Chicago security planners go too far
City residents draw the line on public surveillance when it is incorporated into public art; Crown Fountain installation removed; Americans remain ambivalent about public CCTV
Although Americans are slowly getting used to public surveillance — the British are far more “advanced” in this area — those whose business it is to install them must always be mindful so as not to upset the public taste. A camera on top of a telephone pole or outside a shopping center — that should be just fine. But as city officials in Chicago have learned, the public draws the line at public art. A recent deployment of two camera atop the city’s fifty-foot Crown Fountain, a much adored installation designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, was recently removed just one day after a public outcry initiated by (of course) bloggers.
Nevermind that the cameras were paid for out of a $52 million DHS grant. “To add surveillance to a piece all about faces transforms it into an Orwellian nightmare,” said Alan Labb, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who helped design and build the fountain.
-read more in Libby Sander’s New York Times report
