…and suddenly you’re somewhere else and have access to almost unlimited information. However, more than that, on certain social media platforms, a click of a button could provide access to another person’s entire identity. It’s for this reason that in my research I came to refer to digital voyeurism as a form of passive voyeurism.  A digital voyeur doesn’t follow the stereotypical archetype of a figure in the shadows brandishing a camera. Voyeurism in a digital space can be carried out in the comfort of one’s home and requires little to no action, which may be yet another reason why we don’t tend to make the connection between digital voyeurism and real-world voyeurism.

Acts of digital voyeurism seem insignificant when the process of getting this information is so simple, but the information divulged on social media, whether intentional or not, can be exceptionally powerful. Only recently in October 2019, a stalker in Japan was reportedly able to track down and assault his victim just by observing a picture she had posted online and noticing the reflection of her location in her eye.

We just don’t think about it what means to provide and/or access this information. Social media platforms are specifically designed to encourage engagement and to get people clicking, and not many people really think about what we’re attempting to access when we click on a profile or a link. When the consensus is that cyber-stalking is normal and common behaviour, there is a diffusion of responsibility; either we are all guilty, or none of us are.

The reveal and fallout of the Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2018 is an example of how dangerous it can be to disassociate our digital identities and the information we put into them with the real world and our real selves. One individual mining the personal information of another may seem inconsequential, but this information was used to sway people’s real-world opinions and affect the world outside of the digital space. Again, it is due perceived privacy that so many people felt and still feel comfortable accepting terms and conditions and allowing third parties access to their information. Because these companies don’t directly interact with the people they observe, the individuals are left mostly unaware that their privacy has been invaded at all.

However, there is one way in which this type of digital surveillance make itself known and usually leaves people feeling unnerved. Targeted advertising and marketing can be useful on many levels, but it can also leave people feeling uncomfortable and violated. It’s that disconcerting feeling you might get when suddenly an item you had been thinking about shows up on your screen without you even looking for it. Unintentionally, the digital voyeur has made themselves known simply by notifying the user that the voyeur is aware of them.

Certain creative digital mediums have done something similar and used this idea as a narrative vehicle. Video games in general are a uniquely immersive artform. The level of interaction, the freedom, and the detail that many games offer provide an ultimate form of escapism. But some games attempt to take immersion one step further and expand the game into the real world. Some video games in the horror or thriller genre have often done this to add to the psychological aspect of a game and have continued to become even more complex in their efforts to drag the player into the game in a more literal sense. Highly popular games like Undertale and Doki Doki Literature Club, once downloaded onto a computer or console, are able to scour for information on the user and incorporate what’s found into the game. They might refer to the player by their real-world name, send messages to the player outside of the game, or simply mess with the files and settings on their device.

The breaking of the fourth wall in a fictional reality – specifically doing so on a level that makes the experience more personal rather than simply pointing out the existence of a general audience – can have a very unnerving effect because it breaks that self-imposed barrier we place between our real lives and our digital avatars. Imagine if a piece of art was able to acknowledge its audience in this way. How would you feel if you knew that a piece of art was looking back at you?

Of course, without extensive development of this technology, it isn’t quite possible for my illustrations to do something as intimate as address viewers directly by their name. However, tools such as virtual and augmented reality can help simulate something similar. These mediums require greater physical interaction to allow access to digital content, also utilising the tools that are able to transform traditional voyeurism into digital voyeurism. An individual recording an event on their phone is a real-world schaulustiger, but an individual searching for and viewing this content online is a digital schaulustiger.

AR’s popularity as an artistic medium has ebbed and waned over the years, but it has never quite disappeared. There are still many artists taking advantage of and exploring its capabilities. Artist Susi Vetter uses AR to give her 2D illustrations three-dimensional form. Some of her AR illustrations are able to integrate with a physical environment while in other AR illustrations she creates entire miniature environments that can be explored on a three-dimensional scale. Artist Nadine Kolodziey has done something similar with her AR illustrations. The artists give me hope that it is very possible to utilise this medium as a means of creating interactive illustrations that appropriately express my research and ideas.

With voyeurism, and specifically digital voyeurism, at the heart of my interests, I want to give people an experience that acts of digital voyeurism typically deprive them of. Interaction is key to creating a relationship between subject and observer, but this interaction need not be entirely physical. I hope to use cognitive and to some degree physical interaction within my illustrations to present the idea that digital subjects and physical people exist within a mutual reality.

By doing this, it is my intention to present an alternative perspective to an audience that may typically disassociate themselves from their actions in a digital space. Perhaps afterwards they may be more aware of the decisions they make when they take on the identity of their digital selves.

Biblography

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(2019) ‘Stalker ‘found Japanese singer through reflection in her eyes’. BBC, 10 October. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50000234 (Accessed 9 April 2020)