Jennifer Ringley, JenniCAM, 1996-2003
In 1996 on the eve of her 21st birthday, Jennifer Ringley attached a video camera to her computer and began to upload images of her college dormitory room to the internet.
"Anything I may be doing in my dorm room - reading, writing, email...,watching TV, playing with my hedgehog Spree, rearranging my room, doing aerobics, just about anything."
-Jennifer Ringley.
The Philadelphia Inquirer, 1997, interview:
PI: DO you censor the JenniCAM?
JR: Nope - I never know when the camera is going to take the picture so I have no time to prepare, and I never feel a need to hide anything going on anyway.
PI: Do you ever stage what we see?
JR: I occasionally do "shows" which are more or less staged,... it's nice to be able to acknowledge the camera now and again. But except for these quite obvious shows, everything else is just moi au naturel.
PI: Why are you giving up your privacy like this?
JR: ...I don't feel I'm giving up my privacy. Just because people can see me doesn't mean it affects me. I'm still alone in my room, no matter what.
PI: You're naked sometimes, is this pornography?
JR: That's for the viewer to decide.
To think of Jennifer Ringley as an exhibitionist is to think of her camera as if it were a window. From the viewers position it is a window but from Ringley's position it is a mirror.
