Public Isolation Project

Okay today was another one of those days where I felt good and then bad and good and then bad.  It started at 5:30 this morning with a good, but nervous feeling.  I had my first live TV interview.  I called in on Skype.  I wasn’t able to see them, but they could see me.  This adds a level of awkwardness especially paired with the less then stellar audio connection. The interview started out a little rough, but I think I pulled it together.  Hopefully, the next one will be better and longer.  Actually, we just found out today that someone else will be doing a more in depth piece for CNN.  I am looking forward to that.  That one I will be doing with Josh. It’s weird to do all these interviews without him.  We are excited to be able to talk about the project as a whole instead of me just answering a couple of quick questions.

After the interview, I felt good and got a bunch of work done, but then this surge of emotion came over me for the next few hours.  I can’t explain it very well.  I just wanted to cry, but don’t have a reason why.  It’s strange when you are sad, but you don’t have a reason to be.  I only have things to be grateful for right now.

That wave of emotion passed as I had visitors on and offline throughout the day.  I had lunch with a new friend, I talked to a cousin via Skype who shared his beautiful Colorado countryside view complete with deer grazing, and then another cousin brought his son buy to say hi.  It’s hard not to smile when a little boy has his tiny hands up against the window and keeps saying, “I see you Cristin, I see you.”

Then the night started to unfold.  Weekends are the best because there are more people out and about.  My friends tend to stop by more frequently as well.  Even though I can’t communicate with them very well, it’s still comforting.   We joke that they should go home and video chat me because it’s a lot more effective then texting through a window. Although, I am finding neither is a replacement for the real thing.

I am finding myself a little scattered brained today.  I don’t know what to attend to first and then once I start working on something I am easily distracted. As I am trying to get work done, emails are pouring in, people are trying to chat with me, I am getting Skype requests, and text messages – sometimes all at the same time.  I feel guilty for saying no or not responding because they are friends and family wanting to know how I am doing and they are only trying to be supportive. It’s a little overwhelming.  I am experiencing attention like I never have before and I am doing it under a microscope.  It’s all a bit much right now, but I know the novelty will wear off soon and then things will quiet down.

Being on display is the aspect of this project that gets people’s attention.  Which makes me wonder, what would it have been like if I did this from my own apartment?  I am pretty sure if I had done that, I wouldn’t be getting emails from my aunt in Wisconsin telling me she saw me on TV, fielding media requests, and I certainly wouldn’t be getting offers from strangers to come have lunch with me on the other side of a glass window.  But the most important thing is that I wouldn’t be getting comments on my blog or emails from people telling me how this has made them think about their own social media and cell phone use.

This is an art installation and not a scientific experiment so the findings are less important then the message.  Everyone may not see the value in this project, but as long as people are communicating about how they feel about these topics, Josh and I feel like we have accomplished our goal.

Josh and I are shocked at the response to this project.  We knew there might some interest from the media, but we didn’t really think there would be as much as there is.  Now we are getting media requests from CNN.  I guess I was right in the assumption that this is a much-needed topic to discuss.  Because all of these technologies are so new and developing so rapidly it’s hard to keep up the conversation about what it all means.

Some of the responses I get from people are that they think I am just bashing social media.  To make it clear, I see the value in social media and these new technological tools that help us stay connected.  However, I tend to think we may be too connected or in the not so distant future we will be too dependent on these tools, but I definitely don’t see it as all bad.

I have to be honest, I don’t feel alone or isolated in here yet.  The only thing that has bothered me is being watch 24/7, but I think I am over that now.  Do you think it’s strange that I can spend 10 days without holding a hand or being given a hug?  I think so. I am usually a very touchy person.  Proof that social media and technologies like video chatting makes us feel closer to people. However, I have 20 more days to go and a lot can change in that amount of time.

There is research out there that supports the idea that tweeting and surfing facebook can makes us happy.  See more here (make sure you look at experiment #3.) Maybe I am doing fine in here because I am constantly communicating online.  One thing I am noticing is that I am truly addicted to it right now.  I can’t turn it off at all during the day.  When I stop to try and read a book I am distracted by the alert messages.  I could turn these off, but I don’t. I feel like I might miss something.

I am starting to think that I could get to the end of the 30 days and not feel that like I am disconnected from the outside world at all.  But what would that mean? The thought that I don’t feel that different without human-interaction could be scary too. It’s possible to live that way, but do we want to?

Of course, I may not really know how all of this affects me until it’s over and I am trying to resume my life before the box.  I wonder if it will be too much for me to be around people again.

