NEW LENSES: Experimental Capture and Release

Prompt: Landscape photography from bed

I went on a fake spontaneous trip to Paris and documented the ‘experience’ on my finsta. I developed a narrative that made sense (a spontaneous night flight to see my cousin), edited a bunch of content, and got the few people who knew the truth involved (my roommate, my friend based in London, my friend here in NYC, even my work colleague).

It was a live media performance piece that simulates media’s obsession with aspirational con artist stories (Netflix’s Inventing Anna Delvey, the Tinder Swindler), shock value narrative-driven content, and how scarily accessible it is to abuse !!

Established relationships + realistic fake content on a trusted platform + a well fleshed out narrative… how far could it go?? I asked my friend Tina (who knew about the fake trip) if she didn’t know the truth and I messaged her out of the blue to send me money because my wallet was stolen in Paris, would she do it? and she said she 100% would !!! absolutely terrifying

Attempting to make the narrative as realistic as possible by using interactive social media components (polls, tagging people, locations), making sure the timing was right (night vs day lighting), posting according to the Paris timezone/weather, Photoshopping elements of myself onto Google or Instagram-found images, using my own photos not even from Paris.

The whole project documented here: https://www.figma.com/proto/8jVfIgLxnr65NP0OluBtUZ/zoe-in-paris%3A-a-fake-insta-fake-trip?node-id=2%3A2&scaling=scale-down-width&page-id=0%3A1

CLOSING: I realized that about 40~ people still thought I went to Paris last week, so I decided to end where I started — on my finsta ! I posted a short snippet video followed by a longer process video. 🙂 Videos can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1RTDuZQlKmcqkpcXKPqnZUCQolt7U9Bc7?usp=sharing