Dictionary: The Gaze

to apply the gaze is to look at ourselves and our lives in relationship to the world around us. Through the window of ideology, we see how we are affected and influenced by media, the public, the government, our families, and our peers.

MEDIA EXPERIMENT: GROUP #2: SELF-SURVEILLED

24 hours: Thursday night 4/29/10- Others Surveying You

I drove to Los Angeles this weekend, and noticed just how much as a driver I was being “watched”. While driving I noticed the multiple cameras on stop lights and at major intersections. My FasTrak was also a way of being tracked, and at the Starbucks drive thru’s (which I went to twice), the Taco Bell drive thru, and at the gas station with all their cameras, as well as using my debit card. I also used the internet on my phone to look at directions and check my email.

48 hours: Friday 4/30/10- Survey Yourself

Once being home I spent time alone in my room doing homework, browsing the internet, and eating (a Rite Aid ice cream cone). I also watched TV, read a magazine, made mash potatoes, and made my bed. Most of the remaining time I was with my friends and family, and wasn’t alone.

1. I realized from this exercise that my privacy in relationship to media has a blurred boundary. Until I consciously was trying to be aware of my privacy while driving I never noticed how much I was being watched, and tracked. Everywhere from me stopping to getting something to eat, from driving over a bridge was tracked in a system somewhere.
2. Being in public changed my actions from being politically correct in terms of the way I acted rather then being alone. For example while I was in my room I was in pajamas and had my ice cream fall on my shirt, I let it sit there until I was done before I changed it, but if I was in public I would not have done this, nor been in pajamas. I had a hard time with this exercise because I was mainly driving for the beginning and it was hard to take pictures.
3. Media plays a role in my sense of private life by the TV shows I watch, what I choose to wear, the magazines I read, etc. In my public life it is shown through possibly where I choose to eat, how I use my cell phone, and the music I listen to. A public persona/ lack of a private persona might be useful to a celebrity, therefore their personal lives, children, etc. would not be plastered across magazines, and they could live a more “normal life” by just having their public persona (their work) be put on display.

Under Surveillance

Partner: Rebecca Peterson

I self-surveilled starting April 25 at 12 AM until April 26 at 12 AM. Here is my minute by minute itinerary of when I was being tracked.

