CCTV Social: Day II. Session 3
Duration: 00:21:07; Aspect Ratio: 1.366:1; Hue: 228.571; Saturation: 0.050; Lightness: 0.212; Volume: 0.127; Cuts per Minute: 25.804; Words per Minute: 167.798
Summary: For CCTV Social, artist Shaina Anand collaborated with Manchester Metropolitan University and Arndale Shopping Centre to open working CCTV environments to a general audience. People normally 'enclosed' by these networks came into the control rooms to view, observe and monitor this condition, so endemic to the UK. About thirty people signed up for one-hour sessions in the MMU security center to engage with the CCTV operators and monitor surveillance procedures. These sessions became somewhat like a diagnostic clinic, where they discussed symptoms, anxieties and inoculations about their 'public health,' under surveillance. These therapy sessions seemed to work both ways, for the participants as well as the security officers.
This is footage of Julie's visit to the surveillance control room of the Manchester Metropolitan University. Julie works at ITV. The older security officers are also present in the room and the conversation opens up to involve them. Steve expresses their resentment at being stereotyped as a 'four-pound-an-hour security guard on a power trip' even as the patrol officers reassert the importance of the 'man on the ground' over CCTV.
Julie talks about young kids on estates having no respect for the elderly, and is corrected by Steve who pointedly tells her that kids at Uni can be just as offensive. Soon the discussion moves to the pubs (as seen on CCTV) around the Uni and the near complete gentrification of the place, the resentment amongst locals who can no longer visit their local pub since it is now 'student-only.' In a subtle reversal of subjectivities, we hear first hand from the security guards about the rapid gentrification of the city, "Picadilly gardens used to be beautiful. It's a bloody Berlin wall now!"
SA in conversation with Pete, a surveillance officer at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Numbered screens displaying live feed from 36 different cameras, line the walls of the surveillance control room. SA discovers that Mike has been working as a security officer at the university for more than twenty years. In a way, he has closely witnessed "security" evolve over time - for example, the shift from police patrolling to electronic surveillance.
Shaina: How long have you been here?
Mike: Twenty-three years.
Shaina: At MMU!
Mike: Hmmn.
Shaina: In security here?
Mike: In security. I've seen a lot of changes.
Shaina: So you are the oldest employee around here?
Mike: Oldest! I wouldn't say that now.
Shaina: (laughs)
Mike: Longest serving here in security.
Shaina: Longest serving.
Mike: At the minute, yeah.
Shaina: Wow! So you're the history book as well, the archive of incidents.
Mike: I've seen a few. It's not a bad job.
Shaina: Yeah.
Mike: Good daysm bad days, everything... Every day is different. I've seen a lot of changes.
Shaina: Like what?
Mike: Well, when I first started we never had this control room. This has only been up ten years. So It was out on the ground at all times.
Shaina: What was that like?
Mike: Interesting. I prefer to be out more than in.
Shaina: Yeah?
Mike: I'm not an indoor man.
Shaina: So you're not a CCTV person?
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Despite having the required certifications to work as a CCTV operator, Mike works as a patrol officer as part of the MMU security setup.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Mike: Well, I've done it all; I've done what you have to do. I've done the course and everything, but the camera, to me, is only as good as the operator. It can't beat a person on the ground seeing things, a camera can only look at one thing at a time. You can see a multitude of things on the ground. Not to say how fast when you're here as long as me.
Shaina: Really, twenty-five years in service.
Mike: Twenty-three.
Alf: Twenty. Twenty.
Shaina: Wow.
Alf: Twenty-two, innit?
Shaina: Wow.
Steve: You've been here for twenty.
Mike: Twenty-three in February.
Steve: Part of the institution.
Shaina: Wow.
Alf: It is only a fill in job. (laughs)
Mike: Well, they were quite surprised, I think.
Steve: A lot of them are... They are quite surprised as to what we do.
Mike: They ask some good questions.
Shaina: Yeah?
Mike: They are surprised at what we do. A lot of them think that security are called guards, but I get annoyed. We're officers, we're not guards.
Steve: I hate being called security.
