Two Suns in the Sunset

I've pulled the above images from a New York Times story on the "atomic cameramen" who filmed and photographed the test detonations of nuclear bombs in the 40s and 50s (before the ban on atmospheric testing was put into place). Many of the image makers died of cancer later in their lives. Image #2 in the above sequence pictures the "V.I.P. observers" of the detonations at one of the viewing decks that were set up by the government. It is also pertinent to note that a lot of the cameras, film stock and lenses used were later sold commercially for use by Hollywood studios; a reminder of how military R&D often trickles down and drives technological change in the entertainment industry.

The Participatory Panopticon

Jamais Cascio on the inevitable rise of what he calls The Participatory Panopticon:

Soon -- probably within the next decade, certainly within the next two -- we'll be living in a world where what we see, what we hear, what we experience will be recorded wherever we go. There will be few statements or scenes that will go unnoticed, or unremembered. Our day to day lives will be archived and saved. What’s more, these archives will be available over the net for recollection, analysis, even sharing.

And we will be doing it to ourselves.

This won't simply be a world of a single, governmental Big Brother watching over your shoulder, nor will it be a world of a handful of corporate siblings training their ever-vigilant security cameras and tags on you. Such monitoring may well exist, probably will, in fact, but it will be overwhelmed by the millions of cameras and recorders in the hands of millions of Little Brothers and Little Sisters. We will carry with us the tools of our own transparency, and many, perhaps most, will do so willingly, even happily.

I call this world the Participatory Panopticon.

As the folks at Remixing Anthropology point out, amongst other things, this raises important ethical questions about image making in the digital age.