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Table of Contents
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"Place you go to be yourself"
Introduction
If anyone is to point out the invention that has had the single greatest impact on the way people interact in the late 20th century, the Internet is probably one of the strongest contenders. Television allowed us a telescopic view far beyond our natural senses, however it was always a world apart – a world seen through a window, inaccessible, and impossible to interact with. The Internet changed this: instant exchange of information and tele-presence through video and audio has allowed humans to broadcast themselves and connect on an interpersonal basis. It is however also a freedom that holds certain paradoxes: We can display our most intimate secrets anonymously or we can cautiously guard a publically acceptable image of ourselves. Our project “Where do you go to be yourself” sets out to explore some of these problems.
Our thesis is, that across cultures (or indeed within different segments of the same culture) there will be large differences in between what degree of intimacy people will allow publically accessible about themselves. We will try to visualize this through photographs submitted by the project’s participants. It is also our hope that the process of selecting what to photograph, may make the participant more aware of their own sense of privacy: Where do they feel private…and do they really want to publically display this place. - Even if it is completely anonymous. Furthermore we found it interesting to see if the photos might show some differences between the sense of privacy between city dwellers and people from rural areas.
The Concept
We want to examine if there is simular or trancendent structures, in the understanding of the feeling of "privacy", across cultural and national borders. The project runs from March 11th - 2008 and ends April 08th - 2008.
-Where do you find "privacy" - where does the emotion emerge? The place (spot) can be a physical place or a space in the broadest sense; emotional, digital ect.
-What triggers this sense of "privacy"?
-The project is founded on the email, as seen below.
-The exchange of information through the internet as well of the participants bodily activity while participating will account for the use of "transportation" in the assignment.
-The participants in the experiment will be able to follow the progress on the blog, which will allow the interchange of feelings of intimacy.
Where do you go to be yourself?
Do you want to participate in a little experiment?
Have you ever wondered how other people understand the idea of "being yourself"…across the globe?
Snap a picture of a place where you feel comfortable or go to have a feeling of privacy. You can photograph just about anything. E-mail us the picture at moc.liam|flesruoyebotoguoyoderehw#moc.liam|flesruoyebotoguoyoderehw along with a few lines about how you feel this picture illustrates how the place allows you to "be yourself". This is a global experiment so write in English if you can, but it is not a must.
When you are finished, forward this E-mail to a couple of your friends. If you have friends in other countries then all the better.
We will continuously upload the pictures and comments to a blog at http://www.wheredoyougotobeyourself.blogspot.com so you can follow the progress.
The project will run from March 11th - April 4th 2008.
Maybe we're not all that different? Maybe we are? Find out by participating and learn about people from other cultures. It will be fun:)
Thank you for your help
Problems
As the project is intended to work on an intercultural basis we were very cautious in out wording of the Email: Some cultures might find displaying their “private places” to be very intrusive while others may not care at all. We cannot expect our recipients to have English as their first language, not can we expect them to have an academic background, so the wording and content of the message needed to be simple enough to be understood by most people. There is also a great danger that people simply will not participate if they feel the project requires them to do too many things or the intentions are difficult to understand. Hence we decided to send out a simplified message. All the social and theoretical considerations behind it we decided not to make public.
Mobile device and urban adventure
By using a mobile device such as a digital camera or a mobile-phone with build-in camera technology, participant will document a segment of their surrounding that corresponds with the task we have set for them. In this way participant will through a mobile interface document his or her surrounding and sent us a visual contribution to this investigation along with a few line that explains his or hers choice. Our empirical material from this project are thus the submitted photographs and text.
The Global Village
Because of the free boundaries for this project we are excited to make an analytical statement in reference to a possible link between personal-private zones and the urban-public zones. Will any participant find the urban life calm and soothing? Will urban life and surroundings be a place people go to be themselves? Depending on what we will receive from our participants we might have to call this an anti-urban adventure. Further, the term Global Village created by Wyndham Lewis is a term that in modern times, is used to describe how mass media alters space and time barriers and makes it possible for people all over the world to interact and live on a global scale. The term implies that for example the internet creates a global village. This means that anyone with access to the internet are inhabitants of this global urban-zone and structure. The global village therefore constructs new sociological structures.1 This term is significant to our project in more ways then one. It is our wish that this project will receive pictures from many places around the globe. The term also explains how this project can be defined as an urban adventure from a theoretical point of view.
