Kien / Postmodern Qualitative Inquiry Gargoyles 10.

1177/1077800406286232

Postmodern Gargoyles, Simulated Power Aesthetics

Grant Kien
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign

Qualitative Inquiry Volume 12 Number 4 August 2006 681-703 2006 Sage Publications 10.1177/1077800406286232 http://qix.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com

This work incorporates a camera as participant in the showing of experiences of surveillance, exploring some effects of defining power as the circulation of signifiers. This techno-ethnographic piece moves through numerous spaces, documenting how myth and aesthetics are experienced and play in everyday life, inducing performances that ultimately appear to stabilize and further legitimate a globally reaching network of surveillance. Keywords: surveillance technology; aesthetics; power; panopticism; simula-cra; everyday life

uthors such as Baudrillard (1994, 2002), Virilio (1986, 2002), DyerWitheford (1999), and Hardt and Negri (2001) have theorized power in the contemporary global situation as the circulation of signifiers. In terms of national and international security, this means creating and maintaining the appearance of authority and control, even if the signifiers of power might often be pure simulacra. Contemporary power functions aesthetically, working cultural myths and manipulating personal fears. Panopticism is now our commonplace everyday experience. Is anyone actually there watching us through all those cameras, or is our Big Brother of (inter)national security yet another myth given form through an illusive but ubiquitous aesthetic? Incorporating elements of autoethnography, performance ethnography, technical reporting, and photo essay, this article exemplifies a methodology of technography from a qualitative communications research approach. Taking seriously the Latourian perspective that technological devices function as actants in the social actor-network (Latour, 1992), this work exemplifies the experience of surveillance camera technology by incorporating the program and cultural tracings of the aesthetic of contemporary surveillance cameras into its narrative. The camera is a participant in the telling of itself, exploring the simulacra of aesthetic power by turning the camera onto other cameras as Steve Mann puts it, surveilling the surveillersrevealing contemporary

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myths about the aesthetics of control and an equally mythologized historical precedent for the contemporary surveillance aesthetic. Perhaps what appears to be new is not a new cultural phenomenon at all. From an apartment block lobby to a gym, to a stadium, and even to the heavens in the form of satellite surveillance, this technography questions the authenticity of an authority based on the aesthetics of fear and control and hearkens back to a bygone era when a phenomenologically similar kind of power aesthetics also had cultural currency. DEVICE: RADIOSHACK 49-2569 LOCATION: LOBBY, 308 NORTH PRAIRIE ST. Do you think theyre real? I ask suspiciously. My neighbor Enrique looks puzzled for a moment and replies, Why else would they put them there? . . . They have that light flashing . . . I think they must be working. . . . I think for a second and toss off an I dont know . . . I just wonder. . . . I glance again up into the top corner of our apartment lobby and ponder the flashing red LED beside the lens of the surveillance camera. If they are fake, they did a good job. . . . Where would they put the rest of the equipment? I envision the laundry room housing a locked cabinet full of electronic surveillance equipment, or possibly the utility room where I believe the cable TV and telephone wiring runs into the building. I imagine our buildings maintenance person peering into a large metal cabinet stacked with TV monitors and other electronic gadgetry. I think they just put them there to protect the furniture, I hypothesize. Im referring to the recent makeover of our lobby: New beige paint, the black and white marble floor restored and polished, a new Oriental-style red rug to replace the worn grey mat that used to run from the front door to the elevator, an original oil painting and new framed mirror, new wooden furniture to replace the broken castoff sofa and card table set I had grown accustomed to, and the finishing touch . . . fake trees in the corners to add some green. Altogether, it constructs a perfect simulation of a living roomall thats missing is a TV and, of course, some people. The new building owner had wasted no time in his mission to gentrify

