Doing the Research...

When I told a tutor in college about the whole CCTV/surveillance idea for my project she advised me to look into the subject and do some research in order to really understand it, so I did. My main source of information was the internet, I found out a couple of facts and figures in relation to Britain but when it came to Ireland finding information proved difficult. However some of these facts about the whole CCTV culture or "big brother" in Britain I found to be both interesting and quite startling. For example:

- There is 1 camera for every 14 people in Britain.
- The average person in Britain is filmed on CCTV 13 times a day.
- And despite Britain only making up 1% of the world population 20% of the worlds CCTV cameras are in Britain.

As well as using the internet I watched the television documentary 'CCTV Cities'. I found it fascinating how they use the CCTV cameras to track and catch criminals and that they can use them to stop crimes before they even happen by carefully watching the actions of those being filmed.

I also tried to find other artists who have explored this theme. Being such a current issue I was surprised at what difficulty I had in finding such artists. The only major artist I could find was British graffiti artist Banksy whose work I have always found intriguing.

My Project

When trying to come up with an idea for this project I changed my mind several times. I struggled to figure out what I was truly interested in but in the end I found something that I found really exciting. I began to think about the lack of privacy one has in an urban environment in comparison to more rural areas. There are so much more people in the city and more people means more eyes. Then I started to notice CCTV cameras... absolutely every where. The city is so full of them yet they seem to go unnoticed and in my opinion its quite invasive. The subject fascinated me so in the end my project came to be about surveillance and CCTV cameras. Once the decision was made I headed off to do some research on the subject....