Today was a seemingly normal day.  I worked out, did some work, did some laundry, and even had a guitar lesson.  Who said life in a box was so unusual?  Okay, if it wasn’t raining I might have wanted to sneak in a walk around the block. Instead, I stayed in and pondered the many things that make me wonder about how social etiquette is changing because of social networks.

Have you ever thought about how weird it is to run into someone who you are friends with on facebook, but maybe not really that good of friends with in real life and then they start talking about your birthday party or your sister’s wedding, only they weren’t there?  Sometimes when I run into someone, I’m not quite sure if it’s appropriate to bring up that I know all about their trip to Australia or the last concert they went to.  Maybe they will think I am stalking them, but wait didn’t they post those images for the entire world to see?  I was talking with a friend and he had an interesting analogy.  He describes it as if someone came over to your house, went through all of your things, and then didn’t tell you that they were there. Ironically, we are the ones that put all this stuff out there and then we are surprised when we realize who is seeing it.

This leads me to another thing.  If these people aren’t good enough friends to want to share photos and general updates with, then why are we friends with them on these social networks anyway? Sure we can hide some of the information and categorize people into different groups, but why even go through all that trouble?  Every once in a while a while, a friend of mine goes though his facebook friends and cleans house so to speak – getting rid of all those “friends” that aren’t really friends.  But many people feel a sense of guilt in doing this.  Just like when they felt guilt for not wanting to accept them as friends in the first place.  If you run into a friend you haven’t seen in years,  you don’t immediately invite them into your house to check things out so what do we feel guilty for denying them opportunity online?

The first week is behind me and the word is getting out.  Now conversations are starting to get interesting.  Here are some highlights from today.

After speaking with a friend about ideas behind the project, she couldn’t stop thinking about it after we spoke so she emailed me with these questions:

Are we afraid that if we don’t have a web presence that we become socially irrelevant or does the amount of web presence we have makes us socially relevant?  If we didn’t have the web to communicate with people then how would we feel socially relevant?

Shortly after that conversation, I spoke to a different person that said she feels insecure about not being as in touch with the newest technology and doesn’t have the ability to use social networking as well as others.  I found it interesting that she followed this up with how she prefers in person contact, but it still bothers her that she’s lacking a skill that she feels is now becoming required.

People keep asking me about the rules.  So to clarify, Josh put these rules in place: I can’t leave the space for 30 days, I can’t have visitors inside the space, and I can’t cover all the windows at one time. I also touched on my rules in previous blogs, but as a couple visitors pointed out today mine are becoming more of a game of Mao. In addition to the rules I have already spoken about, I can tell you that I don’t think writing notes or trying to communicate through the glass is cheating. In fact, I think it adds to the project so keep it coming.

My survival guide to living in a glass box:

#1 – Create a normal routine.

#2 – Exercise daily.

#3 – Meditate.  (Not something I was interested in before this.)

#4 – Be as social as possible on the Internet.

#5 – Try to do as much on the outside as I can from the inside. (This has already included coffee with friends and will soon include me recruiting people to send me video of concerts I am missing.)

#6 – Really focus on how I am feeling, what I think it means in reference to this project and share that information.

#7 – Enjoy it. This is a rare and unusual experience only to be had once.

#8 – Have fun with the audience.  (People are starting to be more interactive and I am loving it.)

#9 – On bad days watch this.

Today is the first day that I felt like I am starting to freak out.  People where taking bets on how long this was going to take and I said 2 weeks.  Yikes, it’s only day 6.  I am finding that the lack of privacy and the crazy amount of attention that has been spotlighted on the project is causing me to have anxiety. I knew it was going to be hard especially since I am normally a fairly private person.  I don’t consider myself an especially extroverted person and I’m definitely not an exhibitionist.  Yes, this is what I signed up for, but I thought it wouldn’t affect me this much, this quickly.

I don’t have cabin fever and I am not bored.  I just find moments in the day where I want to hide under the covers or in the bathroom for a minute or two to catch my breath.  I thought disconnecting from the Internet for a little while would help.  So I tried to read and watch movies, but I found that I was still distracted by people walking by or talking pictures. If anything, video chatting and messaging with people has made me feel better and think less about being watched.

Because of this, no tweets and very few emails went out today. Now it’s late at night and I feel better, a lot better. Today was a roller coaster of emotion.  It was pretty rough for a little bit, but somehow now I am fine.  Hopefully, I won’t have any anxiety attacks tomorrow.  Let’s hope.

Wow, the First Friday event was an overwhelming success. A big thank you to those of you who made it out.  It was really great to be able to speak to many of you about the project.  It’s always interesting to hear your responses.

