response 7: Steve Mann

When reading the first part of Steve Mann's "'Reflectionism' and 'Diffusionism'," I realized that I had never really thought about what other intentions there could be with surveillance other than "for YOUR protection." For example, when Mann talks about the cable company tracking who watches what and when through a hidden camera, I got a little freaked out by that. I started to think of "what ifs". What if the cable box had a camera in it all along? Isn't that pushing the privacy buttons a little? I think it's a little embarrassing that the cable company would know what exactly the viewer watches. The company's intentions may be to record ratings but its employees' intentions may be different. Just like the cable, The experimental bedroom equipped with microphones and cameras to "see" when to make coffee does not seem believable. I feel like if this was solicited to me I would think that it was a pseudo-product and the whole thing is a scam to try to see what would go on in my bedroom. And it being a bedroom that is private and that the company would be taping is all-together uncomfortable. The same goes with the shower surveillance. I think that is pretty self-explanatory. Where do people get these ideas? Sorry but I would rather have a future than a "better future."

The next part where Mann proposes reflectionism caught my eye because I am actually doing a project now on appropriation. Yet the appropriation he talks about does not praise the work or the artist but turns against the work, the "oppressor," which is something that I have never thought about when thinking of appropriation. I think that it is a really good idea to allow society to see its own absurdity by using the same tool or medium through which they are found absurd. Mann is fighting fire with fire, something the oppressed must do to overthrow totalitarianism. Using the WearCam and the shirts to document on documentation was amusing, or at least it would be to me if I was in the same store that they had walked in to do this. And what I found more amusing was when security at Tower Records said that the opaque domes on the ceiling were "light fixtures," like the customers were stupid enough to believe that they weren't being taped. Another thing I found funny was his last paragraph were he states his intentions of his use of the WearCam, even though his real intentions involve "shooting back."