Is it normal to feel watched when no one is watching?
I am walking down a quiet street on a beautiful summer evening and despite the obvious absence of people on my path I feel myself being watched. Maybe there is someone behind me or in that window, where there is no light.
This sensation is not related to the perception of eyes looking at me. It is linked to the mere possibility that someone might be there.
This is the way the look can be detached from the eye, and thus the window can become an eye-object on its own. Lacan theorised it, Hitchcock showed it.
This feeling of being constantly watched in secret is probably with us since the dawn of time. It is the invisible look of gods, that scrutinize and ultimately judge our actions. An invisible eye is heavier to bear than the constant glare of surveillance cameras.
Because a camera is at least an eye, a window the fantasy of a look.
Without wishing to diminish the risks of our fall into a society of generalised surveillance and tracking, it is less worrying to know that we are being watched than to suspect it. That's why we learned with a strange feeling of relief the Edward Snowden revelations on the existence of programs that monitor our every move.
Inspired by: Slavoj Žižek