For the making of our animated grid, we did the following:
1- Attach our phones to selfie sticks, and mimic the perception of CCTVs.
2- Collect the footages, and put them together in a grid.
At the start, we thought that this process was very simple. However, we encountered the following:
1- We were in a very awkward social situation, especially when people were starring at us with hostility, maybe because we looked suspicious of privacy violation. This situation was less uncomfortable when we were two doing it, or when we were filming in a very touristic place because selfie sticks are very common there.
This situation can also be interpreted as a reenactment of the government standing behind these cameras.
I felt like the roles were also reversed at times. Whilst capturing the surveillance subjects, it felt like they were surveilling us in return. The act of violating someone’s privacy was more visible. We were there, exposed right in front of their eyes. It is our physical presence which has perhaps triggered their instinct of hostility.
2- We got fooled by the touristic shops selling the selfie sticks: the capture button didn’t work, and the sticks were very fragile.
3- As the capture buttons didn’t work, we decided to use a timer in order to take hands-free pictures. However, this process was a waste of time, because we couldn’t take spontaneous pictures, the angles weren’t always right, and we had to wait for the timer to end. Fortunately, Karrie had the idea of filming and taking screenshots afterwards, which made the process much more simpler.
4- I own an iPhone 8, Sacha an iPhone 11, and Karrie an iPhone 10. There were gaps in image sizes and quality for the final outcome. We had to adjust to one size.
Let’s not forget that we got the chance to explore new areas in Paris, and had fun going on field trips almost everyday 🙂
Overall, I am impressed by how we managed to adjust to obstacles throughout this process. If I had to represent our journey on a map, I would say that our pre-conceived plan was made of straight, well defined lines, with a starting point and an end point. As the adventure debuted, these lines started to interconnect and intertwine with each other, shifting the end point from one location to the other.