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our historic building (which used to just mean it was kind of run-down), having undertaken this lobby transformation within a week of taking possession of the property. The grand finale is the pair of surveillance cameras nested high up in opposing corners of the room to witness the drama of people quietly passing through this space 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, the furniture is chained to the wall . . . I mention, having previously noticed thin chains running from the furnitures legs to bolts in the walls. I guess they dont trust us! Ha ha . . . like were gonna steal the lobby furniture. . . . I laugh, but think to myself, Thats not such a bad idea. . . . Its definitely a lot nicer than the crap I have sitting up in my apartment. Enrique bids me good night as the elevator arrives and I head up the stairs to the next floor with my bicycle in tow. I enter my one-room apartment and look at my ramshackle furniture. The drawling words of the maintenance man from earlier in the week run through my head: You know, he told me he spent eightthousand dollars just for the furniture for this lobby. . . . Fuck! I say out loud to my empty room, Hes gonna fuckin jack the rent up and force my poor ass outta here. . . . That fucking ASSHOLE. . . . I take a seat at my desk and turn my attention to my computer screen. * * * Im in the laundry room waiting the last few minutes for the washer to finish spinning so I can put my clothes in the dryer. Morning sunlight fights its way through the dirty basement window, supplementing the stale fluorescent lighting. Everything in the room is filthy. My gaze wipes over the wall of gas meters on the north wall of the room, over to the dirty boiler tank that takes up the better part of the northeast corner. I look up to the ceiling and notice there are a lot of wires running along the open beams. I notice some of them are coaxial cable, like what, for example, a video camera feed would use. A couple of the wires look fairly new. I follow the routes of a couple of wires as best I can, adjusting my vantage point to try to determine if any of them actually enter from the lobby on the other side of the north wall. Try as I might, I cant determine whether or not any of the coaxial cable enters the room from that direction. The washer finishes winding down, and I switch back from playing private eye to laundry man. * * * What the hell . . . I mumble to myself, Might as well try it out. . . . I finish my thought internally. Its early afternoon. Ive just retrieved my mail from the box in the hallway beside the lobby. I should find out what eightthousand dollar furniture feels like, I tell myself, taking a seat in one of the cushioned chairs and setting the envelopes in my hand on the coffee table. Its

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pretty comfortable, even though it looks like it wouldnt be. I read my unremarkable mail, then sit back in the chair a little more restfully. I look over the lobby, taking in each object in its turn. I think about my conversation with Enrique the other night. A perfect ethnographic moment, I think to myself, turning over the idea of doing an autoethnography of the drawn-out dispossession of my apartment that I believe will be the inevitable outcome of the new owners gentrification project. I look at the empty chairs across from me, then up at the strategically directed camera surveilling the room from the southwest corner. I get up and sit in the other cushioned chair for a few minutes, then cross the room to try the naked hardwood chairs. I reach out and finger some of the fake tree leaves. My gaze travels up to the other camera in the northeast corner. I stand, walk directly up to the camera, and examine it closely, trying to determine if the lens is real. The flashing LED tells me there is some kind of program at work here. I look at the white coaxial cable coming out the back of the camera and note that it begins with a standard connection. I follow it to the base of the mount where it terminates from view through a snug hole. I wonder how they could route the wiring without doing some kind of major carpentry, I wonder silently. Maybe its wireless . . . I speculate. Wheres it powered from? Have I seen a camera like this before? I think back to the fake camera that used to hang in the corner of the store below my old apartment on Bloor Street in Toronto. I summon up the image, But that one was really obviously fake. . . . This one is different. I read the words RadioShack. I pick up my mail and go back up to my apartment for some lunch. * * * Shit. . . . It doesnt matter at all. . . . There isnt any such thing as privacy anywhere anymore anyway. I cynically dismiss my friends voiced fear of being penetrated by surveillance. I continue, Youre only fooling yourself if you think theres any such thing as privacy anymore. . . . I mean, so what if they put cameras in the lobby of my apartment building, you know, its not like theyre gonna stop anyone from doing whatever they want anyway. My

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friend isnt convinced. She says, Well, even if thats true, Id just as soon not know about it. Yeah, I hear you, I reply, But you know, for me Id rather know about it so Im not living with some kind of delusion of privacy . . . like, even if I know its there, I still act the same. . . . And shit . . . Im not doing anything wrong anyway, nothing at all! . . . So screw them, know what I mean? You know, there are satellite photos of your building ONLINE! Anyone who wants to look at it can find it anyway. . . . She pauses thoughtfully. Yeah, I know what youre saying, she tells me, But I still dont want to know about it. * * * Seated in my favorite red rocking chair, I perch my laptop on my legs and type www.radioshack.com into the browser. I find the catalog link, then click on the cameras link. I look first through the indoor selection, unable to find the right specimen, and then turn my attention to the outdoor list. Ive almost given up, but the very last entry proves fruitfulIm looking at a picture and description of the cameras in my lobby. Ha HA! I gleefully exclaim. The information tells me its called an Indoor/Outdoor Simulated Security Camera, and it sells for $19.99. Simulated security! I chortle to myself, Yeah, thats about all there is eh . . . I mutter in the silence of my apartment. Im delighted to read the red writing stating that the item is out of stock. Shiiiiit . . . Simulated security is popular in the U.S. these days! I laugh to myself, imagining armies of fake security cameras all over the United States, pretending to monitor fake living rooms just like the ones in the lobby downstairs. I think about the aesthetic of authority, about the newly installed cameras at the U.S. immigration counters I saw the last time I came back to the USA from my home in Toronto, their single eyes craning at the ends of their long slender mounts like a flock of geese. They didnt take my picture that time either, at least not that I knew about. God damn . . . I gotta write about this . . . I decide, Maybe do like a photo-essay or something. . . . I find a reason to take a break from my other work and use my new favorite digital device. On my laptop, I frame and snap a screen shot of the RadioShack page.

