Josh Begley’s Prison Map is a piece that attempts to subvert (what I see as) data-centric perspectives and explanations for the United States’ positioning as the prison capital of the world. When writing about the oft-trot explanations for growing imprisonment, Begley lists through numbers, dates, and charts as examples. Then he presents his representation; a long scroll of satellite photographs that each depict a US prison aerially. When I first saw this piece, I approached it as Begley’s way of adding heart to the depersonalized data that we more often see when talking about the prison system.
But in their presentation, these photographs only add to the depersonalized datafication of the United States’ prison system. The images are arranged in a seemingly endless grid to scroll through. They are given no context; all that they can speak for is what they show as images. And the photographs are devoid of humanity, representing the same barren abstraction of when you find your own home on Google Maps, only to realize how devoid of character the birds-eye view is.
I think that Begley set forth with a misguided question. The Prison Map website describes that the piece is asking what the geography of incarceration in the United States looks like. What does that question do to bring us away from viewing the prison system through a lens of abstracted data? If Begley is exploring the geography of incarceration, what is that meant to prove? Looking through these images, I think that they do show interesting geography: some geometric constructions on otherwise empty land, some tight pockets surrounded by forest, some indistinguishable from the buildings around them. But I don’t see the importance in exploring the geography of the US prison system when that act itself continues to drive the typical distanced and data-centric conversations.
I am drawn to this piece because of how it represents a dangerous zone of socio-political art. In his attempt to use technology as a fresh, awakening lens, I feel like Begley produced work that feeds the same damaging narrative as countless other data-based perspectives.