Introduction: The assignment is to follow a stranger till they go to a private space just like Vito Acconci’s ” The following piece”.
Pre-following/hypotheses
I think the major concern isn’t getting noticed while I’m following someone random on the street, I think its more towards where the person will end up being. The thing is they really cant say something about me walking behind them in the same direction for an hour or more, because I can just argue that they might be following me and that I’m freaked out about that.
A strategy would be walking in a pace that wouldn’t really bother someone. The best would be keeping everything natural.
If this was my research method, I think I’d be able to learn about people’s consciousness regarding their safety?
Include a photo or photos of your re-enactment
Following notes:
My notes
- Chose a path where I usually go home from school. (more natural and subtle)
- Decided to choose a woman who was carrying a light cross purse, with good steady winter shoes and coat
- Very steady pace.
- Chose the time between 12-1 when there’s a crowd of people around Union Sq area trying to get lunch
Started from 13:01: 5th Ave. between 13th and 14th
Ended: 13:08 : Nordstrom Rack
The weather, pretty windy, lots of people with hoods on trying to get home/work fast.
Conclusion
It was an interesting experience for me but it’s something that I’ve always thought into. In Korea, men following women in the streets where there’s not a lot of people have been the fear of all women across the country. The government even came up with a system that allows volunteers near subway stations to walk women till their homes safely. They all wear a flashing yellow vest, with the words “Safety Escort Program” printed at the back. The service is open to anyone just by calling the number 30 minutes beforehand. And I’ve seen positive responses to this service and perhaps it helped the number of sexual assaults decrease. The point I’m trying to get across here, is that I think following someone for more than 20 minutes in Korea would be so much different from following someone in NewYork. Perhaps the fact that in Korea, I’d be better off following a male instead of following a female because they’re so insecure about what’s going on around them.
“…Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations.”
― Jane Jacobs
Using one of the two quotes below to inflect your thoughts (-or- choose another quote from any seminar reading you think helps you talk about this experience), unpack the experience – what did you learn? notice? experience? were your hypotheses correct? if not – what was unexpected?
This quote seems to talk about how the city works in unison, the movements and change that happen on the streets are not just compared to dance but specifically ballet where the individual dances reinforce one another. I thought this was interesting how comparing the movements that happen in the city on the street to a dance is something thats pretty common, pretty predictable. But specifying that dance to a ballet, where all the movements together “which the individual dancer and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole”. Walking around union square, an area where mingling around or staying for a long time only really happens when the weather is really nice. Unless we have the warm climate, the cold restricts our movements and the way we maneuver around the city. But also in another sense, the way we act all together because of these restriction also keeps things happening as a result.