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* * * Im befuddled . . . staring at the simulated security camera in amazement. I look across the lobby from one to the other. Someone has actually turned the fake cameras up toward the ceiling. Wow . . . fake subversion! I cant believe how this simulacra is playing out as a lived paranoid experience. I cant imagine what anyone could possibly be doing in the lobby that they would feel so threatened by a camera even if it were real. Holding my small Olympus 3.2 megapixel camera in one hand, with the other I reach up and straighten out the fake camera. The bright afternoon sun streams into the lobby. Lets see what these things arent looking at . . . I joke to my camera, holding it up in front of the RadioShack lens, aiming it with approximately the same field of vision as I think the surveillance camera would have if it were real. Ive decided to make it my job to document these fake aesthetics of authority, to unveil the hoax of the surveillance simulacra by employing Steve Manns methodology: to surveille the surveillers (Mann & Niedzviecki, 2001). I snap a couple of pictures from the vantage point of the southwest simulated camera, then take a picture of the device itself, its red LED flashing in what I now know is a purely aesthetic psychological performance, signifying only peoples private fears of penetration. Good . . . I think to myself with satisfaction, viewing the image Ive just captured, I caught it with the LED lit. I cross the room to repeat my simulated subversive performance with the other camera. I take a seat on one of the cushioned chairs on the northern wall and review the pictures Ive just snapped. I mentally note that the fake cameras mainly observe one anotherthey work as a team, a fake relationship staged in this fake living space with real plastic trees. I snap a couple of pictures of the space the

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simulated security cameras protect and keep safe, even while I know thats just an excuseas Id earlier speculated with Enrique, the real intent is obviously to make us tenants think twice about stealing the painting off the wall, or the rug, or whatever. I cross the lobby to sit across from my previous location and snap a couple more pictures. I notice I can see myself in the mirror across from me. Its probably the only picture of a body in this space Ill ever take, I muse to myself, and try out a few poses until Im satisfied with the way Ive framed myself in the mirror. I realize Ive suddenly become obsessed with exposing the emptiness of the signifiers of surveillance. Camera in hand, I head outside, walk into the middle of the northwest intersection, and look up at the sunny sky. I see only some scattered clouds performing their whispy animation in front of the clear blue backdrop overhead, but I know there is something more up there out of my range of vision. I aim my camera directly overhead and extend the 3x optical zoom. I snap a couple of pictures. Whatever satellites are there are in the photos, even if I cant actually see them, I think to myself. Reentering the lobby, I notice for the first time that the cushioned chairs have a map printed on them. Looking closer, I see its an early colonial map, referencing a historical national imagi-

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nary that is supposed to . . . what?? . . . make up for the newness of the furniture by lending some sort of authenticity to this simulated living room? I recall the words in the RadioShack catalog: Flashing indicator light provides an authentic operational look. The need for hooks over operational tells all. Command and control, I think to myself, Make it a conceptually dominated space. . . . I think about Innis, political control across distance, portable media, and Headricks (2000) book about the evolution of mapping and all the politics attached to that history. I snap a couple of pictures of the chairs fabric and go back up to my apartment. Back upstairs in my favorite red rocking chair, I go to the Terraserver site, find Champaign, Illinois, and zoom in to view my rooftop just north of Westside park. I take a screen shot of what the satellite sees, noticing that this is a pretty old picture already and that there must be a lot better information in the servers at the Pentagon. I remember reading somewhere that theyve scanned the entire surface of the earth in laser-imaged 3D topography. I search for better satellite photos, looking at weather sites and doing keyword searches in Google, but I cant find anything with better magnification. Turning back to the Terraserver, I try to find my apartment in Toronto, but there arent any satellite images of Canada available through that tool. I try looking at a couple of other countriesCuba, Mexico, Chinawith the same result. Only the USA is publicly available online in satellite imagery. Huh . . . I say to my computer as I fold it up and put it aside. I get ready to go out, packing my backpack to go to the gym.