Mike: And I think a lot of them think we sit on our backsides all the time. We deal with all the safety, fire and security, so it's varied. I think a lot of them are surprised at what we do.
Steve: We get that awful 'four-pound-an-hour security guard' tag thrown at us left right and center, but that don't bother me. But it's the word 'guard.'
Mike: We're not guards. Basically we do what the police do, only we are less trained.
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Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Mike: We're not guards. Basically we do what the police do, only we are less trained. That's my opinion, always has been.
Shaina: And have less of the authority then, to intervene.
Mike: Oh yeah, but we do intervene. But it depends on the officer concerned. I should imagine it would depend on the incident and the officer. Everybody works different. The adrenaline kicks in, you do whatever. It's all down to common sense, this job, isn't it?
Shaina: What's different though? Cause you've been around twenty-three years, from before the cameras and now.
Mike: They (the CCTV operators) get more pay than us.
(laughter)
Alf: One officer who knows what he is doing on these cameras can cover a huge amount of ground with the cameras and see what's going on. But it doesn't, it doesn't replace the man out there on the ground.
Shaina: Yes.
Steve: You've said that before...
Alf: It's your instinct, your all around instinct, vision, 'a nose', that's what some people call it. Wouldn't it - how you react to things and how you can sense situations?
Steve: It's like what I was saying before, cameras don't have instincts and senses. That's all they can do is see what they see and that's it. But as human nature is instinct and gut feeling, senses and you know. So if something feels wrong, you can sense it's going to be wrong, a camera can't do that.
Shaina: Do you ever have wrong instincts, just based on like paranoia or...?
Alf: No.
Mike: No.
Steve: As in... You mean wrong about a person's actions?
Shaina: Yeah.
Steve: Yeah, you can think is he up to something and turns out he's not. But he just looked a bit out of character while he was doing it, that's all. That's when you say, well it's not a wrong instinct, you just thought...(shrugs) Well?
We get a glimpse of the hierarchy within the ranks of the security team. Mike and Alf, who are patrol officers, get paid less than the CCTV operators. The conversation reveals how "objective" electronic surveillance really is. Since a lot depends on the experience and "instincts" of the operators to spot troublemakers, their prejudices and biases would neutralise the prospect of effective "prediction" of violent or high risk situations.
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Shaina: Well, our guests are here! Hello.
Steve: Hello, sit yourself down.
Julie: I'm interested in the whole sort of politics of surveillance. And I did some ... When I was at the uni, I did a media degree. Surveillance was one of the chapters of my dissertation, so I've got like certain opinions about it. So I just... It's interesting for me to see it from the other side really.
Steve: Ooh, you're gonna be an hard nosed one, I can see.
(everyone laughs)
Shaina: Was it video surveillance in particular? Or were you looking at dataveillance and surveillance in general?
Julie: There was... Not in particular. It was part of it, it was like part of the whole thing about how the public are represented and who they are represented by. Like medical records, prison records, educational records and how people are assessed in society.
Shaina: Well, here's your chance to see how this is done.
Julie: Yeah.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Related Links:
Vigilantism?
Civil liberties: Surveillance and privacy
Warning: Misuse of CCTV
CCTV: Climate of Fear
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Steve: Ask away. What do you need to know? Any questions?
Julie: Do you register everything? You note everything?
Steve: I won't zoom in. But say like that person (points to a bus stop, and some cars parked by the street), obviously I can't ID him. Maybe I'll stick with him, he might be up to no good.
Julie: What do you mean when you say ID them?
Steve: To get a perfect (ID), up close and personal. So if I think... hmm, you know... but I'll stick with him just in case. (zooms in) You are supposed to keep a certain distance, but you keep it more in the area when you think they might have done something. And then if they do, you just come back here and you go straight in, zoom straight in.
Shaina: Steve, you've mentioned... I forget what it was. Was it I. C. E.? What were the phrases that you have, like a way to describe...?
Steve: IC (1), IC (2), IC (3), IC (4), IC (5).
Shaina: And what do those mean exactly?
Steve: Umm, IC (1)... Sorry...White male, Caucasian. And then IC (2) which is ... I keep forgetting myself now, IC(2). Is it eastern European? IC (3).. Oh God... It's getting around.