The dices choice
| Pattern (black dice) | Layer (white dice) | Activity (red dice) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | thresholds | publicness | play |
| 2 | spots | privacy | work |
| 3 | beginnings | secrecy /intimacy | transportation |
| 4 | marks | publicness | speeding |
| 5 | paths | privacy | relaxing |
| 6 | intersections | secrecy /intimacy | idling |
After the dice were cast we were to develop a project influenced by spots. The project should aim to heighten a feeling of privacy based on the idea of transportation. By the use of a mobile device we ask participants to capture a situation or a place and document these “spots” in their life as these represent what we are investigating - spots that illustrates differentiated interpretations of the feeling “privacy” or as we call it “a place to be yourself” in a visual way. The reason for this paraphrase is so we don’t ask to receive pictures that are too personal. We want the participants to interpret the task we give as freely as possible but still act within the structure of the project. This means that almost anything goes and in this way we aim to receive a wide variety of free interpreted pictures which will help us investigate the interpretation of personal space as a visual unfolding. Also, we are trying our outmost to be respectful of any intimate-sphere and offence of decency along with social and cultural codex. In reference to the activity of “transportation” this project revolved around this matter in two ways. Participants are forced to transport themselves around in their urban surroundings, their home or maybe a place far away if this should significantly illustrate their personal interpretation of a place to be yourself. Secondly the participant’s contribution to our investigation will send via the Internet – a form of digital transportation.
General observations
Some claim that it’s all about a certain geographical place when you want to obtain the feeling of “privacy” or just to be “yourself”. Others claim that is has nothing to do the with “place” in a geographical sense, but that it’s all about a certain activity taken place within any geographical coordinates. This means that “home” and “privacy” is not necessarily the same thing. A statement that may contradict the classical interpretation of this human emotion. But feeling “yourself” is a combination of these two statements. To obtain this feeling it seems that a series of circumstances need to be in place. In general there is a fine line between socializing and seeking solitude. This line needs to be exact for any to feel at ease. This means that individuals seek being private and on their own in familiar surroundings but still in contact with their social network and the outside world. In some of the pictures received we see how the use technology makes this possible. By the use of technology we are able to maintain our relation and make sure we don’t loose touch with the world. So, in some reference technology helps people obtain the feeling of being private and compatible. See for example pictures: “A space ‘off the record’” or “Couch Potato”. We sometimes aim to be in absolute solitude but with the possibility of technological communication. In these pictures we see how the participants creates their own private space but with technology as a central element. As said before, there is a fine line between solitude and not being cut off from family and friends. In this way the intimate zone is connected to the outdoor world.
Another observation is that time seems to be a central element in the descriptions of the picture. Whit quotes like “…were hours go by as minutes” (A space ‘off the record’) or “I’m not there for a short visit, I’m taking my time” (The loo is my comfort station) its clear, that when individuals obtain the feeling of privacy and comfort the time passes quickly. In this way the mental perception of time is influenced by a certain activity or even inactivity, as long as the given situation makes you feel at ease.
This investigation of the human emotion “privacy” has cemented the fact that music is meditative, and that it is consciously used to affect the human mental state in a positive way. The receiving of a text from a participant says it all “I had a photo ready… I realized it has got nothing to do with this or any other place… and the keyword is music. I could be nearly anywhere if I’, listening to the right music.” Many of pictures we received revolves around music. The picture “LP Time” is another great example of how music influences humans and their individual state of mind.
Further we discovered that is no direct link between the feeling of being at total comfort and the urban surroundings that way surround you, only in a reversed way. It is our observation that many individuals in their search for comfort and privacy, try to escape from any urban zone and seek lesser crowded places. This may the done by taking a long run outside the city (favourite escape) or by traveling to far away places to distance one self. Many of the pictures received illustrate solitude in a classical way. Pictures of deserted places on earth visited while traveling. For example take a look at the picture called “Privacy? … Right in the middle of no where”. This means that we may need to go somewhere else, to distance oneself. Escape from our thoughts, relations and expectations for social behavior just to take a ‘time out’, and reach total comfort and privacy.