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DEVICE: CELL PHONE CAMERA LOCATION: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANACHAMPAIGN, INTRAMURAL PHYSICAL EDUCATION (IMPE) BUILDING Im now totally obsessing over the surveillance issue. Its been three days since I took the pictures in my lobby, and I cant get the idea to leave my head. Inflaming my passion, on my last visit to the gym I noticed a sign at the entrance of the mens change room that says, The use of cellular phones is PROHIBITED in this area, the word prohibited written in bright red. I assume this is their way of dealing with the cellphone porn phenomenon, but I cant help being amused by their choice of wording. It doesnt say anything about prohibiting the use of cameras at all. Its now Tuesday evening. As I approach the building, I take my Olympus ally out of my backpack and put it into my coat pocket. I pass through the front desk swipe card process without any problems and head purposefully downstairs to the mens change room. Passing through the door, I stop for a moment, pull out my ready camera, and snap a couple of pictures of the no cell phones sign. I put the camera back in my pocket before anyone sees what Ive done. As I stroll toward my locker, I suddenly recollect something Celiany once told me: I HATE doing exercises there in IMPE. . . . They have that CAMERA on you, and I just think, Oh my god . . . someone is WATCHING me! I dont recall seeing a surveillance camera in IMPE, but I resolve there and then to go and investigate. First, I obediently turn my cell phone off and put it in my backpack, which in turn I hang inside my locker. Still wearing my big winter parka with fur around the hood, I head back out of the change room with my right hand inside the pocket clutching my camera. DEVICE: VICON V8600H LOCATION: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANACHAMPAIGN, IMPE BUILDING I roam the halls of the Intramural Physical Education building, up one level, down another, peering into whatever open or darkened spaces I can, scanning for telltale glass bubbles or strangely placed mirrors. My eyes are

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pointed upward, with special attention to the upper corners. Im scouring the building for cameras. Walking down hallways, around mysterious turns, through the exercise areas, around the pool areaI start to sweat because of my parka, but I cant take it off because Im using it to hide my Olympus friend in the pocket, as if my suffering proves Im on a serious covert mission of some sort. My right hand, clutching the device inside the pocket, is damp with perspiration. For some reason, Im unquestioningly convinced I should keep the camera hidden, even though outside of the exercise rooms and courts the building is almost deserted. More important, I dont have any luck finding any cameras either, so who is going to notice even if I were to walk around waving the camera over my head? I try to recall Celianys exact words, try to mentally locate where she might have been exercising that might have a camera installed, but its not in any of the obvious places. Im almost ready to give up, but then I turn a corner down the hall from the mens change room and find myself standing face to face with an overhead lens. I stop short and stare at it for a minute. It doesnt have any flashing lights or anything. I walk around it, looking for the wire, tracing its disappearance into a neat hole in the ceiling. I scope out the cameras surroundings: It surveilles the back doors, which open up to the football stadium behind the IMPE building. I look down the hallway in each direction, then take a picture of the side of the camera, making sure to get the model number clearly in the photo: Vicon V8600H. I take a picture from further back, making sure to get the window into the shot to contextualize the space under surveillance. I stare up at the lifeless-looking machine again and reflect that this camera looks more dead than the simulated security cameras in my lobby. The absence of flashing light deceptively seems to signify the absence of func-

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tion. I take a conceptual step back and think about what this camera surveilles. Like the ones in my building, it monitors a pedestrian traffic area, but here there are no fake trees or empty furniture, nothing but stark brick walls and windows through which one can observe nothing but the back of the football stadium. Virilio . . . I say to myself thoughtfully. I think: Control of movement . . . power flows . . . conceptual containment and direction. . . . I wonder to myself, Have I ever even seen these doors open? I decide to look at other places in the building where people enter and exit. Im sweating quite a lot now, but I still wont take off my parka. Camera in pocketed hand, in my wandering Ive located a few more entrances/exits but still havent encountered another surveillance camera. I give up. Im walking through the main entrance area to take the stairs back down to the locker room, but I happen to look back over my shoulder. I stop short. I see another Vicon V8600H staring down from inside a specially designed alcove set above and behind the front desk. I turn and casually sit down on a bench just inside the entrance, looking up at the camera. The two young front desk staff absently swipe student cards without looking at the picture on the ID nor up at the steady stream of young women and men passing facelessly on their way inside. They talk mainly to each other and look from each others faces to the computer screens in front of them. How can I take a picture of this one? I wonder. Sweating profusely, I decide to recess the photo shoot until after my workout. I walk back downstairs, zip the pocket with the camera in it, and finally remove my parka. * * * I boldly walk up behind the staff at the front desk, then stop, turn around and stealthily take out my camera, frame and snap a picture, shift my position, and repeat until I have a few shots of the IMPE lobby camera to choose from. It looks as lifeless to me as the one by the back door. That wasnt so hard, I tell myself, keeping an alert eye on the three faces I see in the glassed inner office less than ten meters away. The front desk staff behind me remain oblivious, talking to each other and mechanistically swiping ID cards. Satisfied, I put the camera in my pocket and turn to leave, but stop for a moment as I pass the front desk. Hey . . . can I ask