Julie: What does IC mean?
Steve: No idea. It's a police term.
Julie: It's just a term.
Steve: We're obliged to actually use it. I mean, most people would say "it's a white male, asian male, black male." But some people can take offence.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Text reads: IC (1) = White European
IC (2) = Dark European
IC (3) = African Caribbean
IC (4) = Asian
IC (5) = Oriental
IC (6) = Arab
IC (0) = Not Known
Related Links:
I see now more than ever
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Shaina: Ah, brilliant! Thank you.
(Stewart removes a folded piece of paper from his wallet and shows it to Shaina, in front of the camera.)
Julie: So it's quite like, if anyone heard you using that term, anyone who wasn't working at CCTV, or working with the police wouldn't know (what they mean)...
Shaina: There's a "not known/" IC (0).
Stewart: That's an alien.
(laughter)
Steve: IC (0), not known.
Julie: I thought 'miscellaneous.'
Shaina: I just realised that most of you have been born with CCTV.
Julie: I suppose so, but I've never really was that aware of it until maybe ten or fifteen years ago. And there has always been cameras in supermarkets and things like that. Those funny things that they have on the ceilings, I never knew what they were.
Steve: They look like domes.
Julie: Yes.
Shaina: Yes.
Julie: I thought they looked interesting, but I didn't know what they were. And it was only some years later, I worked with somebody who had been one of the security camera operators in one of these supermarkets, I realised what they were. I was like, "wow. So, we're being watched." And so like...
Dale: I think I've got quite a positive view about CCTV really. But I know it gets a lot of... Like in the tabloids, press and stuff, they are always going on about how how, you know, it's a "Nanny State" and all that stuff. But I think definitely it's a case of, "if you are not doing anything wrong then you don't have anything to worry about."
Julie: But the thing about them is, to me, is just that it seems to like proliferate every area of life now. And it gets to ridiculous levels; the mobile units that follow people around and stuff like that.
Shaina: What is that?
Julie: There is one in Withington, I think, that started going around. It's trying to catch people who are tagged, who are like, who were not coming back when they should. Like a curfew.
Steve: Sometimes you might not have the authority right, but you all have the
capabilities of CCTV on you.
Julie: Yeah.
Steve (takes out his camera phone): Everyone has got a CCTV on them. People never think about it. You can invade someone's privacy with that just as much as one of them, if not more. Cause you're gonna get up close and personal with this.
Julie: The thing is with me though, I don't think that it solves crimes.
Steve: It prevents some.
Julie: It prevents some.
Steve: It deters some. It solves some.
Julie: It doesn't, it doesn't solve the problem of why the crime happened in the
first place.
Steve: That's an issue outside of CCTV.
Julie: That's a social issue.
Steve: That's a police matter.
Julie: It seems to be presented to the public as a way of solving this problem,
and it doesn't solve the problem.
Steve: Part of the solution. Yeah, of course.
Julie: Yeah.
Steve: Only part of it, and what about...
(camera pans to Stewart changing tapes in the VHS recorder)
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
Related Links:
CCTV doesn't stop crime
CCTV ineffective
[www.urbaneye.net/results/ue_wp13.pdf CCTV: Case Study]
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Mike: Did you change the tapes for that shift? (to Shaina) So 11 o' clock tonight?
(Shaina and Ashok will be coming back to join Stewart on the night shift. The camera moves to Mike putting the recorded tapes in the tape cupboard.)
Shaina: So how often are the tapes changed?
Mike: Every eight hours.
Shaina: Are you going out now? Should we do a walk?
Mike: I'll do it if you pay me overtime.
(everyone laughs)
Mike: Expensive! Tenner an hour.
Steve: It should be much more than that.
Julie: Some years ago, I've got mugged in a taxi rank in Withington Village and it was by a group that had come from somewhere else and attacked us.
Steve: What happened?
Julie: We were waiting in a taxi queue and this guy pick-pocketed me, and I went after him to get it back, and then he hit me. And I went from there to the local police station which was shut. And I rang 999 and...
Steve: They would put you through to wherever...
