Surveillance cameras function as decor rather than actual control

Evidence

Even repression is integrated as a sign in this universe of simulation. Repression become deterrence is nothing but an extra sign in the universe of persuasion. The circuits of surveillance cameras are themselves part of the decor of simulacra. A perfect surveillance on all fronts would require a heavier and more sophisticated mechanism of control than that of the store itself. It would not be profitable. It is thus an allusion to repression, a “signal” of this order, that is put in place; this sign can thus coexist with all the others, and even with the opposite imperative, for example those that huge billboards express by inviting you to relax and to choose in complete serenity. These billboards, in fact, observe and surveil you as well, or as badly, as the “policing” television. The latter looks at you, you look at yourself in it, mixed with the others, it is the mirror without silvering (tain) in the activity of consumption, a game of splitting in two and doubling that closes this world on itself. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 258

Categorization

• XREF: The CCTV-as-sign claim anticipates contemporary situational awareness that surveillance today is largely theatrical deterrence; connects to the reader’s goal on hyperreality. — connects to: Surveillance-based power operates by optics rather than force — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 273; New surveillance technologies are deliberately disguised in familiar forms to ease adoption. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 488
• SEED: An essay angle: how modern security theater — fake cameras, mall policing — instantiates Baudrillard’s claim that repression is merely another sign in the universe of persuasion.

Broader Connections

• Surveillance-based power operates by optics rather than force #corroborates (0.92) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 273