The hows and whys of invisibility

April 12, 2015 12:24 PM

A Beginner's Guide to Invisibility by Kathryn Schulz: "with invisibility, as with so many forces, what matters is who gets to wield it. If you choose to be invisible, it's a superpower; if it's forced upon you, it's a plight. The same goes for being visible. We typically speak of visibility as an asset—but the subjugated are not always overlooked, and they do not always want to be seen." (via; previously)
posted by kliuless (18 comments total)

The trick about being invisible is that it lets you choose who sees you as well as who doesn't. And that is a thing marginalized groups (among others) have been exploiting and using for a long, long time. Think about handkerchief codes and code-switching. These are signals that either are only perceived by people with the context to understand them (see handkerchief codes) or which can be turned on and off (as with code-switching).

I think the concept of invisibility is a bit of a complex one, though, because as she's describing it it includes both of these things and I think it is more generally understood to apply only to not sending signals, period--not just sending signals at a "radar" that not everyone is tuned in on. The author's distinction between "technological invisibility" and "psychological invisibility" kind of gets at what I'm talking about here, but it's not a perfect analogue to the sorts of things I'm talking about because you can achieve both things by modifying behavioral or social cues.

Anyway, interesting piece! Lots of loosely connected cultural ideas there which can be riffed off of or modified at will.
posted by sciatrix at 1:10 PM on April 12, 2015 [5 favorites]

Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping only, please.
posted by XMLicious at 1:42 PM on April 12, 2015 [8 favorites]

Invisibility can be indifference to what one can encounter throughout ones day.
posted by reedcourtneyj at 3:35 PM on April 12, 2015

Very interesting, especially the references to psychological/social invisibility. Some people in the security industry (especially close protection/bodyguarding) learn this well, others don't. There are times when you need to be indefinably present, authoritative, dutiful, visibly a deterrent. There are other times when your task is to be almost invisible, motionless, always standing in the place where you see everything but no-one sees you.

With the right tricks, you can slip from place to place and even walk in front of someone without exciting the slightest notice; books in the public domain intended for servants in the late 18th/early 19th century come in handy. As the author of the article discusses, you can exploit the human tendency towards selective attention; a matter of posture, gait, speed, expression, lack of noise can make you 'vanish' entirely.

After two years of practice, under the right conditions, you can be within six feet of another person for half an hour, without them noticing your existence at all.
posted by The Zeroth Law at 4:07 PM on April 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

The Zeroth Law After two years of practice, under the right conditions, you can be within six feet of another person for half an hour, without them noticing your existence at all.

That seems like it could be a good plot for a movie
posted by yeolcoatl at 4:30 PM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

How Not To Be Seen
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:44 PM on April 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

I worked with a wonderful photojournalist who could, as we called it, "get small."

Even though he was a big guy, and could be intimidating when he had to be, he had an amazing ability to become invisible. It lead to may great photos of people being themselves in unguarded moment.
posted by cccorlew at 5:52 PM on April 12, 2015

There are times when you need to be indefinably present, authoritative, dutiful, visibly a deterrent. There are other times when your task is to be almost invisible, motionless, always standing in the place where you see everything but no-one sees you.

Reminds me of middle school...
posted by bleep at 6:07 PM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

With the right tricks, you can slip from place to place and even walk in front of someone without exciting the slightest notice; books in the public domain intended for servants in the late 18th/early 19th century come in handy.

That sounds like interesting reading. Do you have some links or titles to recommend?
posted by rifflesby at 6:08 PM on April 12, 2015

Except for the authoritative part.
posted by bleep at 6:08 PM on April 12, 2015

I highly recommend the book Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

Great book that went through the ins and outs of being fantasy-style invisible in the modern world. How do you sleep when your eyelids are invisible? How do you eat while undigested food is visible? How exactly would you hide from a well-funded group of people that want to catch you? (e.g. they're looking for unexplained crimes and reports of "ghosts" and they froze your bank accounts so now they know you have to commit little crimes just to get through the day).

Unfortunately, this book was made into a terrible movie starring Chevy Chase, so ignore it.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 7:20 PM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

With the right tricks, you can slip from place to place and even walk in front of someone without exciting the slightest notice

Heh, I've done it. Keep your eyes down, think Jedi mind trick of having a shield over your head, don't talk or call attention to yourself, just either sit still or quickly move out. I used to do that all the time in eighth grade history class because my teacher was so predictable as to when he'd call on you. It was hilarious when he somehow wouldn't be able to find me and you could tell he was all "She answered during roll call...none of the seats are empty....?"
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:53 PM on April 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

People who notice you will look where you are looking-- if you want them not to notice something, make sure you don't notice it either. The cloak of invisibility has a lot in common with this approach.
posted by blnkfrnk at 9:45 PM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

The undigested food thing is odd, because if you're going to posit that somehow said food is visible, the vast majority of us that is symbiotic creatures (not to mention our tubes full of crap), would never be invisible. Plus hair, bones, fillings, dead skin cells, etc.

The only way being invisible can make any "sense" is if you either are not physically there (a remote consciousness or whatever woo that might be) or you bend light around your physical envelope, which means things entering your person fall into your invisibility field. Or you're "invisible" by affecting the sight of other people somehow, SEP-style.
posted by maxwelton at 11:06 PM on April 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

maxwelton, the novel concentrates its attention much more on the psychodrama of being invisible versus the actual science -- suffice to say it creates its definition of invisibility, entertains itself with the trivialities of the process, including the baffling frustrations of using invisibility to get sex (uh, it's rapey), then gradually slides into an intriguing thriller juxtaposed with the mental struggles of the protagonist. It spent ages on the NYT Best Seller list, and is the only book ever published by its author, who allegedly used the film rights sale to retire to the French Riviera (or at least Europe). Another way to be invisible, I guess.
posted by dhartung at 11:32 PM on April 12, 2015

This ties in with an argument in the video How Does Night Vale Confront Us With the Unknown? Modern society is extremely visually oriented and we feel the need to render things visible even if that means making it up. Thus Cecil from WTNV, who is only vaguely described in Night Vale canon, acquired a bunch of visual traits from fans, so that drawings and cosplays of the character are now recognizably Cecil.

It's like the comforting certainty of wearing a watch, even if the watch is telling the wrong time. Which is making me reflect on personal stuff, where I've discarded some labels from earlier in my life and it makes me a bit twitchy.
posted by Foosnark at 7:35 AM on April 13, 2015

.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:13 PM on April 13, 2015 [4 favorites]

Unfortunately, this book was made into a terrible movie starring Chevy Chase, so ignore it.

I disagree that the movie is terrible. It is not the book, which is fine.
posted by phearlez at 10:23 AM on April 14, 2015 [1 favorite]