It is interesting to consider CSI. CSI is a modern fairy tale, let there be no doubt. It is a myth, it is a wish come true, it is a fantasy. It must play with our expectations. It twists our brains into promises that we may all want.

What concise CSI content is there to lead us to the actual fairy tale aspects? In what does the allure consist?

Extremely High Resolution Video

Given an Extremely High Resolution Video of some road surveillance cameras that indeed contains sufficient detail to at least identify tool marks on the number plate’s screw – a feat typically achieved by the CSI crew – we can now try to find out just what it takes just to obtain such footage on a more regular basis.

Of course, what we are looking here is a spoof version of CSI – but just about. It is that what makes CSI so cool, the ability to “zoom in” and then always have all the relevant details.

So let us assume a 32-bit color and 50 micrometer pixel resolution for an image width of 30 meters. That would give us at least useful details about the tool marks on the screw. We then will probably deal with some 24 meters height, and so with an image covering 30’000 x 24’000 millimeters, with a 50 micron resolution at 4 bytes per pixel, a single image will amount to 1072 GB of storage, that is 1.04 Terabyte (given 1024 Bytes per Kilobyte and so on). If we assume a 15 frame per second video recording which is not even particularly smooth or good for fast movement, 1 hour of continuous surveillance will collect 56577 Terabyte of data, and 24 hours of recording will require 1326 Petabyte of storage.

That, in short, is a lot.

Now, here is an overview over possible prices of storing that magnitude of data [link]:

So with the very cheapest storage solution priced at 81’000 USD per single petabyte, we are looking at 107’409’505 USD for storing 24 hours of CSI ready video surveillance. That is, it costs 107 billion USD to just buy storage for 24 hours of CSI ready video surveillance alone.

CSI tells us fairy tales from the realm of the utterly and entirely not affordable  to start off with.

The technical fairy-tale that is told is unbelievably bold. No additional measures have been added that are necessary to actually find such imagery. With that amount of data, you also need people, computer access points, and lots of time to view the data. That is not contained in the 107 billion USD that data storage alone would cost for a single video surveillance spot for one single day in CSI fairy tale land.

Those people, in that CSI fairy tale world, are – at least subconsciously – completely ready to spend over 100 billion US dollar on unquestioned video storage just for their own entertainment – but most likely prefer to drive around the block to find free parking in downtown Zurich because they afraid of the  8$ it might cost them.

You have to also realize that it is precisely that context within which people find CSI nice because they believe it is somewhat realistic [link].

Area covering urban myths and liquid nonsense galore

CSI does not contain just one single mistake or so.

CSI is jocked full of easter eggs [link]. To try to find all of these easter eggs can be entertaining for sure. But the density of sheer tech nonsense that is being cooked up to compress the on-screen drama to adrenaline generating and revenue generating weekly television, that is mind boggling. It becomes an art form unto itself. It generates an amount of unjustified and unbelievable interest that, itself, has the capacity to entertain well. Primarily that. While some errors are sloppy, in fact, the show’s writers intentionally provide inaccurate information in some instances, Berman said. “We will never tell viewers how to make a bomb or how to load a gun properly. We will fudge it on purpose” [link].

Television crime dramas over-emphasize crimes like murder and under-emphasize more
commonplace property crimes. This is understandable from a narrative sense because violent crimes are sensational and visually interesting [1]. Similarly, presenting crime as a morality play complete with notions of good (heroes) and evil (villains) is an effective storytelling technique [2]. However, this morality play is ideological in nature: it circulates and reinforces cultural meanings about social disorder and criminality [3]. As a social institution, the police have the power to classify crime and criminals, and that definitional power becomes even more taken-for-granted when combined with television’s storytelling capabilities [4].

Even though, also that can be hard to realize. Jurors may expect that modern technology will always be utilized in investigations, especially when prosecuting serious crimes [link]. Allegedly and within that context, a juror apparently was overheard complaining that the prosecution had not done a thorough job because “they didn’t even dust the lawn for fingerprints.” [link]. In fact, dusting a lawn for fingerprints is utter and entire nonsense. (from [link]) [5].

The CSI authors David Berman & Jon Wellner did present “Inside the World of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” a presentation they gave at the Eighth Annual Forensic Science and Law Conference (A National Symposium on the Intersection of Forensic Science and Popular Culture, Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, Duquesne University,  Pittsburgh, OA, USA, on Apr. 5, 2008) [6]. They articulated that “all ideas for the show come from real forensic evidence theories, but for television purposes the procedures are either exaggerated or dramatized for entertainment value.” (from [link][5]).

