Our way of life has subtly yet rapidly transformed due to our technological creations, leading us to a strange and unforeseen state. Tech art reflects on these changes and examines the impact of technology on humanity.
I recall my childhood in the 1970s when we had only three TV channels. It wasn't until 1993 that a fourth channel emerged, and eventually, the number of cable channels increased to over two hundred. This evolution saw a shift from centralized, top-down broadcasting to the decentralized nature of the internet, with platforms like Instagram and TikTok leading the way. Surveillance systems also transitioned from centralized to decentralized, allowing anyone the ability to monitor and broadcast. These invisible channels, numbering in the tens or even hundreds of thousands, are like "wireless TV stations" around our homes, continuously broadcasting our lives day and night via wireless signals.
In 2012, a dance friend wanted to use a wireless camera for a performance. During testing, I accidentally received the surveillance footage from my building. I discovered that in Taiwan, wireless spy cameras, costing around 1,000 NTD and as small as a coin, were ubiquitous. They were used for neighborhood watch, home security, private investigations, and even illegal spying. With low technological and financial barriers and no regulatory restrictions, anyone could easily purchase and use them. The equipment to receive these wireless signals, known as a "full-band scanner," was also readily available online or in electronics markets. Walking the streets of Taipei with a full-band scanner, one could pick up numerous surveillance signals. Given the rapid signal decay over distance, the actual number of these hidden cameras inside buildings could be many times higher.
Starting in 2012, I embarked on a project to collect these signals using a full-band scanner, recording the footage with a laptop and capture device. I created a portable device that automatically started recording three to five seconds of footage upon detecting a wireless camera signal.
With this device, I roamed Taipei, collecting about five hundred videos. To protect privacy, I stored these videos in a secure format similar to Google’s approach, ensuring that no "live" person could view them. The system randomly selected and overlaid the videos to create a single composite video, ensuring that viewers could not discern specific details, but only saw a statistical average-like image.
These recordings capture various corners of the city with rough, noisy visuals, wide-angle aerial perspectives, and infrared-illuminated dark alleys, inadvertently forming a unique representation of our era. The layered surveillance footage, with its indistinct dynamic forms, hints at people, cars, and street scenes, yet remains elusive, evading specific recognition and merging into a generic depiction of the urban environment of our time.
If a tree falls in an empty forest, does it make a sound?
In a metropolis of millions, countless surveillance camera feeds are converted into signals, broadcast around the clock. These feeds are continuously deleted and re-recorded, yet they remain unread and unexamined.
我們人類的生活形式，因科技的發展悄然卻迅速地發生了深刻變化。科技藝術，正是對這些變化和人性的反思與關照。
我記得童年時期，1970年，我們家只有三個電視頻道，直到1993年才有第四個頻道，隨後逐漸增加到兩百多個有線電視頻道。這一過程從中央集權的廣播形式轉變為去中心化的互聯網，像是Instagram和抖音這樣的自媒體平台崛起。而監控系統也從集權化逐漸變得分散，任何人都有能力監視並廣播。這些看不見的頻道數以萬計，隱藏在我們住所四周的「無線電視台」，不分晝夜地記錄並廣播我們的生活。
2012年，一位舞蹈朋友在排練中使用無線攝影機，無意間讓我接收到所在大樓的監視畫面。我才發現，在台灣，無線針孔攝影機的價格約為一千元，體積小如十元硬幣，應用範圍廣泛，從街頭監視、家庭安全到徵信調查甚至違法偷拍。這些攝影機因技術與價格門檻低，加之缺乏法規限制，幾乎任何人都可以輕易獲得並使用。可以接收這些無線訊號的「全頻掃描器」也能輕易購得。手持全頻掃描器漫步於台北街頭，便可接收到多個無線監視器的外洩訊號，這些信號因距離衰減，而深藏於建築物內的無線針孔攝影機的數量可能是外洩信號數倍甚至數十倍。
自2012年起，我開始了一個蒐集計畫，利用全頻掃描器掃描附近的無線攝影機訊號，並用筆記型電腦與影像擷取裝置錄製影像。我製作了一個可攜帶的裝置，一旦偵測到無線攝影機訊號，錄影程式便自動開始錄影，記錄三至五秒的影片。
我攜帶這個裝置，在台北市四處行走，蒐集了約五百個影片。為了保護隱私，我仿效Google公司的方法，將影片封存於儲存裝置中，沒有任何人能看到這些影片。系統會隨機挑選影片並疊加合成為單一錄像，觀眾無法辨識具體細節，只能看到如同統計平均值一般的畫面。
這些錄影捕捉了城市各個角落的影像，畫質粗糙且充滿雜訊，廣角俯瞰視角和紅外線燈照亮的陰暗巷道無意中形成了代表我們時代的獨特影像。疊加的監視畫面模糊不清，只能隱約辨認出人、車與街景，逃避了對特定事物的辨識，成為泛指與統稱，融合成我們這時代城市的均質影像。
如果在空無一人的樹林中，一棵樹倒下，那麼，這棵樹發出了聲音嗎？
在充滿百萬人的城市中，成千上萬個監視錄影機的畫面被轉換成訊號，向四周廣播，這些畫面不斷被刪除又重複記錄，但從未被解讀。
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