Cyberpunk in Petersburg: Historic statue gets a security camera for a head

A street artist who works under the pseudonym lonesome_grass has turned a sculpture framing the entrance to St. Petersburg’s historic Kirillov House into a comment on public surveillance.

Two years ago, the statue’s head was stolen. It remained headless for several years, and lonesome_grass took advantage of that fact by installing a camera on its body. The artist called the resulting chimera “The Scarecrow.”

“Security cameras, metal detectors, selective screenings — does all this security make any sense at all? Is it capable of identifying vandals and intruders? Obviously not,” the artist wrote on Instagram.