The "Unpleasant Design" book is a collection of different research approaches to a phenomenon experienced by all of us. Unpleasant design is a global fashion with many examples to be found across cities worldwide, manifested in the form of "silent agents" that take care of behaviour in public space, without the explicit presence of authorities. Photographs, essays and case studies of unpleasant urban spaces, urban furniture and communication strategies reveal this pervasive phenomenon.
With contributions by Adam Rothstein, Francesco Morace and Heather Stewart Feldman, Vladan Jeremic, Dan Lockton, Yasmine Abbas, Gilles Paté, Adam Harvey and many others, the book is in an attempt to recognise this nascent discipline within contemporary design taxonomies.
216 pages, hardcover in b/w with colour images; special book sleeve in sandpaper K240 (Limited Edition: 500)
ISBN: 978-86-910911-1-8
Published by G.L.O.R.I.A Belgrade
Edited by Gordan Savicic and Selena Savic
surveillance with cameras on the streets? nothing new.
going beyond the power of video equipment based on earth, gait recognition uses satellite imagery to recognize and trace a person by the way they walk.
###HOW TO AVOID:
never walk in sunshine (avoid having a shadow);
carry an umbrella;
walk silly;
ride a bike;
Cameras installed on high-ways and roads where drivers are expected to drive very fast, allow police to track the cars going over the speed limit by taking photos of their license plates and then matching the image to the number. This way, they end up simply sending you a bill without stopping the traffic and having to keep policemen on the street.
photo courtesy of Chriszwolle
###HOW TO AVOID
install very bright LEDs around your plate, making it impossible to photograph the number;
use photo blocker spray (http://www.motorshop1.co.uk/photoblocker.htm);
install a slave-flash, triggered when you are at risk, overexposing the photograph;
A lot of debate has been going on around closed circuit video surveillance in cities, since the mid 1980s when they became regularly introduced in US and later the UK. Simple video surveillance is today often equipped with facial recognition and motion tracking, to make more efficient use of the system. With the excuse of the ‘war on terrorism’, enhanced video surveillance systems have been deployed at airports, massive(sports) events, and night clubs.
— n
the surveillance of a person’s activities by studying the data trail created by actions such as credit card purchases, mobile phone calls, and internet use
from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/dataveillance
As the authors of Net Locality* define it:
“Surveillance is more than just hidden cameras and undercover police officers; environments track us through our voluntary exposure of personal data”
“location-aware devices normalize data-veillance and make it a necessary component of our everyday interactions with the web”
* Gordon, E., & de Souza e Silva, A. (2011). Net Locality. The handbook of internet studies. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781444340679. p. 11
