Dear Hacker

Do you keep your webcam covered when not in use? If the answer is no, that might change by the time you’ve finished reading this review, or watching this film. It’s surprising how many people don’t realise how hackable webcams are. A skilled hacker can be watching you even without the light on the camera switching on to tell you it’s in use. If that light does come on when you’re not expecting it, you should certainly be suspicious. This is what happened to filmmaker Alice Lenay, and this film chronicles her subsequent attempts to understand it.

It’s not a straightforward attempt to track down the spy. Lenay is more interested in exploring the question from a phenomenological point of view. Through a series of Zoom discussions with her friends, some of whom have computer experience and some of whom offer more esoteric suggestions, she reflects on what it means to be observed through (by?) a webcam, and expands on the concept to explore the way computer hardware extends and connects individual human consciousnesses to form something bigger than all of us.

Expanding our senses as they do, are webcams, microphones etc. equivalent to bodily organs, yet different in that they are organs able to be used by multiple people? Is there a parasitic relationship between humans and the internet, or between webcam spies and ordinary users, and if so, which way round do these relationships work? Whilst some viewers will feel alienated by such questions from the outset, others will find them compelling. Providing balance are humorous observations which shed their own light on these evolving relationships, as people with experience of tech support reflect on how people relate to their machines.

Films built around Zoom conversations – of which there are now quite a few – have the potential to be quite boring at a visual level, especially as many viewers emerging from lockdown situations will feel they have spent quite enough time staring at that type of interface in recent months. Lenay makes this work for her, however, in moments when she leaves the computer unattended, giving us a direct look at what the person (or persons) watching through her webcam would have been able to see. White walls. A dark doorway. An indistinct figure occasionally moving around. This is a world away from the fantasy scenarios presented by films like Eye Without A Face. Few users actually spend much time in front of their webcams when they’re not working, and fewer still take their clothes off. So why watch? This is the question that lingers, inviting us to probe the more mysterious areas of the human psyche.

The best explanation, one might think, is that there’s a personal connection. Has one of the people Lenay interviews been spying on her? If so, can she coax out the truth? Dear Hacker, which screened at Fantasia 2021, will keep you wondering, but its real interest lies in what she learns along the way.