Julie: Well basically, I had reported what had happened and I was too scared to go back to the taxi rank in case they came back. And then I didn't want to go to the cash point either, cause I was worried that I might get robbed at the cash point. So I walked all the way home. And the police...
Steve: Always more dangerous...
Julie: I know, exactly! And the police arrived twenty minutes after I got home at my house.
Steve: The trouble with 999 is that you could be speaking to not somebody local, it could be in Newcastle; that's the only downside to it. They are not familiar with the area.
Julie: Why do we have local police stations if they are not open to deal with crime?
Dale: It's a hangover from when they were _______.
Steve: Yeah it's a hangover from _____, it's just manpower.
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Julie: When I chased after this person who had pick pocketed me, I was so infuriated by the fact that they had done it.
Steve: Yes, it's human nature.
Julie: And then the guy punched me in the eye. He would have done more, but I was ready. I had my legs ready, I was gonna kick him if he came any closer to me. (laughs) But I could have prevented my black eye if I would have just let it go.
Steve: It's not worth it.
Julie: No.
Dayle: I was gonna ask you - when there is an incident, do you think the people in the area do step in to help or not?
Steve: Some do, some don't. But that's just, regardless of what area you're in; it's human nature. Fight or flight is the answer. What do you have to say?
Julie: I think it's the same with like, if somebody had a heart attack on the street or whatever. I saw something a while ago where two reporters put it to the test.
Steve: To find out how many people actually help.
Julie: Yeah, basically. And it seemed to be that most people would just walk by. They kind of rely on other people to do something about it, but nobody did. But if somebody did, then other people would.
Steve: Yeah. Once you see somebody helping, then you are all going to...
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
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Julie: The kids growing up these days, and their attitudes to authority; they haven't got very many authority figures in their lives. And when they are confronted with authority, they don't respect it. And when you hear about kids on the estates attacking the fire brigade - I think that they are seeing them as an authority figure, and challenging authority through doing that.
Steve: Yeah. But to be honest with you, that's quite wrong for you to say just "kids on estates."
Julie: No, no.
Steve: We've seen students who are supposed to be the top five percent, we've seen their attitudes towards the police and it's dreadful. It's just as bad and we think, well, how are you supposed to set an example for them? What kind of upbringing they do have? As opposed to somebody (of a different class background). I certainly wouldn't speak to a police officer like that when I was their age. One, I would have been done around local; around Oxford and all, I don't know. It was just that I was told not to. There is nothing there these days. And like I say, if it's coming from the students who are supposed to be the future of this country, God help us.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
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Julie: Something that bugs me - I'm not in favour of an authoritarian society or anything - but as I grow older I sort of think "hmmn, that was a bit different from when I was growing up." We had respect for shopkeepers and things like that, you know. And that just doesn't seem to exist in this generation.
Dale: I do think you get like a very small percent of young people are awful, yeah. But then everyone goes like "oh, it's all young people." It's not.
Julie: Of course it's not.
Steve: The few give the lot a bad name.
Julie: It's the ones who are afraid to go out because they might get attacked or abducted. They are the ones who would perpetrate such things.
Dale: Do you get any trouble between the student population and the local population?
Steve: Yeah. People have these ideas about... Yeah the local lads can be causing a lot of trouble, but the students can be just as big a problem themselves.
Julie: There has been... I know that in Manchester there is quite like an anti-student attitude amongst local people. I don't really understand it myself.
Steve: A lot of that is created by businesses.
Julie: Yeah?
Shaina: Really?
Steve: Well, you've been going to... You've been born and bred in this area and you used to go to a pub, your local pub...
Julie: Right.
Steve: It's been taken over by the students; it's now student-only places which is wrong. You might have been there, your dad might have been there, your granddad could've also gone to the local pub. So all of a sudden your local pub has been taken over by the students, it's been renovated, it's a fancy trendy place. But when the students go (away) in the summer you turn around and say, "ah well, you can come back in if you want, all right." Yes, it's gonna create resentment and that's wrong.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
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Julie: There is a pub down in Fallowfield that I read about in the local paper, a couple of local people...
Steve: Challenged them...
