This continuous and fragmented act of wearing a camera in public space for 30 days started as a social and technological experiment, and has become about finding a place of quiet. It is difficult to see from today's video, but I walked with my eyes directed at the ground. I did not give people a chance to exchange glances, which has been a very intense form of communication for the past three weeks. Unexpectedly it started to rain. The ground became speckled, the smell of wet cement, and the very busy street of Bedford Avenue became silent. There was the feeling of being in unison, where truck drivers, construction workers, commuters, street people, children, and dead rodents all existed within the silence of a downward glance. The experience had nothing to do with the presence of the body camera and could not be captured by its very wide perspective. I thought maybe the rain would short out its recording function- the next phase of this project will be to practice a space of embodiment without the presence of a recording device.
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.