This paper examines fingerprint identification as a mode of state surveillance. Drawing on but critiquing the work of Simon Cole, it argues that the technique yielded a greater, more pervasive form of state surveillance by giving rise to new practices of data collection. This paper also highlights the photograph's role in fingerprint identification to argue for an essential transformation in law enforcement and surveillance practices announced by the intersection of fingerprinting and photography at the turn of the twentieth century. In contrast to traditional forms of visual surveillance, the collaboration of fingerprint identification and photography extended the surveillance gaze of the state in a manner often attributed to the rise of CCTV, enabling the state to bring all bodies – criminal and non-criminal alike – under surveillance. However, the unique capabilities afforded to the state through the intersection of fingerprint identification and photography remained largely theoretical until the advent of digital technologies in the 1960s and 1970s. At the start of the twenty-first century, advanced visual technologies and new media technologies reflect a restructuring of law enforcement and surveillance practices based on the aggregate collection of identification data. This paper argues that the continued photographing of fingerprints in contemporary law enforcement and state initiatives constitute heightened state surveillance and, as such, demands serious critical attention.
This article examines the use of visual representation in Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations on 5 February 2003. The article borrows from Charles Goodwin’s theory of professional vision to argue that Powell’s presentation failed to develop a shared vision of the material presented. The primary flaw in this regard was Powell’s failure to acknowledge and account for the differences between modes of visual representation. Projections of text, photographs, video, maps and computer-generated illustrations were presented as synonymous forms of visual evidence. By not accounting for the unique properties of these media, Powell failed to articulate the images as evidentiary statements. What was to be a convincing display of visual evidence was instead a weak and discontinuous PowerPoint slide show. Using Powell’s presentation as a case-study, the author stresses the need to be more critically aware of one’s representational choices in acts of communication.
It is now commonplace to refer to the contemporary world as a surveillance society. The tremendous proliferation of surveillance over the late 20 th and early 21 st centuries has been met by a continually expanding body of scholarly work on the topic. However, such work remains largely based in the social sciences, specifically in the fields of sociology and criminology. While this work has been invaluable in many ways, it tends to emphasize empirical investigations of surveillance programs. By contrast, a growing body of work by artists and activists on surveillance questions the larger, more abstract issues associated with life in a surveillance society. The article examines Jill Magid's Evidence Locker to argue that analyzing works of visual art not only complements the existing academic literature on surveillance, but that it raises distinctly new questions about citizens' own roles and responsibilities in a surveillance society.
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