Whats your idea?
In a politically apathetic society that part revers, part fears the ‘nanny state’, let’s use the original symbol of big brother- the CCTV camera, to harness, catalyse and express political and socio-economic discontent and exclusion. This could be in the format of a website where CCTV images (hacked or freedom-info-act released) are broadcast.
What is the social need or challenge your idea could address?
The political and socio-econ marginalisation of: the homeless, youth, non-voters… choose your target.
1) a homeless broadcast channel. A nice low-budget pilot would be to run the scheme within hostels using existing internal CCTV.
2) young people. – similar with youth groups YMCA
3) in the possibility of a 2009 election, this could be similar to Obama-ite ‘use your vote’ campaigns.
What’s really new about your idea?
It subverts the point of CCTV cameras. Not societal surveillance of individuals, but individuals shouting out the problems they see in society. It has been done before, but more as an art project, no as a concrete response to concrete problems.
[ see http://mediashed.org/videosniffincom ]
What inspired you to come up with your idea in the first place?
Discussing ways in which to gather both offline and online local feedback on local problems.
It started out as a way of both safeguarding and documenting an offline community noticeboard.
From 1-5, what stage of development would you say your idea was in?
1- The idea is there, and simple. Using CCTV cameras to express opinions or discontent. We need to view what a good target group would be, and what the best method of collecting and displaying data would be.
What can we do for you?
This project needs geeks, then funders and a mentor.
If Social Innovation Camp is able to help push your idea forward, do you have the time or desire to take ownership of it?
Desire, not really time. Would like a creative input though
If not, would you be happy for someone else to take your idea forward?
Yes please!
This idea was submitted by Gaia Marcus.
Gaia is a student. He likes to submit ideas to Social Innovation Camp instead of thinking about his 2 dissertations.
November 12th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Is this strictly legal?
You mention hacking to get hold of the CCTV images, surely that will cause complications.
Also, this raises more concerns about CCTV cameras. I’m not happy to be on CCTV in the first place, and even less so if I feel images of me are becoming accessible to everyone else.