'ephemeral release' w/ consent

ID: A glitched background appears with blocks of purple and blue. A white rectangle is centered on the canvas with the words "GLITCH CAM". In between the words "GLITCH CAM" is a question "Would you like to experience an ephemeral release". There is a purple button above the white rectangle with the ability to change the background color. There are two black buttons under the white rectangle with the words "no, thanks" and "tell me more!"

Version 1: check out my code!

Version 2: check out my code!

This is an adaptation of my experimental camera - the interface is meant to walk a user through a consentful process that makes the glitching of their physical body possible.

Thinking about the gaze placed upon the body, I was initially curious about creating a camera that recorded my face after every orgasm. I have been curious about what the camera sees when it is not in use. I often think about how the iPhone's camera is always watching and picking up information on us. What could be recorded when we are unaware? I am still curious about this idea but am moving away from it for the time being. I started to get curious about the perception of bodies on dating apps and what happens to the versions of ourselves that we choose to expose online.

As an experiment (and to explore my curiosities), I explored the app Grindr. As a trans boi, there is/was a lot of fear injecting myself into a cis male-dominated "play space." I wanted to explore how my digital body (a flattened 2D image of myself) felt inside of this space, and I learned that the act of inserting and ripping myself out (deleting the app - a couple of times) felt so unsettling. I also wondered how the 2D version of myself was "consumed" by countless "anonymous" users (the app shows a counter that increases each time others see your image).

It was also interesting to receive photos from strangers (faces and body parts), and I wondered how I was consuming these images. The spaces that currently exist for trans folks to explore pleasure are still heavily binaried. We are often asked to insert ourselves in digital spaces that overtly fetishize many trans bodies. Could this reflect the physical world where trans bodies encounter this type of consumption (stares on the street, remarks, etc.)? Thinking about these encounters on a black box in a phone felt terrifying and thrilling at the same time. At least that's how I feel in this time and space.

Design Process

I wanted to add buttons to this design to make it easy to use and pretty straight forward. I wanted to explain the explanation behind the camera. I also designed the orginal interface to look like an app on a cell phone.

Reflection:

This is deinitely an experiment that I overthought from the very beginning. I know that my code is really close to working! However, in the spirit of MFADT - I can say that this was a failure. It was hard for me to admit that to myself because I worked really hard on writing this code and looking at examples from my classmates. I am currently writing this at the end of Finals and am exhausted. I am proud of the code that I wrote and rewrote, but I was not able to untangle it to get a working flow of things.

Credits

I followed the Pixel Array Tutorials by Xin and Katherine and The Coding Train's Pixel Array Tutorial. The Slit Scan effect is borrowed from the Coding Train's Slit Scan Tutorial. I also looked at Lila Feldman's clean code check out Lila's code! for her 'Consentful Interface'.