This chapter carries out a brief cartography of the so-called “intelligent” video surveillance systems. These systems are programmed to accomplish real time automated detection of situations considered irregular and/or suspicious in specific environments, in order to predict and prevent undesirable events. Three aspects of the smart cameras are focused in this cartography. First, the author explores its regime of visibility and note how it prioritizes the capture of irregularities in the body’s movements in urban space. Second, the author shows how the type of monitoring and profiling of bodies and behaviors in these systems generally acts at the visible, surface and infra-individual level of human conduct. Finally, he analyzes the temporality of smart cameras, especially in its proactive dimension that intends to foresee and intervene, in real time, in future events. The analysis of these three aspects of the intelligent video surveillance identifies and highlights discourses, processes and operations that are common to the exercising of power and surveillance in contemporary societies – more specifically, those which are included in the realm of control devices.
Efficient Video Surveillance: Performance Evaluation in Distributed Video Surveillance Systems
