Tonight I learned that I’m no longer allowed to cover the camera during my life drawing classes. When the cameras went up I was made aware of them and then given permission to cover them during the class. As long as I always removed the cover afterwards. I’ve done this for about 2 years.
From what I understand that is no longer acceptable. And that most if not all of the room needs to be visible at all times due to issues of harassment or other disputes.
I wanted to ask if there is any possibility I’d still be able to continue to cover the camera for my life drawing class. A screen concealing the nude model was mentioned/suggested but I’m not sure there’s much of a difference than covering the camera. Basically putting a screen in the middle of the room to conceal the model means half the room is not usable. All the artist would need to be on the side of the screen to see the model. To counter that would be to simply move the screen over to the wall the camera is on and basically block the whole camera view of the room.
I’m sure the people in charge of the recordings are respectable and honest. But I simply don’t feel comfortable putting any model in any sort of risk of being recorded.
Soo…
Please let me know If there’s any room to negotiate permission for me to be able to continue to cover the camera for this particular class.
I was in this class tonight and had an amazing experience. Something I have wanted to learn to do forever is to draw without a straight edge specifically the human form. I believe using a screen to hide the model or place the model in the room where the camera would not be able to see her kind of negates the whole point of having the camera in the room to begin with. I don’t see this as being a good option. Having the model sit in front of a live camera is definitely not a good option either.
I would be open to signing a document stating that I am of sound mind and so on and so on and agree to act like an adult during a class where a nude model was present and the camera was turned off. Maybe something like this would keep DMS in the clear if something was to happen so the lawyers would be appeased? I don’t know all the legalities but I see both sides of the story.
Please let Raymond do what he thinks is necessary in this situation. Respect for the model is critical for this to work. What Raymond is doing with these classes is important. It’s one of the few ways in this world for people to develop their skills. Especially for those outside of a university. For what it’s worth I have a bachelor of fine arts and this isn’t a new concept for me. I hope you’ll reconsider your position on this. It’s one of the few things at the space that I would be genuinely sad to see go away.
I am happy to discuss alternatives. We provided at least one to Raymond in person. What i cannot abide, nor should anyone is blind faith. With all the issues affecting us it is irresponsible for us as organization to accept this on blind faith. This camera serves as an unbiased witness for things that did or did not occur. Consider the possibility of the kinds of accusations that can occur.
Further, I cant say I appreciate the concept that we treat security footage as less than sacred. This system has full audit logs. The implication that someone is going to dig through our camera system looking for naked people vs google is not realistic. Access is tightly controlled and monitored.
At this point the ball is in Raymond’s court.
Raymond, feel free to reach out to [email protected] for further discussion.
Made this in Blender to show why I’d prefer to just cover the camera instead of use a screen.
From my mock up the camera would seemingly be blocked from seeing most of the room which means the camera would not have the valued evidence of misbehavior. When the screen is smaller and more of the room is visible, people are still hidden and there is a greater risk of the model moving past the screen and being recorded.
As I said I’m not okay with any recording “AT ALL” even if it is very secured. This is about respecting the model above anything else, nothing to do with respecting the people who control the recordings.
Why not just provide a camera in the room that the model can snag the SD card from when the session is over?
As an aside, if you cover the camera(s) and get called out on it, it’s because someone was looking at recordings they don’t have a valid reason to watch.
Feel free to try this. I’d suspect you won’t care for the results.
We don’t need a rule that says dont mess with the cameras or the building. You wouldn’t try this in any establishment. Same goes here. We have this lovely catch all about harm to the corporation…
It is absolutely absurd to suggest that a camera is necessary to chaperone a nude model in what I assume is a co-ed room full of witnesses.
Put the screen up 2 feet in front of the camera. Don’t touch the camera. Anyone checking camera feed/footage has to explain why they were spying on a room known to contain a nude model. Inasmuch as the discussion in this thread is an implicit agreement from an officer of the corporation that nobody will be looking at the feed, doing so might even be a crime. A sex crime.
The cameras have been the only saving grace in multiple incidents, even in which there were multiple “witnesses” (as crappy as it sounds, from a realistic perspective eyewitness testimony is basically garbage compared to cameras)
Mitigations were offered, but IMO this kind of situation is a rock and a hard place.
However my biggest reason for chiming in here is that If the model has concerns about our cameras, they need to know that we can’t stop someone from hiding a camera in the space. They should be far more concerned about that.
Members have setup cameras in rooms for one reason or another, often without warning and not always readily noticed.
I’m not the model in this situation but I wouldn’t have a problem consenting to being drawn or painted on paper/canvas. I however would have a real problem with a recording of me nude like that security camera or snuck in camera. I would feel really weird about someone potentially viewing it later. I am unsure of the kind of person with access to that security footage in the future.
I think the most practical solution is a camera over which the model has complete control, especially with respect to the media it records to.
The only circumstance that wouldn’t adequately cover is one where a model claims some harm and also claims that DMS sabotaged the camera. A ridiculous outlier among the possible scenarios.
We actually just had a claim of sabotage earlier this week, which we had clear camera footage showing wasn’t the case.
The camera footage isn’t just for the model, but maintaining the continuity of evidence on the room. Let’s say someone comes and claims that they left something in the room and it was stolen during or after the class. We’d need the footage to validate what happened, or if the equipment was even there (yes, we have gotten theft claims where we found what was allegedly stolen wasn’t even in the room, or where someone tried to pull a scam of some kind against another member claiming they took their personal tools or supplies, etc)
I don’t know but I’d be interested in asking around the local art departments
In which case I expect cameras to be put in the areas directly around the toilets.
You failed to mention the fact that most / all of those situations were not in classrooms with a closed door. What’s the fallacy of deliberately leaving out important relevant information?
Except many incidents were in classrooms with closed doors.
You don’t know about every case we get, either in nature nor severity
As for cameras around who knows. We find weird stuff all the time at the space and have some members that were removed for serious things. Just because you don’t know about it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened
