Mapping 1984 in London

It is often said that in London you are never more than ten feet from a rat. The same could probably be said of surveillance cams. In the UK there is one surveillance camera for every 11 people. Which means that in heavily populated areas such as London it is probably safe to assume that most of the time you are being watched by at least one CCTV camera.

On Thursday, 30th October 2014 James Bridle set out to walk the perimeter of the London Congestion Charge Zone. While on the walk James planned to take photos of all the surveillance cameras decorating the route. Unfortunately James was not able to complete the full circuit of the Congestion Charge Zone. During his walk he was placed under citizen arrest by security guards of the Grosvenor House Hotel and then subsequently questioned by the police for the suspicious behavior of carrying a camera in London.

James did manage to complete roughly half of his planned route and was able to take 427 photos of the surveillance cameras. You can view the location and photos of all the surveillance cameras that James documented on this Paranoid Cartography map. The map includes an animated heat-map layer which is drawn on the map. At the same time as the heat-map layer is being drawn a slide-show of all James' photos plays out on the map.

You can read more about the walk and the project on the Short Term Memory Loss website.