It seems that people obtain the feeling of privacy in various ways, but with very similar central elements such as music, solitude, social activity and traveling/the nature. One thing is certain… it is not only about a geographical place or just about a activity, it’s a combination of these two. It’s about individual circumstances that lead the human mind into a pleasant state. Circumstances that may differentiate from individual to individual but with very similar main elements.
Creating personal spots – in virtual space
Chang and Goodmann are defining locative media as “… the representation and experience of place through the digital interfaces.2” But it is not just the mere representation or experience of place. When asking people to take a picture of “a place where you go to be yourself”, they become aware of their known surroundings in a new way, and that awareness tends to make them relate to these places differently. The participants get the possibility to tell their own stories about the place3 , to angle the representation the way they wish to, and in this way overlay the place with new layers of meaning and personal information. Some of the pictures was manipulated to make a specific appearance, which again added other layers of both technological and personal information, which was also the case when text was added. By the use of mobile devices such as digital cameras or camera phones, non-places thus became transformed to specific spots by means of technology, and new places are created4. This pertain both the spot understood as the specific geographical location with its exact coordinates, the spot represented on the photograph, and finally the same spot when it is uploaded – as photograph – to the blog, the virtual space.
This brings Hemments use of geo-annotation into mind. Hemment defines geo-annotation as “making data geographically specific or placing a digital object in space”5. As mentioned above, the different spots are also containing specific geographical coordinates6 . By the click of the camera the technology is fixating the chosen spot and adopting these datas, but even though the information of the spot is transported from place to (virtual) space it is bound to its origin – the specific geographical spot.7
The personal narrative portrait
When the participant are taking a picture and adding some lines to it, they are giving us a bit of larger personal narrative structure. The blog is representing a series of clippings from such structures, constituting a new narrative structure framed by “where do you go to be yourself”. Showing different private spots, the photos are reflecting an understanding of a particular place and an interest in performing this knowledge within the space of the blog in a certain way8 . The blog works as a medium through which people tell their own stories and is in this way a communicative medium in its own right9 . As mentioned above words as music, solitude, social activity and traveling/the nature is describing such structures. Structure in the individual contributions can be seen in "My Loo is my comfort station". This participant choose to be honest in picturing her loo as "where she is going to be herself". But to do this she had to give the picture a certain look - another layer of information. She presents herself as a person who controls photomanipulation, and by doing so is both showing capabilities and is getting around cultural taboos by turning it in to an funny and aesthetic object. This is also making an apparent statement saying that this person is openminded and free by the choice of her object. It is worth mentioning that she, as the only person, has added her full name to the photo, which indicates that she can fully vouch for her contribution and that she is indeed fond of it. This leads to another thing that captured our attention: The recurrent aspect of self-presentation. As the awareness of the place or a thing that had to be intimate connected to the participant (“where do you go to be yourself”) was heightened, it had to represent the person behind it, the self, which is already clearly prominent in the example just above. Self and place thus seems to be closely connected. The photo is not just containing information engaged to the specific place, but also information about the participant.
Virtual self – presentation
As present technology makes it possible to access and use the internet using a mobile phone, the person does not have to be seated in a specific place, but can do it anywhere. This gives a possibility of a constant ont-to-one interchange in the interaction between the actual activating of the participants and the screenbased image respresentation.
Along with the semantic web 2.0, the social software, became possible to socialize, participate and influence in new ways both to private and public notice. The way one is presenting herself is of great importance. Private and public are two dimensions which is not easy to pair, though the norms associated to these areas are changing continuously. Even though the participants get to be anonymous when they show “where I go to be myself”, it is a delicate matter. To get around the matter, many of the users focused on the appearance of the disclosed picture. It had to be personal and often an aesthetic statement, though anonymous and with almost no people or portraits. The blog thus becomes a performative forum just like facebook, myspace, flikr and many others. This awareness is seen in the "LP Time" as well as "Connect with the elements". The first is very arrayed and manipulated. Everything which is not mentioned in the text is removed. The latter is on the opposite dark, cave-like and coarse. But the text added to the picture shows that there is extreamly many thoughts behind the look that presents the person who had taken the picture. Both contributions are very aware of the way they appear though the one is "overplaying" while the other is "underplaying". The relationship between the virtual and the physical, the data space and the geographical location is not just a mix of realities, but produces its own reality.
