Stalkers Cont.

Stalkers delight

So far, I would say this is most definitely the most fun project to execute that Hannah has given us and I was pretty excited to try it out. Unfortunately, my sister came home and I had to go to New Hampshire, but as soon as i got back i went to get started on this even though the weather was pretty terrible. The first car i followed a white suv made its way to the mall and so i followed. It was a dark young woman that proceeded to enter the mall through barnes and noble. Now i knew i had to be very careful about exposing my cover and concealing my camera so i waited until she went out into the hallways of the mall and started snapping away for about 20 minutes. Turns out this woman came just to walk around and get a work out so i could tell she was starting to notice me when a bit on the third loop around the mall so i pretended that my camera was just a big cell phone and pretended i was lost. She took a turn down a hall that was an old food court and i knew it would be too noticeable if i followed so i stalled on my phone until she made her way back toward me at this point she was super close to me and the picture I will post shows how close i was and the funny part is that for some reason when i turned my cam on for that pic the flash must have come back on because it flashed all over her hahha and she definitely knew i had just took a pic of her and she turned around and was like wtf??? I pretended I didnt mean to take it and she started asking me all these questions and I finally told her it was an experiment and bolted. That one was the most fun out of all of the people i followed. Anyway, aside from getting caught I decided to approach this in the same way that Sophie Calle originally approached it. I simply decided I would follow anyone that caught my eye for any reason that i felt plausible and when i get tired of it I will move on and completely forget them. I enjoyed the excitement of the voyeur but i still felt i needed more control then to actually follow one person and let them take me by the leash wherever their day chooses. I found that following multiple people however was not very exciting or interesting although it allowed me to feel like i was in control. What I discovered was that people in this town are boring as shit. I definitely need to do a part two where i pick one person at complete random and follow them unconditionally for a while and really see where it takes me. I thought doing multiple people would be exciting but I think what I realized is that in order to get the full effect i need to build more of a connection to this someone the way that sophie did. She was talking about how she almost felt obsessive and consumed and when I did my own stalking i realized that it needs to be one person. I also realized how difficult it can be to actually follow someone without being noticed, the one person i originally decided to follow noticed me so i definitely needed the practice.

Put Something Here

Put Something Here Project

Put Something Here

So since Hannah wanted this project to have some personal significance i decided to try something that had to do with my passion for music. I happen to enjoy music in every way possible way from creating it to simply being an avid listener. Nothing puts a smile on my face like music can when I stumble across a new sound or something original. When thinking about how to do a musical installation, I naturally came across some terribly difficult ideas like a listening booth or just like a pair of headphones, a play button, and a response book. I thought it would be neat to see what kind of emotions I could evoke through some of my own small scale recordings, but then I decided I wanted to have people really participate in the creation of the music so I decided to strategically place a blank piece of sheet music that says add a note...any note.. and so now we wait to see what will happen. I need to wait a little bit so my next post will have the pictures and the sheet music.

Shap Roight cont.

ShopRite Pics Continued

ShopWrong Adventure

The first thing that came to mind for this project almost immediately was to go to the park in the city and get some serious blues jams in with the old guitarists that hang out and play there. I decided to call up my crew and plan it out, but when the time came the weather had proven to be a huge deterrent. After deciding it was the wrong season to lug instruments around in the city I realized that I needed to do something more practical and not as time consuming mainly because I knew I had to work double shifts all weekend. Anyway after realizing that the only time I could fit this in would be early in the morning, I had to find somewhere that is filled with people at all times of the day. I was stumped for a minute as to what I could even do this early to create a distraction but eventually I came to the conclusion that I could walk around the super market asking ladies if they needed help grabbing groceries and such. I figure I wouldn't be too much of a pest at such an early hour if I was doing a good deed. I honestly could not believe how unreceptive some people are in general. Not only was this an interesting project in terms of creating a distraction, but it reminded me of how close minded, mundane, and unreceptive people can be to anything out of the ordinary. I swear to god people were staring at me like I was a criminal because I had a digital camera and wanted to talk to people. I honestly could tell people were trying to avoid me because they didnt want to be bothered or probably were too awkward and thought I was nuts. One lady told me I was crazy, another told me I was a nut for taking a picture of the sushi lady (the sushi lady was so happy that she had just made fresh sushi, all she wanted to do was tell me about it and i had to take a picture because I thoroughly enjoyed her enthusiasm and passion). They tried kicking me out of the store toward the end and kept telling me to put the camera away, but despite the employee's efforts I continued my mission and accomplished what I came for. Even though most people looked at me like I was nuts and were very unresponsive, I happened to find a few jems in the sea of shoppers. I really had a great time with a few of these ladies. I literally went down their entire lists while running around the store getting them whatever they needed. The ladies who were open to the idea couldn't have been more grateful. It was a really interesting experience. Anyway, I don't know how to add the photos yet, but I will show a few in class today and as soon as someone helps me with the pictures today in class I will put them up on my next post and add some thorough captions.