Olympia, WA grunge trio Broken Water reference the ur-text on totalitarianism on their 2015 single ‘1984’. George Orwell’s novel imagined a society under total control, where privacy is impossible and every action is observed by “Big Brother,” the creepily familiar title for the vast machine of surveillance that undergirds the police super-state of Oceania.
Broken Water’s Kanako Pooknyw finds a disconcerting parallel in 21st century America, where the digital technologies in our pockets act as a double agent, promising freedom while giving us up to the feds. “Carry a telephone, which can disclose, name and location, the address of your home,” sings Pooknyw coolly, observing the banality of this modern dystopia.
For the video, director David Hoekje pieced together hours of footage downloaded from public webcams, along with footage taken from police body cameras in Spokane, WA. The body cameras add to the layer cake of surveillance; an uneasy ally for us citizens of the police state, and an awkward answer to a vital question: "Who will guard the guards themselves?"