Through the looking glass

Errol Morris, an American director, directs a short documentary "Harvesting me" and a film "Standard Operating Procedure". At a glance, these documentaries seemed unrelated. However, they share common aspects, surveillance and its effect on people. Harvesting me is about Josh Harris, who decided to live in public. He put up cameras around his house and broadcast it to the world. Disturbing as it was, people actually paid to watch him. In fact, he earned a lot of money doing it. On the other hand, Standard Operating Procedure deals with issue in Abu Ghraib where photographs of prisoners were leaked. These photographs portrays the mistreatment of the prisoners there. The film investigated the possibilities of what could have happened in the moment the pictures were taken. Many of the participants in the picture were interviewed.

The picture portrays a dead body of a prisoner and a US military smiling with a thumb up 

By watching both the documentaries, I have found that when a person is made aware of the surveillance, s/he behaved as if it is some sort of show s/he needs to perform to. In Harvesting Me, Harris said that after his argument with his girlfriend, he and his girlfriend both went to their respective corner and check-in with the 'viewers'. Normal people, after a fight, would either talk it out with each other or think about what just happened on their own. This is as if, the viewers are the referees and will judge how the "show" went. In Standard Operating Procedure, the women in the picture, Sabrina, said that she did not know what to do when the camera is pointing at her. Even when she feels wrong about it, she smiled and have her thumb up.

Even though, Sabrina's excuse seem a bit shallow, there is still some truth in the picture (pun intended). We "perform" in front of camera. We act differently knowing someone is watching. This might say something about us as a whole. Is the person you know through the looking glass, the same person when s/he alone?



Beware of the photos...

1974 vs 2010

Theodor Holm Nelson in 1974 published a book called Computer Lib/Dream Machines (Tempus). He believed that everyone should know about the computer and mentioned how it would change their way of living forever. It is true. Our lives have changed since computer become more available. Most, if not all, household own at least one computer and use it to improve their lives one way or another. College students, for example, write their papers using computers rather than pens and papers, because computers save them time as well as spell check their writings. It would seem that Nelson vision was right but I beg to differ. A little research has brought me two illustrations of what a computer was like in 1974. Below video demonstrates the most advance computer created by Xerox company in 1974.



Another video below shows a man ordering pizza using a computer (by phone).



As we can see, the computer in 1974 seemed clunky, difficult, technical and expensive. It would have taken more time and effort doing something with computer than without. I see no point for the book to have come out until early 90s where computers were faster and less technical (non-geek friendly?). All in all, I think he was not wrong, but was a bit too advance for his time for his work to be fully appreciated.