Every­thing is about fol­low­ing.
Are you fol­low­ing me?

I was intrigued by the { fol­low­ing 2.0 } project at many lev­els. Not the least of which was my twit­ter han­dle : stellth. Stellth is one side of me. Stellth is a silent observer, an inves­ti­ga­tor, a doc­u­menter. Stellth is unseen.

Being an observer is essen­tial to stim­u­lat­ing the imag­i­na­tion. Obser­va­tion and imag­i­na­tion were key to my process in this piece.

I decided that I would use small iden­ti­fy­ing details in my tweets to hold the thread together for my fol­low­ers. In this way, if their atten­tion lasped or a tweet or two got past them they could fill in the blanks and recover. It made enter­ing the piece at any point viable. A fol­lower didn’t need the whole story to become engaged and then follow.

Liv­ing in a walk­a­ble city made pick­ing sub­jects and logis­tics easy. I selected some­one by a phys­i­cal attribute: hair color, jacket, bag. I was never really close enough to hear any of the con­ver­sa­tions of the indi­vid­u­als that I fol­lowed. This is where I mixed the fac­tual and imaginary.

© 2009 Stella Untalan

The first per­son I decided to fol­low, a blonde woman I often see on my way to the gallery, avoided me the first day. I had to decide if I would skip her and fol­low some­one else as my first sub­ject. I decided against it. I imag­ined that any­one who knew I was doing the piece would won­der what hap­pened. That would be all for the good. Intrigue from the start.

My first tweet:

The woman with the blond hair put on her rain­coat, took her umbrella and headed up 18th street. #fp20

and then :

How had she avoided me all day yes­ter­day? #fp20

Early on I decided that I would wait if the blonde woman dis­ap­peared from view. I would wait as long as it took until she reap­peared. On the very first fol­low I waited from 10:40 AM until 1:56 PM. While I waited, I thought out loud send­ing a few tweets to keep con­nected to the story. Let­ting my fol­low­ers know I was still mak­ing the piece.

tweets :
I’m wait­ing. For her. #fp20

I have no idea how long it will be. I imag­ine it must be a meet­ing, an appoint­ment. 45 min­utes? an hour? #fb20

Method­ol­ogy : observe and let the story unfold, improvise.

By the time the blonde woman emerged I had a cou­ple replies from fol­low­ers on twit­ter and Face­book. They asked me, who is the blonde woman? why are you fol­low­ing her? One per­son asked me if I was stalk­ing… I gave them the link to the project post. They were intrigued and excited to con­tinue fol­low­ing the piece.

I had lunch with a friend who asked me out­right, who is the woman? Do I know her? I replied : Follow.

I had decided not to map my actions or use pho­tos in my tweets. I wanted the nar­ra­tive and my fol­low­ers to use their obser­va­tions and imag­i­na­tion to extend the story. They sent me tweets ask­ing, what store, what cafe?

tweet :
The bag is TINY. Think­ing about what could be inside. Can’t be a pas­try can it? #fp20

http://www.dragonflycakes.com/

When I tweeted about the TINY bag a whole flurry of ques­tions came at me. Guesses. I would reply. More guesses. Links to ref­er­ence mate­ri­als about dif­fer­ent kinds of candy and French pas­try. It was an amaz­ing inter­ac­tion. Sur­pris­ingly, the most inves­tiga­tive responses hap­pened on Face­book (I import my feed). Maybe it was because peo­ple knew me and felt comfortable.

tweets :
I’m think­ing of a name for the woman I am fol­low­ing. Should I name her so that this stream sounds less imper­sonal? Not her real name. #fp20

The response was a resound­ing NO. I was pleased. I didn’t really want to give the blonde woman a false name, and my fol­low­ers agreed.

The last inter­changes with my fol­low­ers were around the sis­ter that vis­its the blonde woman. I assume it is her sis­ter; they look so much alike. My fol­low­ers sug­gest that what­ever was in the TINY bag was to share with the sis­ter. A spe­cial treat they enjoyed together when they were young and that they still share today.

tweets :
She’s com­ing back out. A car has pulled up. A rental car. I can see the lit­tle enter­prise e logo. She’s greet­ing the dri­ver. #fp20

The blonde woman is open­ing a gate for the car to enter. The woman in the car is park­ing. They are hug­ging. #fp20

My unex­pected joy in mak­ing this piece came from the inter­ac­tion with my fol­low­ers who were open to writ­ing the story with me. Imag­in­ing and embell­ish­ing as the story unfolded.

The idea of a cover of the Acconci piece on twit­ter and com­press­ing the time­line fits our cur­rent cul­ture per­fectly. All of the per­for­mances can be viewed on Twit­ter using the search term #fp20.

Are you fol­low­ing me?

TINY bag">