[kcimc]

Thanks for spending time thinking through some of this :)

I think it "felt like 30" because I was nervous. Not because I thought it was illegal or unethical, but because I was breaking social norms. I see this as different from acting "unethically", and closer to what Erving Goffman would call a "breaching experiment".

I definitely did not want to raise any flags in the store itself, hence the staggered exit and furtive behavior. Again, not because I thought it was illegal or unethical, but because there was a certain way I wanted to see everything play out. If I got kicked out before I had a chance to exhibit the work, it would have made for a distractingly complicated story. I think this point is difficult for some folks who can only see this as a prank or security research, and don't understand how artists think and work and craft stories.

Regarding the question of what constitutes "public space" and legality of of using peoples likenesses for profit, there are some other great responses in this thread which explain the details (like the one here by sellyme). It's interesting for me to hear how most folks on HN assume that photography in the US operates more like the EU.