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you a kind of strange question? . . . Not waiting for an answer, I continue, Im kind of researching surveillance, and I was just wondering if that camera up there actually works. The two look back over their shoulders where Ive pointed to with my chin. One immediately gets diverted back to swiping ID cards, but the other one tells me that it works. I ask, Oh . . . do you know where the monitors are? I mean, like, does anyone actually ever look at what its recording? The young man says, Yeah, theyre in an office over down the hall there. . . . No one just sits there watching it, but you know . . . its just in case we need it. . . . I ask him innocently, So, like, when might you need it? He answers casually, Oh . . . like, you know, if theres a basketball game or something . . . you know . . . it can get kind of tense sometimes when stuff like that is going on. . . . Ive established a good rapport. So, like, you mean people fight and stuff in here, or what? I ask incredulously. Yeah, youd be surprised how weird people get sometimes . . . I dont know . . . they just do weird shit sometimes . . . especially after basketball games in here. I notice a small group of Black male students with basketballs in their hands hovering around the gym door entrance to the left of the desk, presumably waiting for their turn on the court. I reflect that Ive never seen a Black person working at this front desk. I think to myself, What you meant to say is how weird Black people can get. Out loud I say, Oh . . . OK. . . . Thanks . . . I wont bug you anymore with this, I was just curious. . . . I say, Good night, and turn around to step out into the night. Yeah, good night, he tells me. I reflect that I have almost never witnessed any meaningful interaction between strangers in the IMPE lobby before. * * * Its late Wednesday afternoon. Standing between the back of the football stadium and the IMPE building, I glance through the back door windows at the Vicon camera inside. I turn my attention to the dusk sky, snapping a couple of pictures of the space overhead, wondering if there is a satellite spying on me right now. As I turn my gaze back from the heavens, I notice a domed security camera craning out the top of the stadium. I put my cold hands into the pockets of my jacket. I look through the bars of the stadium gate under the scoreboard looming above me. I think I see a cool shot, so I take out my camera again and try to line up the perspective so the diminishing lines are framed evenly. After snapping a couple of pictures, I turn my attention to the dome cameras I see protruding from various strategic mounts around the stadium. I try counting them but realize there are many I cannot see. I shift my position slightly and begin methodically snapping pictures of the various cameras I can see from my vantage point. My hands are freezing, but I keep working on it. I can see from the dark blue wash in the cameras monitor that

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the sky is too dark to get the results I want, but I keep trying just the same, imagining that I can fix the pictures with Photoshop. After taking about a dozen pictures, I put my camera back in its case inside my backpack and put my gloves back on. It is now almost completely dark outside as I round the building to enter through the front doors and warm up. * * * Vicon V8600H I type into the Google search engine. I get thousands of pages of hits returned to me. I look at the first couple of pages, and arriving at the Vicon company site itself, I see that this is in fact not actually a camera but rather just a tamperproof indoor camera housing. There is no way to tell what camera is inside of it, but this discovery has led me to understand that there are not just armies of various surveillance cameras, there are also countless options when it comes to mounting them: automated swivel mounts, stationary mounts (like the ones in IMPE), smoked/clear/colored enclosures, indoor/outdoor options, hidden/visible options, recessed/surface mount options . . . options to suit almost any aesthetic purpose or environment one can think of. What a freakin huge industry! I think to myself. But then, I realize that this is just the beginning. My tiny search hasnt even begun to touch on police or military surveillance or real espionage. Im overwhelmed with the thought. I type in the keywords out-

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door dome security camera and look through page after page of camera and hardware information. I cant find anything that looks exactly like the domes in the stadium, but after checking through several different sites, I decide they most closely resemble the Panasonic models. I speculate that theyre probably fairly old and hence arent in the catalogs anymore. I find out that the proper descriptors for the stadium cameras are parapet mount outdoor smoked dome surveillance camera. Beyond that, I cant find any more relevant technical information. I pause and reflect for a few minutes. I have no way of finding out the magnification or mobility of these cameras. I cant imagine anyone being able to monitor all of them at the same time, although I do imagine a wall of black and white monitors in which crowds of people anonymously mill past. I imagine security people talking to one another in some kind of authoritative code, staticy voices emanating from walkie-talkies: Pshhht . . . we got a 1025 in sector 4-B . . . Pshht. . . . Pshht . . . roger that . . . we have the subject on camera B-5 . . . continue with subject surveillance . . . Pshhht. . . . I think for a moment, then laugh to myself, Yeah, right . . . as if theyre that organized and professional. These college kids probably dont have a clue what to do when real shit goes down. . . . I think back to the early 90s, sitting in the security room of the HMV music superstore where I used to work in downtown Toronto. I remember the five or six monitors we used to have there and how that room was actually empty most of the time, the security staff being out on the floor pretending to shop for the most part, using the low-tech technique of CD covers for mirrors and talking to each other through walkie-talkies wired through their walkman headphones. I remember them unknowingly take down a guy with a 9mm automatic weapon in the basement of the building. Is stadium security different? I think about the mania Americans have for college football and decide that it must be pretty crazy, especially with all those alcohol-swilling pre-game parking lot tailgate

