- Email: [email protected]
Art, a human universal
digital globe/getty
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Bicester)
Nowhere to hide The next wave of eyes in the sky will watch everything you do DURING the cold war, it was often claimed that spy satellites could read the headline of a newspaper left on a park bench in Moscow or Washington DC. They couldn’t: spatial resolution was nowhere near good enough. Nonetheless, the eyes in the sky were watching. Those eyes now see further and more clearly than ever before – though they probably still can’t read headlines. Nor are they just the preserve of intelligence services. Increasingly, private operators are using observation satellites and drones to obtain high-resolution images and sell them to anyone who is interested. There has been remarkably little public debate about this development, though it is a hot
issue in legal circles. Images taken from far above are increasingly being presented as evidence in court, and the world’s first space detective agency has recently been established (see page 23). Does this represent a step change in public surveillance? Absolutely. It is easy to envisage a future in which everything we do outdoors – and perhaps indoors, given thermal imaging – can be watched, recorded and potentially used as evidence. After all, in some drone-patrolled parts of the world, that is already the case. Many people will be fine with that. Some countries – notably the UK, the world’s most watched society – have been relaxed about the remorseless growth of CCTV.
Art, a human universal IF YOU look at the cave paintings pictured on page 10, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were from Lascaux, Pech Merle, or another celebrated site in western Europe. But you’d be a long way wide of the mark. They are actually from Sulawesi, about 12,000 kilometres to the east. The paintings were discovered in the 1950s but have only now been firmly dated. Their
antiquity – around 40,000 years old – has important implications, particularly for the idea that symbolic art originated in Europe. This has already been challenged by finds from Asia and Africa. The Indonesian discovery should be the clincher. One reason the Eurocentric view took hold was a chauvinistic belief that the first Europeans were more sophisticated than
The hoary old pro-surveillance mantra: “if you have nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about” will be trotted out again. Such complacency is unwise. Satellites and drones threaten civil rights, notably freedom of movement, in a way that fixed CCTV cameras do not. That may prompt a backlash: acceptance is a function of who is likely to get caught. Brits, for example, are far less fond of road speed cameras. Public spaces have generally been open for photography; aerial imagery is everywhere. But the next wave of imaging will redefine what we consider public space. Perhaps you’ll soon have to accept that someone’s always going to be reading over your shoulder. n
people elsewhere. The truth is that Europe’s deep past was explored earlier and more thoroughly than elsewhere. As researchers across the world catch up we can expect prehistory to be rewritten again. Nor can Indonesia claim to be the cradle of art. The paintings speak of a universal humanity – hand stencils and pictures of animals also dominate European art from around the same time. The origins of art surely lie in our ancestral home, Africa. In art, as in science, we are one people. n 11 October 2014 | NewScientist | 5
LEADERS
LOCATIONS UK Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s Road, London WC1X 8NS Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1200 Fax +44 (0) 20 7611 1250 Australia Tower 2, 475 Victoria Avenue, Chatswood, NSW 2067 Tel +61 2 9422 8559 Fax +61 2 9422 8552 USA 225 Wyman Street, Waltham, MA 02451 Tel +1 781 734 8770 Fax +1 720 356 9217 201 Mission Street, 26th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Tel +1 415 908 3348 Fax +1 415 704 3125 Subscription Service For our latest subscription offers, visit newscientist.com/subscribe Customer and subscription services are also available by: Telephone +44 (0) 844 543 80 70 Email [email protected] Web newscientist.com/subscribe Post New Scientist, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex RH16 3DH One year subscription (51 issues) UK £150 cONTACTS Contact us newscientist.com/contact Who’s who newscientist.com/people General & media enquiries Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] Editorial Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1202 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Picture desk Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1268 Display Advertising Tel +44 (0) 20 7611 1291 [email protected] Recruitment Advertising UK Tel +44 (0) 20 8652 4444 [email protected] UK Newsstand Tel +44 (0) 20 3148 3333 Newstrade distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd, The Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 OSU Syndication Tribune Content Agency Tel +44 (0) 20 7588 7588 [email protected]
© 2014 Reed Business Information Ltd, England New Scientist is published weekly by Reed Business Information Ltd. ISSN 0262 4079. Registered at the Post Office as a newspaper and printed in England by Polestar (Bicester)
Nowhere to hide The next wave of eyes in the sky will watch everything you do DURING the cold war, it was often claimed that spy satellites could read the headline of a newspaper left on a park bench in Moscow or Washington DC. They couldn’t: spatial resolution was nowhere near good enough. Nonetheless, the eyes in the sky were watching. Those eyes now see further and more clearly than ever before – though they probably still can’t read headlines. Nor are they just the preserve of intelligence services. Increasingly, private operators are using observation satellites and drones to obtain high-resolution images and sell them to anyone who is interested. There has been remarkably little public debate about this development, though it is a hot
issue in legal circles. Images taken from far above are increasingly being presented as evidence in court, and the world’s first space detective agency has recently been established (see page 23). Does this represent a step change in public surveillance? Absolutely. It is easy to envisage a future in which everything we do outdoors – and perhaps indoors, given thermal imaging – can be watched, recorded and potentially used as evidence. After all, in some drone-patrolled parts of the world, that is already the case. Many people will be fine with that. Some countries – notably the UK, the world’s most watched society – have been relaxed about the remorseless growth of CCTV.
Art, a human universal IF YOU look at the cave paintings pictured on page 10, you could be forgiven for thinking that they were from Lascaux, Pech Merle, or another celebrated site in western Europe. But you’d be a long way wide of the mark. They are actually from Sulawesi, about 12,000 kilometres to the east. The paintings were discovered in the 1950s but have only now been firmly dated. Their
antiquity – around 40,000 years old – has important implications, particularly for the idea that symbolic art originated in Europe. This has already been challenged by finds from Asia and Africa. The Indonesian discovery should be the clincher. One reason the Eurocentric view took hold was a chauvinistic belief that the first Europeans were more sophisticated than
The hoary old pro-surveillance mantra: “if you have nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to worry about” will be trotted out again. Such complacency is unwise. Satellites and drones threaten civil rights, notably freedom of movement, in a way that fixed CCTV cameras do not. That may prompt a backlash: acceptance is a function of who is likely to get caught. Brits, for example, are far less fond of road speed cameras. Public spaces have generally been open for photography; aerial imagery is everywhere. But the next wave of imaging will redefine what we consider public space. Perhaps you’ll soon have to accept that someone’s always going to be reading over your shoulder. n
people elsewhere. The truth is that Europe’s deep past was explored earlier and more thoroughly than elsewhere. As researchers across the world catch up we can expect prehistory to be rewritten again. Nor can Indonesia claim to be the cradle of art. The paintings speak of a universal humanity – hand stencils and pictures of animals also dominate European art from around the same time. The origins of art surely lie in our ancestral home, Africa. In art, as in science, we are one people. n 11 October 2014 | NewScientist | 5