Day 10- To celebrate making it to the double digits (#10) I'm presenting edited highlights of my first day wearing the body cam without the interference of reading material.
Read MoreDay 9
Day 9- **No public space = no post = space for reflection**
**Send thoughtful comments, suggestions, words of encouragement**
Day 8
Day 8- What is art's relation to activism? What qualifies a gesture as activist?
Read MoreDay 7
In the summer of 2016, "a number of events occurred that changed everything for me:,"
Read MoreDay 6
Day 6- "Glasshole"- a term I learn from my friend Gabriel Willow, naturalist and boat tour guide for the Audubon Society, when he greets me onto the NYC Water Taxi.
Read MoreDay 5
Day 5- The day is on fire as we collectively mull over what feels like our new reality.
Read MoreDay 4
Day 4 is about being tired, being quiet, looking from the corner of your eye but not really caring.
Read More
Day 3
30 Days Being a Civilian Body Camera- Day 3
Read MoreDay 2
Going In
Today was about deciding if I could enter places like banks, grocery stores, coffee shops- where do we have legal access to take video?
ACLU: Your Rights to Take Video & Photography
Video A ends when I enter Chase bank, although I did not remove the camera physically from my head. I used the machine and left without interaction. Video C records interactions in Whole Foods while getting some groceries. None of the interactions addressed the presence of the body camera. I am surprised by the lack of disturbance, the apparent acceptance of living with cameras in plain view. So far mostly sideways glances, until the camera card was filled and the camera started making a piercing and urgent beeping sound. I was sitting in the subway reading about Sandra Bland. I wasn't sure why it was beeping, but it sounded like a bomb was about to go off. I calmly turned it off and removed the camera from my head and continued reading. I looked up after 3 minutes and the woman sitting across from me is staring at me with a pretty intense look. The woman in grey tie-dye to the right is also giving me a hard stare. In this moment I realize glitches can be dangerous.
READING
WATCHING SANDRA BLAND, By Margaret Talbot, JULY 29, 2015
"A Man Was Lynched by Police Yesterday”, by Hrag Vartanian, Hyperallergic, July 8, 2016
Day 1
Day 1
Read More30 Days Being a Civilian Body Camera
Sunday, July 17, 2016
In light of recent, and not so recent, events in the U.S. I am embarking on an experiment, a durational act of protest, a consideration of camera technology as it is being used in precarious and often violent instances to bare witness and document a first hand recording of what is being considered Truth. The body camera has become a tool for civilians and the police alike, with the only purpose to capture events without a imposing a subjectivity.
I will wear a recording body camera for the next 30 days, documenting every movement I make in the public realm. The camera will be dismounted and powered off while in my home, 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, as 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 context for what is being documented, and will have a relation to self surveillance, protest, new technologies, the #Black Lives Matter movement, and any other subject relating to what it means to be a body on the streets in this present moment.
I have no expectations, only questions