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parties, but I just cant shake the feeling that it has to be a more amateur operation than what the aesthetics suggest; there just cant be that many trained, professional security people in this small town. I mean, what would they do when there are no games on? They cant possibly survive on just this alone . . . it defies my logic. I decidedly quit thinking about it. WWW.TERRASERVER.COM I type into the browser. I find satellite shots of the IMPE building and football stadium, take a screen shot, then close the browser. Now relaxing on my sofa, I load the pictures Ive taken around the stadium onto my laptop and review my work. As Id guessed, it was too dark. No amount of Photoshop work can rescue the images, so I resolve to be patient and go back on a brighter day, maybe on the weekend. I turn on the TV and focus my attention on the late news, reviewing the daily fiasco in Iraq, and I remember how the Pentagon used to give detailed daily reports on their bombing sorties, displaying maps and detailed photos not unlike those on the Terraserver. The news turns its focus on the most pressing local issue: an online poll being conducted by the University of Illinois asking if they should continue to use the Chief mascot. I spit my indignant rage at the screen: F u c k in g d e m o c r a tic- r a c is t FUCKERS!! I turn the channel and watch one of my favorites: The Antiques Roadshow. (I love the way people pretend theyre more interested in nostalgia than money, and how narratives of authenticity translate into hard cash.) * * * The cool breeze on my face invigorates me, making me feel alive and free this sunny Sunday afternoon. I peddle swiftly on my

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bicycle, glide past the IMPE building around to the side of the football stadium. I ride up the wheelchair ramp to get close to the building. Stopping under the first dome camera I encounter, I take out my camera and take a picture. I methodically work my way down the side of the building, taking pictures of all the dome cameras I can spot. There are at least a dozen on this one side of the building alone. Reaching the end of the building, I turn my camera skyward, snapping a few pictures overhead from where I imagine a satellite might surveille this space. The sun is brilliant, shining dazzlingly while spectacular clouds drift past. Still on my bicycle, I work my way back up to where I began, then coast down the stairs and around the corner to where Id taken pictures the previous week. I snap a couple of shots of the parapet mounted cameras, put my camera away, and head back home to upload them onto my computer.

DEVICE: GARGOYLE LOCATION: CHURCH AT STATE/CHURCH ST., CHAMPAIGN, IL Im walking in the beautiful afternoon sun. The images of the stadium are fresh in my mind. I cant help looking for cameras on every building I pass. I approach the new church at the corner of State and Church, scouring the exterior of this building that Ive passed countless times for telltale glass bubbles. Instead, Im startled by a different type of protuberance. Extending from

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every upper corner of the building is a long reptilian neck supporting a fierce dragonhead. The connection between signifiers is instantaneous: Shit! Postmodern GARGOYLES! I self-consciously say the words to myself, imagining that if anyone is watching me they must think Im crazy. I compare my mental image of the stadium cameras with the gargoyles above me. Only one block from my apartment, I walk quickly through the back alley to retrieve my camera and return to the scene to take several pictures. I think about the similarity of this aesthetic reference to the play on historical authenticity woven into the fabric of the chairs in my lobby. I think about what little Ive heard about gargoylesthat they were used in medieval times to scare evil spirits and invaders from castle walls and buildings. I mull over the meaning of this symbolic connection for me: A mythologized historical precedent for the contemporary aesthetic of power and control through fear . . . protection of buildings with empty signifiers filled by the receiver with their own fears. . . . I continue walking, savoring my new line of thinking about the aesthetics of surveillance. Back in my apartment, I decide I need to find out more, and do some topical research on the Internet. I find that some gargoyles are functional, acting as drain pipes, the typical image of water streaming out of the throat of the stone beast, which is in fact the original meaning of the French word (throat). However, there are several popular myths about gargoyles, and many gargoyles serve no irrigational function. Rather, in their most popular mythical meaning, they are said to scare off would-be intruders. Some legends I read about suggest that at night they can even become animated, launch themselves from their parapet perches, and fly about freely to nocturnally terrorize the citizenry. I find out that there is a difference between a gargoyle,

