For my psychogeography project this week, I took liminal spaces very literally. I shot spaces in between two pieces of furniture or in between furniture and the wall. These spaces are interesting to me because no one intended on putting things there. What ends up there is an accumulation of things that don't have a place.

Improvin'

When we did improv at the community center this week, I actually had a lot of fun. Compared to last year, I felt so much more willing to really get into it, and I noticed it's actually a lot less embarrassing to just let yourself go and be stupid than to awkwardly hold back. It's also a lot more fun.
Last year, we had a talk about our artistic jealousies. I'm incredibly jealous of people who can really lose themselves in art. When we were asked which of us surprised ourselves while we were using our bodies and which of us stopped thinking so much about what we were doing and just did it, I couldn't say it was me. I've never been able to get out of my own head. This goes for both viewing art and making my own. I've never lost myself in a really good song I'm hearing or a really good movie I'm watching. I could never relate to people who tell me something "blew their mind" because something has to kind of engulf you before it can really affect you, and as much as I wish I could, I just can't get engulfed in things. The same goes for my writing. Never have I reached a state of mind where I could let thoughts "flow" onto a page and go back and find things I didn't remember writing or thinking. I'm always in my head.

Psychogeography: Things People Fixed

This weekend, I took pictures of things after people fixed them. This was a good project for me because I can learn something about people without having to actually take pictures of them. I'm far more interested in people than objects, but I knew how much of a challenge it would be to take pictures of people, so this was a good way to compensate. A rule I set for myself was that I couldn't take any pictures of things that I fix, only things that other people fix. I don't like to interfere.
Luckily, I was at several events this weekend that people had to either clean up for or clean up after, so I had a few opportunities. One was at temple after the babysitting program in the basement. Another was my house when my mom was setting up for dinner (we had people over). Another was my brother's room which hasn't been touched since he last cleaned it before leaving for college. Another was somebody's house I was at for a little cross country party.

The Prisoner

What hit me first and hardest about The Prisoner was the theme of trust. Everyone in the Village is aware of the fact that they can't trust anyone, but at the same time, everyone is aware that no one trusts them. This creates layers in the characters, the relationships, and the community.
It was DEVASTATING at the end of the second episode to learn that the Russian girl was working against Number 6. But then there's the fact that he may have never trusted her in the first place, and on top of that is the layer that she may have known that he never trusted her in the first place. Then there are the layers in the relationship they establish which also comes from the absence of trust in the community. He doesn't trust her, she doesn't trust him, but it doesn't really matter, and it doesn't mean that her flirting in the box wasn't genuine. Trust here has no scale to be measured on, and it can't be taken into account when considering relationships between characters.
This holds true in the larger spectrum of the community. Everyone knows that they don't want to live in the Village. Everyone knows that they are not alone in this. There is a seed of secret resentment in every member of the Village's brains, but no one will speak of it. I picture it as a giant orb floating over the whole village. Everyone knows it's there, but no one will look up. So is it there then? If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it...
What's been created is a quaint, idealistic society that has been designed to allow everyone to ignore what goes on right in front of them (the Rover attacks, for example) and what's going on in each other's heads. And is this unique to communist-esque societies? So often a table full of people will opt not to tell someone about the smear of butter next to their lip. A family will all carry their own burden of knowing that someone they all love is sick instead of sharing it by telling each other. A whole school will watch a child get bullied and never say a word. The whole world holds the burden of knowing how little we know, while each individual will only discuss it once in a blue moon when prompted, and will only think about it for a minute every once in a while. Is our world not a circle too?