follow a stranger, and never let them go.

[[Do they suspect what I'm about to do? That guy is looking at me. Well I'll just wait here for a second and follow someone out of the station. That lady! She looks like a nice lady, like she wouldn't figure me out, she's got her headphones in and is on a mission...to the grocery store. Damn. Well I'll just wait outside and play with my phone a bit. Do do do. No big deal, just waiting for a friend. What are you looking at? Dum dee dum...Has she come out yet? Surely she must have. Did I miss her? Well she might've gone back on the tube anyway. Oh well. I'll have to find someone else. This girl. Fur jacket and hat seems a bit much for a day like today, but I like your pace. I can deal with this. Wait, did you just look back at me? I better stay further back. Oh good, yes, thanks dude, yeah, walk right between us, she'll never know. Alright, ok, this is a leisurely walk and you're not getting on a bus or anything, I like that. Because I'm not getting on a bus. But where are you going? And why are you slowing down so much? Is something wrong? Are you getting suspicious? You just turned your head again. shit. I don't think you've actually looked at me yet, but I think you know I'm here. I think you can sense I'm following you and have no other purpose but to follow you. If someone did that to me, I might in fact quicken my pace. Why are you not doing that? Do you want me to catch up with you? Do you want to see if I pass you? I won't. Oh, what, wait? You're going into a store? But why. Well, I'll wait for you out here then. No, I can't do this. She knows.]]

just a little excerpt from my journal while completing an activity for class: to stalk someone on the street.

interesting the way it makes different people feel, being a stalker. i've never been so paranoid. well, that's not true, but i felt uncomfortable the whole time.

we spent last class sharing our experiences with this, and some were quite funny. One guy followed his person for a long time, but lost him when he walked into a sandwich shop after the guy and frantically ordered a sandwich to not seem suspicious, not realizing that his sandwich would take time to cook, while his person's sandwich was a cold-cut. Another girl in class followed a man for almost two hours, and eventually lost him around a corner, cause she was keeping a good distance behind him. She felt a bit broken after she had become so attached to following him for so long. It is a dangerous activity, I felt as though I was in danger, as did most of my classmates.

We studied and tried to replicate the works of Vito Acconci and Sophie Calle in this exercise. Sophie Calle I find particularly interesting. Her projects seem to be generally self-centered and she is basically out of my league of practice/understanding, which is why I am so intrigued. I mean, she sounds completely mental. She once followed a man for several days, weeks maybe, followed him to work, home, out to eat, everywhere. She knew all his patterns. Somehow, they had a run-in and got to talking, he mentioned he was going to venice for the weekend. So she booked a flight to venice and continued to follow him there! A few years ago she did an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery (right down the street from my flat) involving the responses of a large variety of people of different professions (lawyer, linguist, artists of varying media) to a break-up email she had received from an ex-partner, so she could try and make sense of it. I mean, really.

http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/sophie-calle-talking-to-strangers

umm, I refuse to make a post without a visual, because it's boring. So here is this. Not quite associated with Sophie Calle, but along the same lines of voyeurism, flanerie, le derive, observing people, etc. This is just one of the vast array of incredible photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a recent favorite of mine after seeing his work at the Art Institute in Chicago.