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which is usually outside on the parapet of a building, and a grotesque, which is similar to a gargoyle but mounted on the insides of buildings near the ceiling. I think about the simulated cameras in my lobby and the interior cameras of the IMPE building. Postmodern grotesques . . . I label the phenomenon. So . . . is this it? I wonder to myself, Is this surveillance simulacra just the recreation of a popular myth? I turn over the connection in my mind, then turn my attention to a more pressing issue for me in terms of my writing schedule: Heideggers (1977, 1996, 2001) philosophy of technology. DEVICE: PREDATOR, UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE LOCATION: AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ, OTHER MILITARIZED AND UNKNOWN SPACES Its late night. Ive been busy working all day and evening. I turn on PBS, looking for my favorite Antiques Roadshow, but instead find a program about air technology used in the invasion of Afghanistan. I flip through the other three channels I can get over the air but end up coming back to where I began. I watch the descriptions of the aircraft and smart armaments that were used to kill lots of Afghani people while at the same time avoiding putting the coalition personnel in any real danger. The obvious Apache helicopters, stealth technology, hellfire missiles, and humanitarian drops are dealt with, the narrator and other characters treating things as if there was ever actually some kind of potential for a concerted resistance against the overwhelming technological superiority of the United States. Finally, almost an honorable mention, the documentary turns its attention to one of the most recent air force developments: the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The documentary focuses on a vehicle called the Predator, which flies by

Kien / Postmodern Gargoyles 699

remote control, primarily surveilling a specific ground area. Although the Predator began as a technology dedicated only to reconnaissance, it has since been adapted to carry a couple of Hellfire smart missiles that can also be deployed by remote control. It is credited with taking out (i.e., killing) several important targets (i.e., people) during opportune moments (i.e., by simply cruising in the air above until there was a clear shot). The people killed could never have known from where the attack came. I think about Virilios (1986, 2002) assessment of the orbital Kosovo war and consider the surprise of how this death is delivered. Is this the same sudden terror invoked by a bombing in an unsuspecting location? The program shows several shots of the Predator taking off, cruising, launching missiles, and landing. Im reminded of a picture I encountered while looking for information about gargoyles: a stone beast coming to life and leaping into the air. I think to myself that the Predator is the equivalent of surveillance cameras coming to life, leaping off their mounts to deliver death to whoever has been marked. I think about the possibility of a fleet of Predators flying over New York City or Chicago surveilling the ground activity, perhaps while there are major sporting events being played, or during important civic gatherings such as New Years Eve. As the program concludes, I flip the channel to catch the end of Third Rock From the Sun, a show about aliens pretending to be human so they can surveille us up close and personal. One of Source: Gargoyles by Michael Parkes. All rights them even pretends to be a reserved. university professor.

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DEVICE: BOOK COVER LOCATION: ICR PUBLISHING OFFICE, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Its afternoon. As usual at this time of day, Im getting drowsy. I glance up absently from my task of creating links to Yahoo Maps driving directions in the Crossroads 2004 Web site and notice that a book called The Surveillance Web watches me work from the shelf over my computer in Norms office. I take it down and place it beside my computer so I can look at it better. I notice the author is Mike McCahill and it was published in 2002. Ive never heard of him before. A picture of a lens stares at me from the cover. I think about the numerous descriptions of wireless microcameras Ive encountered in my surveillance research. I stare back at it, wondering if I will ever look inside it. I begin to fantasize: Maybe it actually contains a camera? Ive never opened it. . . . How do I know it doesnt? Even if I did open it, would I be able to tell? Anyway, it is a nice blue color, so I dont mind looking at it. It sits in front of a lighter blue Leap Frog Explorer globe, an educational toy that dutifully reports facts about the places where it is touched with an electronic pointer. I think again about this seeming coincidence of a lens next to a map. I write these reflections to myself in an e-mail on the eMac I requisitioned last year and send it to myself over the Internet, wondering if it will be intercepted and scanned along the way, or perhaps the eMac will be probed by an espionage program at a later date. I probed it myself a couple of times from other locations, just to see if I could (Im not a good hacker, just curious), but I dont expect any real people to care enough about me to hack my systems personally. I assume surveillance of my activities will be primarily virtual. Even so, I cant help feeling sorry for whoever might someday possibly be assigned to sift through my deluge of unintelligible e-mails and