The aspect of the self-presentation can also be seen in the light of Erwin Goffmanss theory of human behavior in public spaces.
Behavior in public spaces
As the empirical material are the submitted photographs and text from different individuales, this material represents not only views of privacy, but are certainly also very conscious acts of self representation: What you choose to represent, and the way you choose to represent it, may tell a great deal more about the participant, than he or she is aware of. The Sociologist Erwin Goffman operates with the concepts of “Frontstage” and “Backstage” behavior. Although Goffman originally intended these terms to be used in face-to-face meetings, we find it justifiable to transfer these terms to visual self representations on the internet.
Frontstage: The public. Here you are on and a performer. You show your selfrepresentation, and are here trying to controll the means.
Backstage: Behind the scene, where the roles are being practiced. Here you relaxe. This is the place where the authentic and real person is shown, without any means.
To Goffman society is like a theatre stage, and we have the freedom to choose our roles, and thereby how we present ourselves at the official social stage. Some of the pictures seem very self conscious about what they are showing, and you can see that there has been a lot of thought behind it. In Goffmans terms the participants takes on a certain role when they send their pictures, and it is substantiated by the text that is written to the pictures.
Goffmann talks about the facade as a way of expression. The facade represents the interior, decoration ect. In this context, the pictures and texts can be seen as a way of making a facade, just like you do on other netforums like facebook and so on, but also in the real life with the clothes you wear, the way you live, and how else you represent yourself.
As opposed to a real face to face meeting, the Internet allows you many more options to take on different Front Stage roles. It is entirely possible that some participants aren’t really honest about their choices, but rather uses our blog as a stage to “perform” a certain identity, they would like to display to the world. One concrete example might be image no. 11 (connect with the element): On the surface a seemingly random shot of the participant’s room. However the items and feelings he choose to describe, seems to communicate a very clearly defined identity as a musician. One may then question if this –perhaps slightly stereotypical- identity is really who this person is, but rather the image he wish to communicate to the outside world. In Goffman’s terminology this may be described as typical “frontstage” behavior. Although in this particular case it is camouflaged as laid back and “backstage.”
Different and possibly more “genuine” forms of expression can be found in an image such as no. 7 (Couch potato). Here the image doesn’t contain many elements that give us an idea of a particular identity. The text has the form of a “confession” where the participant seems slightly apologetic that his private space isn’t really very trendy or “special”. This may be seen as a more “backstage” type of behavior as it is an expression which seemingly has no agenda or attempt to convey any particular image. However one may argue that such an attitude may be a performed identity in itself.
Fronstage, backstage - where do you go to be yourself?
With the concept of frontstage and backstage in our project, the keyword private collides with the internet media and the forum blogspot.com. The term privacy would as the mere word normally be a part of the backstage area, in the way that when you are alone and private, you are not performing or using any means In this project we have asked people to take a picture and show us, where they have this feeling of privacy. Then we have asked them to upload the picture and send it to a mail with a text about the picture. The participants know that the picture is being shown on a blog site, and one of the interessting outcomes of this project, was therefor to see how manipulated and thought of, the pictures would be.
Indeed it is doubtful that we will ever get a “true” backstage image from anyone, as the very nature of a public media such as the Internet, will affect the participants’ choice of images. Asking people to display truly “private” things in a public forum, is essentially contradictory and puts the participant in a difficult situation. Do they say very little about themselves? Or do they manipulate the image they convey to us? To Goffman these identities are not described as "true" or "False" but rather as sliding degrees of credibility.
