Empty Retail 14
©2010 Craig Ashby
Digital Photograph

Empty Retail 14 is another space I imagine living in. The balcony alone is a huge draw. It seems to be the only newish element in the whole picture.

The red reflections coming from a building across the street. Looks like a Bank of America store front. But who knows?

Most of these pictures aren’t geo tagged. Only the newer pieces from the iPhone could be. And many of those are from periods of time when I had location services disabled.

Even if it is helpful and interesting, it is disturbing how much data could be gathered from these simple devices. Nothing gets to me more than noticing those shoes I Googled on my phone are now advertisements on my laptop via Facebook.

Even more troubling is how few people make any effort to see the gravity of this problem. Snowden is seen as public enemy number one but AT&T squirm under the radar. Mainly because corporations run the government.

This is a problem up there with climate change. If we are all participating in the global web then now is the time to handle these issues. Now in its infancy, not later when the corporations of greed have built the game to suit them.