I was out gathering media for our journaling assignment on my way back from my internship and got the idea that talking on a cell phone in public is public private performance. Before cell phones, in the days when we talked on our home phones, these conversations were private performances — full of gestures, facial expressions, harsh words… Now these performances take place in public, but still retain many of the aspects of their private nature. I say that these are intentional performances. There are goals involved in the conversation.
So I decided to take some covert pictures of cell phone users.
Later in the afternoon, I read about Wendy Richmond’s piece “Public Privacy” and saw that she was making similar observations about cell phones in public.
