Voyeurism is something that has always existed. There is pleasure and satisfaction in peeping into other people’s privacy because an unspeakable desire for control is satisfied. With the development of science and technology, this desire has changed from direct observation to scientific means such as monitoring to satisfy it. As the moderation of city, high-rise buildings make things even more elusive. From the top of a tall building, pedestrians look like ants. ‘They write without being able to read it.’ These pedestrians merge with the city without realizing it. There are practitioners walking ‘below’, and there are praepositus supervising from

Continue readingReading Response: Michel De Certeau and Nezar AlSayyad

The three film materials record and tell the behavior of voyeurs in different architectural environments and times from different perspectives. It raises questions about surveillance, privacy, human rights, gender discrimination and other issues in today’s society. In the first movie, neighbors spy on other people’s lives with binoculars, which reflects the hot outside and cold inside between people. In the back window, surveillance cameras are everywhere in the society, which ensures that the crime rate is gradually controlled, but exposes people’s privacy. Some men with rights can access the monitoring system to observe women, which is also a kind of

Continue readingReading Response：Nezar AlSayyad

Voyeurism is about alienation and detachment as the distance is intentionally created for observation. As the modernization of society leads to a more artificial and hypocritical interpersonal relationship, citizens are longing for authenticity and superiority, which could be obtained by voyeurism. Sense of control and power comes from voyeurs hiding behind the lens and watching out of the observed awareness. Strolling is another way to interact with cities. Unlike voyeurism, it’s about assimilation and immersion as flaneurs become part of the city via walking, which writes a song that could not be detected by themselves. When we glimpse from the

Continue readingReading Response: Michel De Certeau and Nezar AlSayyad

Nezar Alsayyad analyzed three films to give us a deeper insight into voyeurism. First, the ‘pepping Tom’ behaviors are treated differently in different eras. Even though everyone thinks personal surveillance offense others’ privacy nowadays, the observation of neighbors like in the movie Rear Window was highly encouraged in the 1950s. Everyone recognized it as political behavior which intended to expose potential enemies. People’s attitudes towards voyeurism reflect the contradiction between political supervision power and personal privacy. As time passed, there was an increase in people’s intention to get their own private space. As for voyeurs themselves, the way they satisfy their emotional

Continue readingReading response: Nezar AlSayyad

The article explains the relative and direct relationship between the surveillance systems and the voyeurism, containing the films Rear Window, The end of Violence and silver. The camera which are used as recording tools as well as the new observing way brings a new way of knowing and cognition. Through the films, a group of people gain view of others without the consideration of privacy, interfere others who are being watched. It is undoubted that the characters in the films are over-estimated as some of the women are willing to be objectified, which promotes the failure of information. The innovated

Continue readingReading response: Nezar AlSayyad

Cinematic Urbanism tells the story of modernity and postmodernity in cities through the lens of film. Through a series of films representing various modernities, AlSayyad traces the dissolution of the boundary between real and reel through time and space. The author distinguished between voyeur and flaneur. A flaneur is a casual observer with no ulterior motive, whereas a voyeur is someone who gets excited and gains satisfaction from peeking at other people. The author used two movies to represent the voyeur through a camera lens. The first movie ‘Rear window’ is an old movie and Jeff would use binoculars to

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

Nezar AISayyad’s essay establishes the relationship between technological modernity (say, image reproduction, camera and surveillance system) and the “power inequalities” lying in citizens’ unequal access to the capability of viewing others (AISayyad 2006, 186). “Voyeur” originates from “flâneur,” a typical 19th-century French literature figure who strolls in the urban (public) space for exploration and individual pleasure. Similarly observing the urban space for acquiring knowledge and pleasure, voyeur, however, is a rebirth and further development of the early modern idea in that the group physically stays distant from the scene they observed, taking advantage of the camera to hide behind the

Continue readingReading Response: Nezar AlSayyad

Even though all three movies are from 1954, 1993, and 1997 respectively they all still accurately depict how gaze, through the means of technology, may serve as a method for control and power. Moreover, they show how observing and fantasizing through a lens, window or CCTV cameras is not equivalent to real human interaction, desire and experience. In modern dystopian times, something similar to such ‘voyeurism vs flaneur’ theme is ‘celebrity culture’ in which fame is transformed to become the main product brands for ‘we’ the consumers. We observe celebrity lives through a lens and consume their representation in the

Continue readingReading response: Nezar AlSayyad