Global Red Zone and Political Geography
Contemporary Documentary Photography Project on the Social Issues of Security and Terrorism.
Work in progress:
As a means of transparancy, I am publishing work as I go along instead of publishing it as a finished collection. This way you will be able to see the work evolve before the final edit on a rapiidly changing social issue of security, privacy and terrorism
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Military Urbanism :: Because Life Is War!
This is a look at how security technology, methods and thought; crosses into military planning on our urban environment and how the military and establishment, view cities as a battle ground of conflict, albeit low intensity conflict!
Over the years I have increasingly noticed the build up of "Target Hardened" buildings and areas, this is not from just a threat of crime, but is down to the War on Terror we hear and read so much about in the news.
Target Hardening can come in many forms, such as deterrents like CCTV, denial of access, which may simply be not allowing parking on a street or a zone, or it may be defending a zone or building with bollards outside a protected building.
There has been specific training from government agencies, given to staff (60,000 strong civilian force) of shops and businesses on how to spot a potential terrorist threat. In addition, large companies have even taken steps into the realm of counter surveillance (investigating what/who a suspicious person is or up to by following them) and have orders to treat all photographers as potential terrorists, needles to say I have quite a collection of stop and search forms with my name on them
This is/has also changed the geography of a city and how people interact with their environment, some roads in London, you can no longer drive down because they form part of "The Ring of Steel" around the core of banks and government buildings and leavering public spaces into corporate controlled, private spaces. Some geography is more subtle like changing the benches to ones you can't lie down on, CCTV is an obviouse one that the public choose to ignore or signs saying begging is funding terrorism! Other not so obvious signs are the hard edges on the architecture designed to make people feel uncomfortable and unwelcome.
Of course there are situations and implementations that have been to do with security or traffic congestion and the original plans have suffered from "Mission Creep" and "Target Intercept" and are now an integral part of the Secret Intelligence Services (SIS) plans of risk assessment, surveillance and monitoring.
This is my study, revealing what is hidden in plain sight, in our cities. Yet I find it ironic that I am working on a project relating to surveillance and privacy and as a photographer, I am invading other peoples space that they consider private whether this is a corporation or a member of the public.
