TenderEyez

On the side of a brick building, two signs, one in Spanish and one in English, that say "SMILE! YOU'RE ON CAMERA" with large smiley faces on them. Above, attached to a window, a camera points down at the photographer.

Signs and a camera in a mixed commercial and residential area of Baltimore look down at the photographer. Photo by Lydia Stamato.

INtroduction

TenderEyez started in the fall of 2019 as an exercise in applying autoethnographic methods to some of the questions explored in my master's thesis work at the intersection of personal home security cameras (PHSCs) and affective computing (that is, systems that detect, reflect, and/or respond to our emotions, mood, and so on). Check out the About page for more information about how this all got started and what I've learned so far.

I am currently developing a protocol for active interaction with PHSCs, tentatively called Conversations, or, Is Anybody Home? The purpose is to explore the nature of the interaction and eventually to find a way to learn about others' experiences.

I hope to provide a lot more background info in the future. Until then, I recommend checking out the sousveillance Wikipedia page and then digging into some of Steve Mann's work, starting with his 2003 paper with Nolan and Wellman introducing sousveillance published in the journal Surveillance Studies.