London, England, UK

Who painted that? Banksy. London, one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world, woke up one morning and there it was. Banksy had eluded detection even though he was on Royal Mail property. Do you see the camera that should have caught him in the act? Everyone in London is now on candid camera, but not everyone thinks it's funny. [2008]

THE BACKSTORY ~ Posted on the 10^th Anniversary of Geographically Yours, 4 August 2020: Cities are in a process of perpetual transformation. But sometimes the transformations are ephemeral, as was this mural and its message: “One Nation Under CCTV.” My camera and I were pounding the pavements of central London. Almost reflexively, I took this picture. I continued on my walk and then circled back to take a second look. What was this all about? The property was a Royal Mail (government) lot, on whose edge was painted a meme critical of the government; it was right under the watchful eye of the technology it was criticizing: a surveillance camera! Was this really government sanctioned? What I knew at the time was that London was fast becoming the world’s most surveilled city; there were cameras mounted everywhere, and, of course, not everyone approved. What I didn’t know is that the mural had been painted in a single night and was removed after about a week. How did I learn this? From the Internet after I got home. It was the work of Banksy, maybe the world’s most famous graffiti artist, whose identity is a closely kept secret. Look, he painted himself on a ladder painting the slogan. Royal Mail did not like Banksy’s mockery, and they made it go away quickly. In my own mind, though, I envision an anthropologist of the future scraping off centuries of paint and finding the muralist’s 21^st-century critique of his home city. Now, however, more than two decades into the 21^st century, we don’t even debate CCTV; we just accept it. Banksy, where are you? D.J.Z.