vagabondking

Just watched the documentary Shut Up Little Man, An Audio Misadventure, and it made me start to think where is the line between what is art and what isn't drawn? The guys basically recorded their neighbors arguing and raging at each other and it became a huge underground sensation, way back before the net when things had to be put on cassette and passed from one person to the next. But in order to do this they had to put a mic in their neighbors window. Some people would argue that it's an invasion of privacy. But in the film one of the guys says that the arguments would get so loud that they could be hear clear as day through the paper thin walls thus classifying them as public domain. But I started to think if this for artistic and personal purposes is an invasion of privacy what about street photography, is that anymore an invasion of privacy or misuse of someone's image. I mean you could be standing on the street photographing someone at or through their window, photograph someone who has no idea they're being photographed and then put them images up in a show or exhibit. Is this any less an invasion of privacy. I think for artistic purposes it should be fine, but where they went wrong was they were capitalizing on it way before they ever made it known to they guys that hey we recorded you and you're hit! However the film did intrigue me with the whole concept of audio vrit, a really intimate look into peoples' lives and how they really are. These are recordings that people usually find in which the ones being recorded didn't know it, or were aware but just never believed their recordings would ever be heard by anyone, so they're not inclined to be plastic and fake but raw and honest.