Text message received at 12:23 AM

Text message sent at 12:28 AM

Text message received at 12:37 AM

Text message sent at 12:37 AM

Text message sent at 12:38 AM

Phone call received at 12:39 AM

Text message received at 12:46 AM

Text message sent at 12:47 AM

Phone call made at 12:53 AM

Text message sent at 1:08 AM

Text message received at 1:09 AM

Text message sent at 1:10 AM

Text message sent at 1:10 AM

Text message received at 1:11 AM

Text message sent at 1:11 AM

Text message received at 1:11 AM

Text message sent at 1:12 AM

Text message received at 1:12 AM

Text message received at 1:13 AM

Text message received at 1:13 AM

Text message sent at 1:13 AM

Text message sent at 1:14 AM

Text message received at 1:15 AM

Text message sent at 1:15 AM

Text message received at 1:16 AM

Text message sent at 1:17 AM

Text message received at 1:17 AM

Text message sent at 1:36 AM

Text message sent at 1:49 AM

Entered dormitory at 2:02 AM

Phone call received at 2:03 AM

Entered dormitory room at 2:08 AM

Internet usage from 2:10 AM – 2:40 AM

Internet usage from 11:56 AM – 12:17 PM

Text message sent at 12:08 PM

Entered dormitory door at 12:33 PM

Text message received at 12:25 PM

Text message received at 12:43 PM

Text message sent at 12:46 PM

Text message received at 12:46 PM

Text message sent at 12:47 PM

Text message received at 12:50 PM

Internet usage from 12:56 PM – 1:38 PM

Text message received at 1:01 PM

Text message sent at 1:02 PM

Text message received at 1:03 PM

Text message sent at 1:04 PM

Text message received at 1:05 PM

Text message received at 1:09 PM

Phone call received at 1:10 PM

Text message received at 1:46 PM

Text message sent at 1:47 PM

Text message received at 2:10 PM

Entered dormitory at 4:02 PM

Entered dormitory room at 4:02 PM

Text message received at 4:02 PM

Text message sent at 4:03 PM

Text message received at 4:04 PM

Text message sent at 4:05 PM

Text message received at 4:06 PM

Text message sent at 4:06 PM

Text message received at 4:09 PM

Text message sent at 4:10 PM

Text message received at 4:10 PM

Text message sent at 4:10 PM

Text message received at 4:13 PM

Phone call made at 4:13 PM

Text message sent at 4:18 PM

Text message sent at 4:19 PM

Text message received at 4:19 PM

Internet usage from 4:20 PM to 4:48 PM

Text message received at 4:22 PM

Phone call made at 4:23 PM

Text message sent at 4:25 PM

Text message received at 4:25 PM

Text message sent at 4:26 PM

Text message received at 4:26 PM

Text message sent at 4:27 PM

Text message received at 4:28 PM

Text message received at 4:54 PM

Text message sent at 4:54 PM

Internet usage from 5:16 PM to 5:37 PM

Text message received at 5:25 PM

Text message sent at 5:55 PM

Text message received at 5:57 PM

Text message received at 5:57 PM

Text message received at 6:23 PM

Enter Segundo Dining Commons at 6:31 PM

Surveyed in DC by camera surveillance from 6:31 PM until 7:28 PM

Phone call received at 6:45 PM

Text message received at 6:58 PM

Text message sent at 6:58 PM

Text message received at 7:06 PM

Text message sent at 7:08 PM

Text message received at 7:09 PM

Text message sent at 7:10 PM

Text message received at 7:10 PM

Enter dormitory at 7:33 PM

Enter dormitory room at 7:35 PM

Internet usage from 7:41 PM to 8:42 PM

Text message received at 8:14 PM

Text message sent at 8:14 PM

Text message received at 8:15 PM

Text message sent at 8:16 PM

Text message received at 8:16 PM

Text message sent at 8:17 PM

Text message received at 8:18 PM

Text message sent at 8:18 PM

Text message received at 8:20 PM

Text message received at 9:20 PM

Text message sent at 9:22 PM

Internet usage from 9:23 PM to 9:26 PM

Text message sent at 9:28 PM

Text message received at 9:46 PM

Internet usage from 9:47 PM to 9:51 PM

Text message received at 9:48 PM

Text message sent at 10:13 PM

Text message received at 10:13 PM

Text message sent at 10:14 PM

Phone call received at 10:15 PM

Text message received at 10:16 PM

Phone call received at 10:25 PM

Here are the photos I took of my private self during the 48 hour period from April 26, 12 AM to April 28, 12 AM.

Reading, alone, in my dorm room at 12:30 AM, 4/26

Shower, 10:40 AM, 4/26

Getting dressed in my dorm room, 10:55 AM, 4/26

Dormitory bathroom at 3:28 PM, 4/26

Working on an article (no internet needed), 3:35 PM, 4/26

Bathroom, again, 7:75 PM, 4/26

Bathroom, 8:26 AM, 4/27

Bathroom, again, note umbrella for the rainy day. 1:02 PM, 4/27

Toilet! WOW! 3:24 PM, 4/27

Made tea in the dorm room at 7:17 PM, 4/27

Bathroom, one last time, 8:37 PM, 4/27

Doing dishes in the dorm, 11:51 PM, 4/27

Reading/homework in the dorm before bed, 11:58 AM, 4/27

Becky and I learned that we were always connected to the media. We were almost always using the internet or our cell phones, and when we weren’t, we were in our dorm rooms or in the DC (whereabouts that are tracked by our ID cards). The only time we were truly alone were when we were in the bathroom, or occasionally in our dorms when our roommates were not there. Even when we were alone in the dorms doing homework, we are usually required to be connected to the internet (case and point: this class).

Even though we were looking for surveillance equipment and we were constantly keeping track of our phone use, we didn’t really change ourselves. In this exercise, there was no real difference between a private self and a public self — we are simply used to always being under surveillance. There is no real circumstance where a public persona would be useful to us because we feel like we always have a public persona. Basically any time we may be physically alone, we are using our phones or are online. The lack of privacy from our phones always being on and being traceable is not compelling enough for us to be disconnected.

Dictionary : John Berger

John Berger is a british art critic and author of video, "Way of Seeing", that we watched in the class. As a marxist and deriving from Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", in the first part of the video, he critics the images in media, which can be reproduced by anybody's any purpose. Especially, paintings in the screen are manipulated and transformed by certain environment such as background music or camera angle. In the video, he also points out that original painting is still unique, different, and authentic from screen and has aura while reproducing images and copy of old master piece has been coming to us or our home.

Dictionary: Propaganda Model

a. Noam Chomsky

b. The "Propaganda Model" illustrates that there are five different kinds of filters that are key in the production of society's news. The five filters include who owns the media, the advertising and sourcing for it, as well as unfavorable criticism and anti-communist ideals.

Dictionary: The Aura and Reproduction-- Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

In his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin theorized that once something is reproduced, it's "aura" is lost. The significance of time and meaning of the single copy, aka the original, is taken away.

Dictionary: The performative function

a. J.L. Austin

b. The performative function of words is an element of Austin’s philosophy of language which states that there is a type of word that does more than just state facts. Some words make things happen. This is done through speech acts, such as “I do” in a wedding. In generally, if you can reasonably insert “hereby” in between the subject and verb, it is a speech act. We consider this to understand the power of words.