Other subjects of their research have included coffee bean-eating monkeys, roller coaster construction, furries (people who dress up in plush fabric animal costumes) and the details and decor in the home of the fictitious sleuth Sherlock Holmes. Their company, which they founded in 2009 after nearly a decade of doing research for “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” keeps a database of more than 300 experts in scores of alphabetized disciplines, from accident reconstruction and airport security to forensic anthropology, art and chemistry to tattoo artistry, toxicology, transportation, veterinary medicine, zoology and more (from [link]) [5].

CSI is wildly graphic – beyond your wildest dreams

It takes special training to be able to withstand compelling, well made and good looking imagery and footage, scenes and movies, video sequences and scientific looking still images.

CSI’s web of forensic facticity was established by its narratives, its dialogue, and the accoutrement of science. Some devices were consistent with the traditions of the police procedural but others were unique to a program which foregrounded science. Together, they produced a sense of forensic realism which suggested that science and police scientists solved crimes, and that the audience was a part of the solution. — Just as the news shapes attitudes about politics and economics, a program like CSI circulated meanings about crime, the police, and the social order. — Most viewers lack a science background so, in addition to such dialogue, CSI used cinematographic effects and visually supplemented its scientific jargon. Executive producer Carol Mendelsohn referred to the practice as “visual storytelling” (cited in [7][5]). This included close-ups of microscopic evidence and graphic journeys into the human body. As a medical examiner explained a victim’s death, viewers took the bullet’s perspective as it entered and exited the body; this provided an inner visual of the wounds and damage that the medical examiner described (Episodes 108, 110, and 115). As series creator Anthony Zuiker explained, “the visual image will sell it on CSI”. (from [link]) [5].

Summary

In essence, a realistic CSI technology would cost more than one could ever imagine. This can easily be exemplified. The sums alone are utterly crazy to say the least.CSI assembles intelligent imagery and convincing science jargon, well invented stories and highly compact story telling to load the audience with so much nonsense that it literally stops thinking. They get stuffed so much gobble-gook they stop breathing, mentally.

The idea of investigating CSI for “realism” as such is ludicrous. Funny at best. The aestheticized high tech show is fraught with easter eggs, funny mix ups, confusion, errors, mistakes, omissions  and all kinds of myths. There is not much that CSI wants from authentic crime scene investigations except the tag of “authenticity”. Anyone that falls for that trap has probably already lost a feel for (actual) authenticity as fooling people into believing CSI had authenticity appeal is the only real goal of that show. Besides entertaining viewers and keeping them there, of course. As the reality that was used to draw the map (the simulans) slowly withers and disappears, gets forgotten and is not believed any more, and as slowly the map is the only artifact that remains to tell the story and it then finds itself without underlying reality, it warps into a simulacrum (Jean Baudrillard) [8]. We are approaching really hot territory here. These things become a truth in their own right.

And to go to swap such reality perceptions from under our eyes, which is what the makers of CSI actually achieve, that is its true accomplishment. They have managed to install fiction instead of reality. Is it asked too much, in that context, to “pray for a secular future”? Is it sufficient to do that? What do religions try to sell in terms of perceptive layers when advanced television marketing successfully proves that it understands the neurology of convincing people of the true value of their simulacra so much better? So much better that people who assert me they are clearly thinking straight tell me off hand that actually calculating the financial nonsense (see above) will not generate interesting figures? 107 billion USD per day? Are we thinking straight after all?

David Stern’s “mesmerized bunny effect” that he presented at a 1997 IDL user meeting in Melbourne, Australia, now seems to be just a tiny little aspect of what we see here.

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}

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@InProceedings{berman2008,
author = {Berman,David and Wellner,Jon},
title = {{Inside the World of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation}},
booktitle = {{Where Fact Meets Fiction: A National Symposium on the Intersection of Forensic Science and Pop Culture: the 8th Annual Forensic Science and Law Conference; Cyril H. Wecht Institute of Forensic Science and Law, Duquesne University,  Pittsburgh, OA, USA, on Apr. 5, 2008}},
year = {2008}
}

@phdthesis{bull2012post,
  title={{A Post-genomic Forensic Crime Drama: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation as Cultural Forum on Science}},
  author={Bull, Sofia},
  year={2012},
  school={Stockholm}
}

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