I find myself spending less and less time in the realm of public space, but what then constitutes public space? The place where I am sitting at this moment is in my bedroom beneath a window that provides a direct view onto my neighbor's back deck. Every once in a while I am staring up at the sky, thinking, and she comes into my blurred view. Does this constitute public space? The front room of our ground floor has two windows that face the sidewalk and then the street. It is summer, 89 degrees and 85% humidity, we keep our windows and doors open at all hours. While watching winnie the pooh with my son, a car pulls up with glass rattling drum and bass. The car stays, my 20 month old says, "loud", and then starts to bob his head to the music. Where does public space end, and private space begin? Are there boundaries? Boundaries are for those who can afford them. Boundaries are for the faint at heart. Boundaries are rich, smug, exclusive, obfuscating, comfortable, controlled, and not real.
30 Days Being A Civilian Body Camera
I will wear a body camera for the next 30 days, documenting all the time I spend in the public realm. The camera will be dismounted and powered off while in my home, with my family, in other private residences, and in the place where I work. Every night I will post the video unedited to this blog as a document of my experiences as a civilian, as a woman, a mother, a brown body wearing a body camera. I will include a link to texts that I am reading while being recorded. These texts will provide a social and political context for the public space that is being documented, and will have a relation to self surveillance, protest, new technologies, the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and any other subject relating to what it means to be a body on the streets in this present moment.