February 8th, 2007
Intimacy
It would be a little awesome if the lens of a webcam looked exactly like the eyeball of the person watching. Of course, for all you know, many people might be watching. Or it might be a disembodied computer intelligence.
Transcriptorial: just right: you, kept in / a tidy video frame
But you can’t get intimacy just by looking someone. You need to touch; you need to feel their breath against your neck and the way their fingers feel against yours. Intimacy is a close connection. Touching is an act of closeness. Watching is an act of distance.
Oh yes, certainly. The narrator, behind his camera, does not know what he is missing. I came up with this installment after watching a film in which one character did live like this, disembodied in a way, in a secure room and experiencing other people through a camera.
I have been enjoying your comments, by the way — thanks for reading.
Still I think there can be something rather intimate about a web cam. Maybe not in every situation. However, imagine being in a long distance relationship where you probably see the object of your affection for a few days once every 3 to 6 months. Then say you do get to see them on a web cam. You can see them while you talk to them. Of course there is a lack of closeness and contact that you ache for, but to be able to see them, to watch their face, especially as they sit on the other end watching yours. There is intimacy in that as well.
There’s an episode of the new Dr. Who series that has this…I believe it was called Madame De Pompadour.
Hi, we just found out about your site from surfing around livejournal friends of friends of friends…ahem well you get the idea. :)
I know this isnt a very recent post but wanted to say we disagree with the people who say a web cam can not be intimate. Intimacy is having a close connection with someone and sometimes intelligence and the confidence exuded from another person is what triggers that close connection in the first place.