Film: Its Eyes

Prepared by Micah and Juliet for Why War?

Download Its Eyes

This film was created by micah, a Why War? board member, and Juliet Lashinsky-Revene, an independent filmmaker living in New York City. It was originally produced for the Visual Ethnography class at Swarthmore College taught by Professor Miguel Diaz-Barriga. Its Eyes treats surveillance cameras as a biological organism slowly taking control of our urban space. Filmed on location in the Chelsea Market and Harlem, Its Eyes explores concepts of control, technological innovation, and surveillance through a subversion of the nature film genre.

Its Eyes is 6 minutes and 30 seconds long and is freely available for download and alteration. You may download a small (13.3mb) or large (50mb) version. Both will play properly in QuickTime player.

You may also download a DVD copy (380mb). Once downloaded you may watch it using a DVD player on your computer or you may burn it to a DVD to watch it on your television.

The second generation of surveillance cameras are large eyes on the wall.

Still from Its Eyes

A large eye watches.

If you plan on redistributing or editing the film, please read our license agreement. We are using the creative commons and ask that you do the same.

Notes from the creators

In creating this film we were inspired by the work of Bill Brown, and would like to thank him sincerely for the knowledge gained on his Harlem walking tour.

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This website is a tribute to Why War?, one of the nation's first and most innovative post-9/11 student antiwar organizations. Born on October 22, 2001 at Swarthmore College, we were a handful of freshmen and sophmores who vocally opposed the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. And now, seven years later, we are retiring this website as we focus our efforts on new directions. We hope that it continues to serve future activists and we remain confident that humanity is on the verge birthing a better world.