I haven’t spoken much about how this project came about so I thought I would explain a little.  I was driving home from a grad school recruiting event while talking to Josh. I was explaining what concepts I wanted to focus my portfolio on and he was telling me how he was bummed that his current project fell through.  Originally, Josh was going to have a person living in the space who would try and create the smallest carbon footprint possible, but the guy backed out.  It was on that phone call that I said, “put me in the box.”  During the call we both realized that our concepts worked well together and it could be a great project.  That was on October 10^th.  That didn’t leave us a lot of time to pull it all together and I had to make the drive here from LA. Needless to say, it’s been a busy few weeks.

Once we got started outlining the project, a few kinks started to arise.  One thing was that it was really important to me that the audience be able to see in the gallery, but for me to not be able to see out.  I did a ton of research trying to find a material that would allow this.  There is such a thing that is used often for surveillance windows, but scientifically it doesn’t work for this.  Whichever side is brighter is the side you will be able to see into.  And, well, I can’t control the sun – even in Portland.  I told Josh this might be a deal breaker for me.

He then proceeded to explain to me that the glass really doesn’t allow anyone to communicate effectively in any real meaningful way.  And after being in here, he is right. I can wave and make out a word or two and sometimes body language allows me to communicate, but I never really understand the full intention.  I just get bits and pieces.  It turns out, this is very fitting for what I am trying to say.  I compare this to the way we communicate in social media.  We tell people what is going on with us, but a lot of time it’s in 140 characters or less.  We don’t send letters anymore.  Instead, we keep in touch with short emails and facebook messages.  Does this mean fragmentation is the new narrative? Have we stopped communicating in a way where we tell a story that has a beginning, middle, and end?  Even in person we often stop a real life conversation to respond to text messages and to update out profile statuses.  I am beginning to wonder.

I also think Josh was right because I am still missing a key part of human interaction – the touch.  I can’t shake a hand or give a hug.  So whether or not I can see through the glass or make out a couple words a person says, I am still isolated in here.  The video chats do help me feel connected. We’ll see if that lasts.

When collaborating with another artist, you often have to make compromises to your project to make both pieces work.  Luckily for us, the topic of the windows was really the only thing that we had to adjust.  And in the end,  I think it works better anyway.

I have been getting asked a lot of questions so I am going to try and answer a few of them here.

Q: Am I working while in here?

A: No, I am a freelancer and I’m in between jobs. However, I am applying for MFA programs which will take up a lot of my time.  I still have to take care of personal business, but most everything can be done online these days so it’s pretty easy.

Q: Are you getting bored?

A: Not yet.  I’ve had a lot to do this week.  Check back in next week. I am trying to set a schedule for myself so I can have somewhat of a normal routine.  I may even try and take guitar lessons from in here.  If you know anyone that does lessons via video chatting, let me know.

Q: How do you get groceries?

A: I order them online once a week.  A couple people in the building (I like to call them my angels from above) volunteered to receive the delivery.  They email me to tell me it’s here and I go hide in the bathroom so I don’t have any direct contact with anyone.

Q: Is it hard to sleep?

A: Sometimes.  It takes some adjusting to people watching you 24/7, but I am getting used to it.  It’s also a lot brighter in here at night then I am used to so I am adjusting to that as well.  Sometimes I use an eye mask.  It’s getting better every day.  People have also stopped knocking on the windows to wake me, that helps.

I will leave you with images of someone who decided to come down and play me a few songs tonight. Thank you, my masked friend, you made my day.  He also left a little gift for passersby….sidewalk chalk!

To clarify the types of ‘digital interactions’ I am using to communicate.  I am using social media, video chatting, and my iphone.  Although, I am not using the iphone as a cell phone – that is so 1973.  Instead, I am using it to text and FaceTime.

I think video chatting is what is going to keep me from going insane. I am looking at ichat as my version of Hal from 2001: a Space Odyssey.  I already see that I am communicating with some people more because of video chatting.  For example, my 13 year-old brother will actually talk to me for more then 3 minutes (that’s his current average when talking to me on the phone).  However, it could be because he really just likes to show me funny videos on YouTube.  For those of you who don’t know, you can share your computer screen with the person you are chatting with – a new discovery for me.  The thing I find most interesting when video chatting with my brother is that he won’t allow his face to be on camera because he knows the people on the street can see him.  When I asked him if he thinks people can see information about him on the Internet he said, “No, I have a really good firewall.”  I tried to explain to him that sites like Google and facebook sell his information.  I don’t think he got it, but the conversation was started.

The way in which different generations view the Internet regarding privacy and usage is very interesting to me.  The younger generations tend not to have much of a filter or sense of why privacy is important.  My generation sees the value in new technology, but wonders how healthy it is and then my parents’ generation has a very defensive way of thinking about it.  It makes me wonder how my children will view it.  That’s one of the many reasons I decided to do this project.