I am loving this piece by Luzinterruptus, a little Christmas gift for the citizens of Madrid. Here’s what they have to say about their latest intervention…
This Christmas, we asked Santa Claus to fix some things that are wrong with our city for us, a seemingly endless list that keeps on growing as the crisis becomes more serious and politicians reveal their worst intentions to us.
Santa told us that he couldn’t perform miracles, that is the jurisdiction of another union, but that he would work on our behalf so that one of our petitions would be granted.
Therefore, after Christmas day, the surveillance cameras in the center of Madrid were covered with illuminated hats that prevented them from recording what was happening before them.
Madrid is a city, in which, despite the existing rules, in practice, there is no real control over the monitoring devices installed on its streets and the citizens don’t have the possibility of accessing the record of what these cameras record 24 hours a day in the places where they are situated.
In 2007 it was suggested that there were more than 20.000 cameras looking out for our safety, but today, there are no devices capable of controlling those who control us, and while politicians don’t care about that they record and use images of common citizens, it seems that they have many drawbacks in that “they record and disseminate images of security agents in the exercise of their functions… if you put their person or the operation on which they are working at risk…”.
The action Merry Christmas to those who watch us took place on the night of December 26th and to carry it out, we used 20 cameras installed in the center of Madrid, mainly those that monitor the streets, other located on public buildings and some on private property.
We hope that our anonymous friends behind the cameras, appreciated the warm flashes of Christmas light which we presented them with on their surveillance monitors.
Photos by Luzinterruptus