrote a short poem entitles ‘All watched over by Machines of loving Grace.’ The poem accounts that humans live in harmony with technology, where technology is both a loving and caring gaze. However, I suggest that this is not the case in reality. 
 

Our society is heavily reliant on technology and social media, which claims to provide connectivity around the world. However, with an estimated 5.9 million CCTV cameras in England (which works out as 1 camera per 11 people) we are now being monitored in such a way that few would recognise as part of a healthy democratic society. This work aims to challenge the current state of mass surveillance that attacks the perceived sense of privacy we all feel we have, and draw attention to how personal surveillance occurs in our physical and virtual/online everyday lives.