Freedom Not Fear: the Big Picture unveiled on Parliament Square
Thanks to everyone who came along to Parliament Square this morning and made the ORG/No2ID “Big Picture” event such a success. The sun was shining as we constructed a massive 4m x 5m collage of all the photos you’ve been uploading of UK surveillance state ephemera over the past couple of weeks.
The result was this huge, Big-Brother-esque photo of Gordon Brown looking over Parliament Square against a background of barbed wire, handcuffs and double helices: an image of the society of total surveillance the UK is rapidly becoming. Our message was clear: although as individuals we only see incremental invasions of our privacy, put together, these creeping changes constitute a wholesale shift towards a society predicated not on freedom, but on fear.
As you can see from the photos of the event, despite the seriousness of our message, we had a lot of fun delivering it to Parliament. Thanks to the ORG and No2ID communities, Action on Rights for Children and Godalming Quakers (and of course to the special envoy sent from the under-twos community to speak out against ContactPoint), for coming along and helping out. Credits to Christopher Scally for artwork, AndreaMosaic for the mosaicing tools, Tom Ackers for Production Coordination and everyone who contributed photos of surveillance state ephemera.
We’ll be making a high quality download of the image available for re-use next week. Until then, you can see more images of the event here.
October 11th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
[...] Read more. Posted by roboico Filed in Uncategorized [...]
October 11th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
Excellent work everyone - an actual, real world example of community effort making quality art (it looks great), and carrying a serious political message. Hopefully the press will love this and run the image about to raise awareness. Things running for the turner prize don’t even have weight on this.
Hopefully there’s a good shot from above, this would look good on your t-shirts.
October 12th, 2008 at 5:44 am
greetings from germany.
your idea is lovly and does make a good addition to the global protest!
hope u had fun and got a few people to consider the need for increasing security.
cheers,
October 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Leuchtfeuer gegen den Polizeistaat im globalen Dorf und in Berlin…
Das heute in Berlin 30, 40, vielleicht sogar bis 100000 Leute und Tausende weiterer Menschen weltweit anlässlich der Demonstration “Freiheit statt Angst / Freedom not Fear” 2008 gegen die ganzen “Leuchttürme” der staatlichen und kommerziellen Pro…
October 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
[...] great fun lugging our sheets of photos around and watching the finished product emerge. More on the Open Rights Group blog, including links to more [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Open Rights Group builds giant CCTV collage of Gordon Brown…
The pissed-off members of Open Rights Group and No2ID put together an Orwellian collage of Gordon Brown in Parliament Square this morning. The collage was made from pictures of CCTV cameras and other surveillance ephemera taken by the group members.
T…
October 12th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
[...] surveillance state ephemera, or turned up the day to help us build the “Big Picture”. Freedom Not Fear: the Big Picture unveiled on Parliament Square (Thanks, [...]
October 12th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
[...] Over-surveilled Brits Build Giant Picture of Their Leader Out of CCTV Photos [...]
October 13th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Thank god someone is speaking out over this. Im getting really tired of seeing more and more cameras creep into everyday life. Here in AmeriKa land of teh free.Nothing is free and its getting close to pay the price. Everything you do now you have to give up data wether its biometrics or SSN# etc. Its getting to a boiling point for me. While I know its nowhere near as bad as UK YET! I see the trend. We are starting to get red light cameras and speed cams etc which is claimed for safety but the public knows its for money. We as a planet have gone in the wrong direction. Corperations and free markets etc taking over the planet because the governments are the corperations. The governments job is to protect us from others violating our rights as humans, NOT to participate in it!!! We have turned more into Hitler/Stalin visions of a country on a global scale. Im tired of being spyed on and paying for it with my own taxes. No differant then digging your own grave, and when your done lay down.
October 15th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] at Boing Boing, readers from The Open Rights Group sent in a photo they made of UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, made completely out of CCTV [...]
October 15th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
[...] a big picture (above) unveiled by Open Rights Group in London, to a meeting of up to 100,000 people in Berlin, activities in Argentina, articles in Chile, an [...]
October 21st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
[...] aside the politics, the Freedom Not Fear campaign created this collage of our leader from CCTV images, which goes some way to illustrating how this [...]
October 21st, 2008 at 2:31 pm
The reason i don’t like Britain - Big Brother state. And i’m not British.
October 25th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
[...] The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » Freedom Not Fear: the Big Picture unveiled on Parliament Squ… Do you think the CCTV nation has gone to far? (tags: ITGS privacy freedon UK CCTV) [...]
October 26th, 2008 at 7:06 am
[...] The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » Freedom Not Fear: the Big Picture unveiled on Parliament Squ… Do you think the CCTV nation has gone to far? (tags: ITGS privacy freedon UK CCTV) [...]
October 31st, 2008 at 5:02 pm
[...] regular readers will know, on 11 October 2008, thousands of images of the database state sent in from [...]
November 10th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Any news on the high-res image yet? I keep visiting here in order to see it…
November 11th, 2008 at 11:25 am
@Gez The high-res image is here. Remix the Big Picture
November 12th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
[...] on 12 November 2008 This collaborative artwork has been created by the NO2ID Campaign and the Open Rights Group. Thousands of pictures of CCTV cameras and other surveillance equipment are assembled into a giant [...]
March 31st, 2009 at 5:44 am
Excellent work - an actual, real world example of community effort making quality art (it looks great), and carrying a serious political message. Hopefully the press will love this and run the image about to raise awareness. Things running for the turner prize don’t even have weight on this.
Hopefully there’s a good shot from above, this would look good on your t-shirts.