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tedious serious writings. Its not a question for me; I simply assume that it will someday happen (if it hasnt already) for practical reasons: I write, I travel, I spend a lot of time working with technology, and I have a history of political activism. Its just easier on my psyche to assume it will happen, accept that privacy is as much an aesthetic deception as surveillance, rather than fret about the possibility of losing the fantasy of privacy. Instead, I fantasize about writing a story in which one period on every page is a surveillance camera, hyperscrutinizing the reader. I fantasize about the effects of that on the person who reads it. Why not? The camera lens on the front of McCahills book is every bit as real as the simulated cameras in my lobbywho can deny that? I keep it on the desk staring up at me rather than return it to the shelf. My mind drifts to when I was an adolescent, shortly after my sexual awakening. I remember sitting in the steel bathtub and looking at the shower head above me, guiltily wondering if it contained a camera. My thinking shifts to Foucault (1999) and panopticism. I recall what it was like to sit in jail on the cold steel mattressless bed after being arrested on my way to a political demonstration in Toronto, looking up at the surveillance camera staring into the cell and remembering the entire contents of Discipline and Punish (Foucault, 1979) all in one rush. Postmodern grotesque . . . I mumble absently. I remember suddenly that Im at work and snap myself out of my 2 p.m. trance. I push my chair back, stand up, and say, Im gonna go get a coffee . . . does anyone want anything? Everyone else declines, but Norm puts in an order for a decaf Caf Cubano con leche and kindly tries to make me take a five-dollar bill. DEVICE: OLYMPUS U10 PROTOTYPE LOCATION: PERSONAL MOBILE DEVICE I should have a picture of my Olympus . . . I think to myself, to complete this project of turning cameras on cameras, but its like us humans . . . it cant actually see itself . . . I conclude. I think of the empirical dilemma, and think of the irony that this device that is my closest ally in my private war against simulated power aesthetics falls victim to the very same paradoxical issue as I do myselfit cant visually verify its own existence. Unlike the aesthetics it exposes, my cameras existence is known in this work here only through the successful completion of its program of action, the insertion of its work into this text. However, through its actions it has become a reliable appendage, a piece of me (albeit not so valuable a piece as my pinky or my little toe, but an appendage nonetheless). It has helped me make some sense of how to psychologically navigate the surveilled terrain of contemporary everyday life that seeks to subjugate, map, and thereby authenticate all aspects of our

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everyday being. In this world of postmodern gargoyles and grotesques, my little Olympus camera is my own personal talisman, protecting me from the negative effects of disempowering aesthetics by deflating their significance. In fact, since I got it I seldom leave home without it. Somehow, I think of the pictures it takes as more real than the phalanx of surveillance cameras I pass on a daily basis, because I just cant trust that there is anything more to them than my own personal fears. Im not a bad person. I can go so far as to modestly say that Im often a fairly good person, yet I am subjected to basically the same aesthetic psychological torment as any potential criminal. Of course, the fear for honest people like myself is that gross mistakes will be made by those with the power to make them or that those in power are in fact as corrupt as we often joke and speculate that they are. And what then? From Rodney King to the recent circulation of pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, it has been proven time and again that the only method we have to keep authority from abusing its power in this contemporary situation is through our own camera lenses. In a different society, it might play out differently, but in this society, many of us learn to fear rather than respect our authorities. Even so, I think Ill stop short of mounting armaments on my pocket camera. I think my little Olympus does a fine job of helping me contend with simulated surveillance just as it is.

References
Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation (S. F. Glaser, Trans.). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Baudrillard, J. (2002). The spirit of terrorism. New York: Verso. Dyer-Witheford, N. (1999). Cyber-Marx: Cycles and circuits of struggle in high-technology capitalism. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books. Foucault, M. (1999). Space, power and knowledge. In S. During (Ed.), The cultural studies reader (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Hardt, M., & Negri, A. (2001). Empire. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Kien / Postmodern Gargoyles 703 Headrick, D. (2000). When information came of age: Technologies of knowledge in the age of reason and revolution, 1700-1850. New York: Oxford University Press. Heidegger, M. (1977). The question concerning technology and other essays (W. Lovett, Trans.). New York: Harper and Row. Heidegger, M. (1996). Being and time (J. Stambaough, Trans.). Albany: State University of New York Press. Heidegger, M. (2001). Poetry, language, thought (A. Hofstadter, Trans.). New York: HarperCollins. Latour, B. (1992). Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W. Bijker & J. Law (Eds.), Shaping technology/building society: Studies in sociotechnical change (pp. 225-258). Cambridge: MIT Press. Mann, S., & Niedzviecki, H. (2001). Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer. Toronto: Random House. McCahill, M. (2002). The surveillance web: The rise of visual surveillance in an English city. Cullompton, UK: Willan Publishing. Virilio, P. (1986). Speed and politics (M. Polizzotti, Trans.). New York: Semiotext(e). Virilio, P. (2002). Ground zero (C. Turner, Trans.). New York: Verso.

Grant Kien is an ABD doctoral candidate in the Institute of Communications Research, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. The keywords mobility, network, technology, and society represent his main research interest, studying the uses of portable wireless digital technology apart from the content they convey, and the way these technologies are implicated in social relations and interpersonal networks.