Those new airport scanners that reveal the naked you are still stirring up controversy. The scanners show people as naked who walk through them and are also supposed to reveal things such as explosives in your underwear. People seem most concerned about the naked part and worry that this image might be made public somehow.
Right at the start, the security people are saying they’ll blur all faces that go through this machine and that the person checking the image will be in another room and not be able to see the person who has been scanned.
Still mistrust exists and some people will refuse given even the best security measures with their image. They will need to exit from this line and submit to a pat down. But I offer my services to airport security in order to avoid some of those pat downs.
In another time (1993 – 1994), I used to draw political cartoons. I had to get a likeness of various people and commit it to paper. Being lazy I just did the likeness and didn’t bother to turn it into a caricature. Given time and a pencil and paper I could get a likeness of those people getting a pat down.
Then I could extend each drawing down. And make them naked. Now it’s true that I never really will see anyone naked so I’d have to guess what’s hidden. I’m sure I’d be wrong about nipples, tattoos, shaved/unshaved areas, scars, moles, and genital sizes. But if I gave the average, considering the shape I can see, I could give the picture to people who’ve seen you and they would think I’d seen the real thing. And since the point of this whole exercise is shaming, I’d give each man very small genitals.
Airport security, wherever you are, hire me or another realist artist and we can get more and more people to use the new scanners. I’m not inexpensive but after all I might get compliance with your new security scheme, and isn’t that almost priceless?
