Surveillance project

Part I

1. 24 Hours 5.3.10

I woke up and turned my laptop on to check up my e-mail and Facebook. By logging into UCD and Facebook sites, the sites were able to track me. After class, I stopped by ATM machine to get some cash, and I realized that the bank was tracking my bank account and the security camera watched me. Around lunchtime, I went to San Francisco Japan town with my friends. On my way to there, I saw the traffic camera on the Bay Bridge that records live traffic including our car. At the Japan town center, I saw the surveillance camera at several areas on the walls and ceilings. When I paid for the ramen I ate with my debit card, I knew the information was engaged with tracking system. I noticed that in this sophisticated world, I could barely find privacy in the society or even in my home.

2. 48 Hours 5.4.10- 5.5.10

I woke up at 9a.m. and washed my face. I turned my laptop on to listen to the music. At around 11a.m., I cooked some kind of noodles and after eating them I went out to school. I went though arboretum path to get to class and the class had a field trip to east Davis area. I visited Sierra Sod Company and looked around their lawn field. It was too hot to keep walking after the trip I went to Jamba juice. Then I met my boyfriend and we cooked our dinner Szechuan Pork together. After studying for 2 hours, we went to park to take a walk with his puppy and I came back home around midnight.

I woke up at 10a.m. and took a shower. I went to class at noon and after class I went to batting cage to practice softball. After practicing softball, I went to my boyfriend’s house and we watched DVD movie “Intolerable Cruelty”. We made and ate seafood pasta together. After coming back to my home, I did homework and read Bible and went to sleep.

Part II

a. The very first moment I woke up, I checked my email just like many other UCD students. Many of us may think that this is where we can have privacy, but the truth is this can be tracked by Internet system. Also, ATM machines track our bank accounts’ balance and every activity including something that I do not want to be exposed in front the machines. Additionally, live traffic cameras at random places are also tracking us when we don’t realize. In order to mediate our lives to the society, we may need to expose our privacy to media.

b. I wanted to boast my life to the public a lot better than my real life. I wanted to show the public that my life had something meaningful. Therefore, I tried real hard to fulfill my schedule to cook special menus, to exercise, and to study with happy face during the survey. Besides tracking myself for 48 hours, it was boring, tiring, and discouraging. It was little bit tough to keep going this.

c. In my sense of a private self, media still plays an important role. In fact, I think media plays more important role than of my public self. I can be engaged more profoundly into media via Internet, phone, or email. Even though I am in my public self when I am in public, I will have my private self when I open up my laptop and engage myself into Internet, phone, or email. In our daily lives, we are always involved in public gaze even at the moments we do not know or feel. One circumstance where a public persona would be useful to me was when I was doing a UCD Fashion Show on picnic day. The eyes of people, cameras, and camcorders were tracking my every little behaviors and kept track of my performance. I felt really good when people were watching me during the special event.