Eleonora Sovrani’s Journal

The technological tools today allow the overproduction of ubiquitous images, inevitably affecting our relationship with space and with the image of ourselves.

While the smartphone technology induces many users to produce a growing amount of ‘selfie’ images to share, at the same time, aerial photography from satellite gives an ever greater attention to the image of the Earth seen from above, and makes us used to the existence of an imaginary, invisible observer, floating in the sky.

An increasing number of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, silently populate the heavens. In principle they were used for military purposes, surveillance and attack, while they are now commonly controlled by whoever possesses them for various uses, among which is the ‘selfie from above’ - or simply ‘dronie’, word recently coined to describe this kind of photography.

Like drones, surveillance cameras around the city have too the ability to work unnoticed: the passer is mostly filmed unaware and becomes a passive object in the image. Sometimes the images of these webcams are shared online and thus potentially visible to all users of the network: “Where The World Watches The World ®”, as Earthcam slogan says.

What would happen if the passer was warned of the activity of a streaming webcam near him, and he was made able to see the captured image live? How would he interact with the space?