As already seen in the different examples there is a large difference between some of the pictures when it comes to, how much there has been thought of, arranged and deliberately alteret in order to controll "what the picture says" about the person. In the picture called "my loo is my comfort station" the selfrepresentation is very clear. The picture has been in photoshop and thereby you can see that many choices has been taken. In Goffmanns terms the picture is a facade for the person behind it. I works as a decoration. But there is an odd double meaning in especially this picture. It is because of what it is showing: a loo. A very private place that Goffmann would call the ephiphany of backstage. Joshua Meyrowitz applies a third stage, the middleregion, that makes frontstage and backstage more extreem. So Frontstage is called fore-frontstage and backstage is called deepbackstage. The loo would be a deepbackstage place, it is both intimate and very private. Pictures like "LP time", "Connect with the elements" and "Favourite escape" are more loose in their representation. They are still very thought of, and have the elements of art photography because of their composition and colouring. Especially the picture "LP time" has been manipulated in a collage-like way. Then there are the snapshots: "The Old garden", "It seems it´s more about a feeling than a certain place!", "Physical Shelter" and "My dog". They have all the characteristics of a snapshot. No visible manipulation and the elements in the picture seems not to have been arranged in any way. But the mere sellection of what you want to take a picture of, contains a choice and therefore still plays a role in how the participant whant to be seen on "the social stage". It is also a certain role if you choose to be the one, letting the spontainious pictures represent your feeling of privacy.
Wireless culture performs in the temporary intimate zone.
Locke are investigating the cultural potential of mobile technology, and new types of behavior emerging around their use. The new area around mobile communication were named "TIZ" which stands for "Temporary Intimate Zones". The name TIZ has a intended correspondance with Hakim Bey´s "TAZ" or "Temporary Autonomous Zones". Locke has made the project "Speakers corner", which can be compared to "wheredoyougo.." mainly because they both are centeret around temporary places, where individuals can post public messages, through current technology.
In the "wheredoyougo.." project you can say that the Temporary Intimate Zones are being documentet. The private situations are temporary when they are photographed, but become lasting elements, when they are uploaded and placed on the blog site. The term Intimate has a close correspondence to our keyword Private. Matt Locke quotes Scott McNealy for saying: "You already have zero privacy - get used to it". In that state of mind, this project enters an existing debate about the survaliance of the public by the state and other organiazations. In this quote privacy are spoken of as a "human right", Locke says. In the "wheredoyougo.." project the participants are freely putting their pictures out on the web, for everyone to see. Maybe this is possible to expect, because people already are used to do so. Many webpages such as facebook and myspace are already succesfully encouraging people to upload personal information and pictures on the sites, so "wheredoyougo.." are maybe just another place to play a frontstage role, in Goffmanns terms.
The term "TIZ" is originally related to the communication situations with a mobile phone on a public sphere. The same kind of short termed written communication that is the sms´ form, also exists on blogs on the internet. It is possible to make a temporary intimate zone on a public blog site because intimacy and public behavior is controlled by the context. Locke says that it is up the individuals on the blog to decide the degree of intimacy on it. (Locke refers to a debate concerning the intimacy in networkcommunication) In that context it might be possible to defend our project idea about letting people show their some part of their private life on the web. Because the blog is made for that purpose, and it is "legal" and aggreed to do so, it is possible to arrange a intimate zone on the web. Or in Goffmanns terms, a representation of backstage in a frontstage enviroment.
Post Project Critique: A theoretical standpoint
In addition to the purely technical dificulties this project may encounter, we also discussed various sociological implications regarding the concept of technology and "the Global Village". The main theoretical foundation for this is the work of sociologist Zygmunt Baumann and most noteworthy his book "Globalization - The Human Consequences" (1998). Here Baumann describes the division between an "Elite" class with access to technology, and a less fortunate class, without these priviledges. In terms of the global world the first group tends to view the world as their playground, and bove about in it as "tourists". The later class is described as "Vagabonds" enslaved by their lack of mobility - including access to technological resources.
If our project aims to look at the concept of "privacy" across cultures, one might critisize that the image we get is only that of the Elite with access to that technology. The classes without access to digital cameras/mobile phones and internet may have very different views of what constitutes privacy. The technological nature of this project makes in inherently biased in the way it attempts to portray senses of privacy across the global village.
Group members
| Sara Thetmark | ||
| Christian Salling | Tlf. 22 97 86 95 | moc.liamtoh|gnillasgnatsum#moc.liamtoh|gnillasgnatsum |
| Nina Wöhlk | Tlf. 23 72 16 61 | moc.liamg|klheowanin#moc.liamg|klheowanin |
| Morten Ryesberg | Tlf. 24 83 47 23 | moc.liamtoh|96ellyr#moc.liamtoh|96ellyr |
Visit [http://wheredoyougotobeyourself.blogspot.com] for a updated overview of all receivings. The blog was last updated - 07/04/2008
Wiki sites
Internt: Group One - Presentation