Julie: Tried to go in, yeah. And they said, "oh no, sorry you are over twenty-five. We don't allow people who are over twenty-five."
Shaina: Wow.
Steve: There's quite a few of them, doing that.
Dale: I'm surprised.
Julie: That's ridiculous! Isn't it?
Steve: If somebody actually tried challenging them in court, "I've not been barred from the premises, I should be allowed." Well, at the end of the day it's also the discretion of the landlord. Which is wrong cause it's going to create a lot of local resentment. We can't blame people for being resentful when... It's not the students fault.
Julie: It's not the student's fault, it's whoever is sort of providing the services to the students, not helping them integrate into the area they've come to.
Steve: We get it around here, it's not just the students. But it's not, when it suits the owners. There are some nights when if you don't have an NUS card, you don't get in. And some nights they don't bother. So you're like, "hang on, I've come out tonight. It was okay last week, why not this week?" You plan the night out with your friends, and all of a sudden you're not allowed in. They've done nothing wrong.
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Julie: I had an ex-boyfriend who felt very intimidated when he came to Manchester. Because he was from Stockport and he dressed alternatively, and in Stockport if you sort of dress slightly differently... He was a punk basically, and in Stockport it's very much a small town mentality. And if you stand out, then you are at risk of being beaten up basically, by anyone who were more kind of scally... scally kind of thing.
Steve: Manchester's quite... It's a bit more open here in Manchester.
Julie: Yeah, exactly. And I've lived in Manchester most of my life and I know that it's a lot more kind of... What's the word?
Steve: Cosmopolitan.
Julie: Lot more cosmopolitan. There's lots of different types of people...
Steve: Open-minded.
Julie: ...in Manchester. Yeah, so people who are a lot more open-minded. There is room for everyone really.
Steve: There's lots of bars here, and anybody can come in here with different kind of tastes - music tastes, anything.
Julie: But he got really quite sort of concerned about being in Manchester, cause even though in Stockport he might have been hassled by people, he knew where it was going to come from. He felt open to an attack in Manchester off anybody.
(Laughter)
Julie: I thought it was ridiculous really.
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
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Interesting to hear the CCTV operator bemoan the re-design and regeneration of the area in and around Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester.
Steve: I'd say it's just common sense to stick to well lit areas, to the public areas.
Julie: Piccadilly gardens used to be a bit of a "no-go" area at night.
Steve: I hate walking through it.
Julie: It's not as bad as it was, I don't think, because it's more... Well, there are more bars there now and less sort of spaces.
Steve: I get off the bus there at Piccadilly Gardens, it's just groups and groups of people. It's just quite intimidating. You see them talking to police officers. What are they doing?
Steve: I just don't like the design. I think the look of Piccadilly Garden is dreadful. It's like a bloody Berlin wall, it is. It's dreadful.
Julie: It's not very welcoming.
Steve: It used to be lovely, years ago. With the gardens, the sunken gardens and stuff.
Julie: Lovely, the gardens and stuff.
Steve: And now it's atrocious.
Julie: Why did they do it up?
Steve: I don't know. But whoever designed it, I want to shoot them. It is an absolute dreadful waste of money, the Piccadilly Gardens, absolutely.
Dale: Was that with the Commonwealth Games when they did that?
Steve: It was before that, before it got renovated. Well, not long before it. It was around about then, wasn't it?
Alf: Well, it was a different scheme to what the games were.
Dale: Was it?
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester
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Julie: There is no greenery though, is there?
Steve: They've got the grass there that gets absolutely trampled, and they have to replace it so often. It's worn down. Yet the gardens, when the gardens used to be there, I think you were allowed to lie down on the grass with your socks on. But...
Alf: Well actually, they say you weren't allowed on the on the grass. Even the trellis, it must have been that high but people respected it. There were signs there saying there that "keep off the grass."
Julie: Yeah.
Alf: You know.
Steve: Now they are playing football on it and all sorts, heavier than football, I don't know. They've made a real mess of it.
Alf: I think the worst bit was the drunks; when it started becoming a focal point.
Steve: That's why they went about renovating it. But to be honest with you, it just moves the drunks to other areas, like down here.
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