Response 3—FrankS

The two projects that I choose to reflect on are Jennicam and Nobody Here. Each of these projects are unique in their own way. Both explain a lot of detail about certain technologies and how they affect our everyday lives. Jennicam showed the whole world every aspect of her life that was private or not private. This allowed people to see how she lived every aspect of her life, which intrigued people. Most people would never do this because they want to keep their private life private. She didn’t care which opened up a huge window for people to be able to get a taste of what its like to observe a person from the outside. That being said humans are interested in people lives when they are vulnerable and wont be judged for it. In Nobody Here the creator wanted to show people what it’s like to be human when we are exposed to certain technologies. With the new technologies that are out today we are almost being watched all the time and the project reflects how certain people may react once they know they are being watched. A few of the slides in the project said things about how we believe what we see and take it to be true when in reality its probably false. For example there was a page with a man sitting next to a phone waiting for the person he was thinking about to call him because it’s a pretty common television scene when a person is sitting by the phone and their crush suddenly calls out of the blue. He becomes disappointed when that person doesn’t call and he blames himself even though it wasn’t his fault. This shows us that technology changes our perspective of what we think is reality.

Jennicam shows us something similar. We see what Jenny is doing but we don’t really know what is going on in her head. She could have a disorder, which makes her feel like she needs to be watched and is dependent on the attention. With the access to the technology she had during the time of her project, she saw an opportunity for people to give her attention and she tried to make a profit off of it. Most of this profit was going toward the project so it could sustain itself. In today’s time this project would be more applicable because there are companies other than PayPal, which she could use, and it’s a lot more acceptable to film yourself. I think that especially in today’s world filming and documenting our lives is a very westernized concept. That being said documenting people in a certain time period has been something that has been going on since humans could write but it’s so prevalent in western cultures today. I believe that people enjoy the technology because they like being documented and recorded for the world to see. In Nobody Here we see a portrayal of what it means to be a person in today’s society. It’s the creation of a new self, a different type of person that accepts technology and uses it for a variety of different tasks. This society is one where information is constantly being shared for everyone to see which makes people act different. This difference is the one we see when a person changes moods when a camera is in front of their face or when they know someone is going to see them in that very moment. It creates a different mentality that is a constant wanting to be accepted into this new society.