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The perspectives offered by LAN could be quite voyeuristic and, quite literally, ‘in your face’ as shown in Figure 3 and the extract below it. Indeed the view offered on the ‘avatar’ eating his lunch is quite intrusive yet strangely co-present for the ‘guides’ – they could even hear the sound of eating. Yet the ‘avatar’ does not express concerns for himself or the visitor from Vietnam being watched – holding the camera while eating seemed to simply be inconvenient.

FIGURE 3: Close up views of the ‘avatar’ eating his lunch

A: [sounds of him eating food] G1: “Hey, how, do you find it distracting that, uh, that you have to eat and we watch you?”
A: “Um, I don’t know, it’s kind of okay, it’s just that it interferes with my hand a bit.”

As shown above LAN provides unique views on a person, place and situation. The uniqueness of the view could extend to the view suffered by an object, in this case a spoon.

FIGURE 4: Close up views of the ‘avatar’ eating his lunch

G1: “I understood that you want to put the camera with the fork.
A: “Can use the spoon or not?”
G1: “Ahh this is cool! Yeah, wow.”
G2: “Ahhh.”
G1: “This is funny.” [laughs]

This view provided such a sense of ‘being there’ that one of the guides, completely unscripted, started describing the action in a form of commentary (Figure 5 and the extract below). She describes the action in a way that seems she is controlling the spoon, again indicating the shared nature not only of the experience but also the unfolding action. These different, highly individual views seem to promote the mundane yet sensory experience of being in a place being shared, somewhat curiously, across some considerable distance where, at both ends of interaction people are both present and absent.

FIGURE 5: Close up views of the ‘avatar’ eating his lunch

G2: “It’s ah scooping the potato.”
G1: “Wow.”
G2: “And yet I’m not eating it but I’m putting it into your mouth.” [laughs]

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