The Way These Artists Celebrated George Orwell's 110th Birthday Is Actually Pretty Funny...in a Depressing Sort of Way

Big Brother is watching you.

Eric Arthur Blair, better known by his nom de plume George Orwell, was born in Bihar, India on June 25, 1903, to a wealthy British couple.

He would go on to become one of the most revered writers of the 20th century, due in part to his razor-sharp wit and his literary criticisms, but mostly because of his prophetic masterpiece “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” a dystopian vision of a world controlled and monitored by an all-knowing government (i.e. “Big Brother”).

And in honor of Orwell’s 110th birthday, Front404, a Dutch artist duo, decided to make a humorous yet poignant statement about the ever-expanding role of government in the lives of ordinary citizens by decorating surveillance cameras in the city of Utrecht.

“By putting these happy party hats on the surveillance cameras we don’t just celebrate Orwell’s birthday,” the artistic duo writes on their website.

“By making these inconspicuous cameras that we ignore in our daily lives catch the eye again we also create awareness of how many cameras really watch us nowadays, and that the surveillance state described by Orwell is getting closer and closer to reality.”

Here are some of the best photos from Front404’s celebration of Orwell’s birthday:

Courtesy Front404.