DO YOU SEE

This 360° VR documentary explores the pervasive presence of surveillance through the perspective of a college student navigating a world saturated with CCTV cameras. The film interrogates the normalization of being watched while simultaneously examining the act of watching. Using immersive cinema and AI-generated imagery, it blurs the line between observer and observed, creating an unsettling reflection of our relationship with surveillance systems.

Set within the familiar yet disconcerting landscape of urban environments, DO YOU SEE delves into the societal, institutional, and personal implications of constant observation. It questions how surveillance mediates power dynamics and reshapes privacy in an era where technology’s reach continues to expand. Through speculative narratives, the film envisions possible futures of surveillance, provoking viewers to consider its more permanent and pervasive forms.

It investigates the entanglement of surveillance technologies within human and urban ecosystems and invites audiences to experience the discomfort of being watched while reflecting on their own role in this complex system. The project seeks to foster critical dialogue on surveillance’s ethical and existential dimensions, encouraging new perspectives on technology’s role in our lives.

When I returned to my college campus after a semester break, I noticed something had changed. CCTV cameras had multiplied. I had always spotted them, avoided them even, but now there were too many everywhere, in studios, hallways, classrooms. The paranoia crawled back, and this film emerged from that discomfort.

My objective with this project was to start a dialogue on surveillance in today’s world through conversations with others, and by engaging with the system of CCTV cameras. Another objective was to explore filmmaking in the immersive 360 format to explore its modalities and potential while pursuing my inquiries into the system of surveillance.

Reading about the Panopticon, the circular prison where the possibility of being watched alters behavior, gave language to what I was feeling. The idea that surveillance works best not when it’s active, but when it might be shook me.

That became the conceptual core of DO YOU SEE. I used the 360° VR format not just for immersion, but to give the viewer agency and to choose what they see, while making them aware they are also the subject of a gaze. The watcher and the watched collapse into one.

Narrative Architecture

The narrative is built around:

• Personal reflections from my childhood in Qatar to the present
• Interview segments with peers about surveillance, data, and fear
• Speculative futures, visualized through Stable Diffusion-generated scenes
• Moments of quiet exposure, where I speak directly to the camera, unsure if I’m safe or seen

I shot myself with a 360° camera, often talking directly to the lens in dorm rooms and hallways. I was hesitant at first and uneasy to be featured on camera, but as the film progresses, that changes.

Visual & Spatial Language

Visually, the film features:

• Live action moments of mundane life and anxiety
• A glass cube scene, where people surround and stare at the audience
• Actual CCTV footage which captures my performance
• A CGI server space, symbolic of data control
• AI-generated loops, imagining future surveillance architectures

Editing nine hours of interviews into a cohesive arc took weeks. With the help of my mentor and peers, I shaped a structure that began personally and expanded collectively. Layered interviews, environmental silence, subtle spatial cues create an ambient unease. In one key moment, a crowd stands silently staring at the camera, at the viewer. People told me the scene stayed with them long after.

The film was applauded for its marriage of technology and storytelling, and for the way its form and medium come together seamlessly to enhance the message in a way traditional film would be unable to.

What do we lose when we normalize being seen? Cameras don’t forget. Algorithms don’t forgive. People change. They grow. But data holds them frozen — a set of coordinates, behaviors, purchase histories. That permanence of perception is what the film firmly dwells on and speculates about.

You may watch the film on a Meta headset. To make it, I gave Meta my data. You own the device. But does the device own you?

Screening Access

Watch the 360° trailer above. For festival screeners, educational exhibitions, or full 18-minute VR cut access: Request Screening Access →