Glance Back is a daily photo diary, capturing the moments shared between you and your computer. Once a day,
when you open a new tab, Glance Back will unexpectedly
take your photo, ask you what you’re thinking about, and save both
the photo and written thought to its locally stored archive.
You know that feeling when someone is staring at you for a really
long time? It’s super uncomfortable right? Especially if this gaze
is unreciprocated. Glance Back grew out of a desire to recognize
that this phenomenon occurs between ourselves and our machines when
we spend so much time looking at our screen.
With this chrome extension, once a day at random when you open a new
tab, Glance Back will quickly snap a photo of you and inquire: “What
are you thinking about?”. Once you type your answer and press enter,
the photo and thought will be collectively saved to your history of
glances, cumulatively creating an archive of moments you share with
your screen. Given that most of the digital photos we generate of
ourselves today are highly curated (i.e.
wait let me fix my hair and smile and please take at least 10
photos just to make sure there’s a good one!), Glance Back also acts as an antidote to this attitude
by
providing you with unexpected and often… unflattering… photos of
yourself.
It’s important to note that all of the photos are saved to your
browser’s local storage. This means that they never leave your
machine. This is a collection shared purely between you and your
computer. If you want the photos for yourself, you can choose to
download them under the settings tab in the top right. You can also
delete photos from the archive and choose whether the extension
requires you to write a caption or not.
When using our devices, we’re pulled into and solely focused on the
glowing world that exists on the screen. We lose both an awareness
of self and of the real world context surrounding us. This extension
aims to disrupt that trance and remind you that you are here and
your computer is there and you are just staring at it and... wow is
that really what I look like right now?
Peek at others' Glance Back reels
here,
here, and
here.

Glance Back is a project by
Maya Man.