BTF -Vision&Technology Reflective text
Reading, Anna (2009). ’Mobile Witnessing: Ethics and the Camera Phone in the ’War on Terror’.’ Globalizations vol. 6 no. 1 (March 2009), pp61-76.
SUMMARY OF YOUR CHOSEN TEXT
I felt a connection between my personal project and this text as the writer refers to the camera phone as a “DANGER”: “Drawing on a range of studies on mobile phones […] the danger of mobile camera phones is developing new languages and practices within visual culture […] extending and modifying media languages […] Phone developed into a handy multimedia computers that is effectively personal […] virtually unique and wearable multimedia functionality […] it lives with us and on us.” All of these phrases are, in a way, expressing the meaning of my project. Though my critique/observation is addressed to the people who, being so busy with the speed in which they scroll images on mobile phones, are forgetting the depth of them, therefore it doesn’t matter how much effort, time, planning and commitment the photographer invest into taking photographs because the will still be scrolled in a frantically and accelerate timeframe.
The approach used in my project is similar to that used by Anna Reading when she talks about “the velocity in which the mobile witness image traveled from the realm of private experience into public virtual space”, and “The speed with which mobile image can travel and transform is significant here, enabling the rapid translation of a private sensory experience into a public mediated record”, in her case is the mobile phone and in my project is Instagram.
Anna Reading also uses the term “Mobile Phone Penetration” meaning that almost 100% of the world population own mobile phones with a camera in it. This is having a huge impact on photographers as well as on the way in which people look at photographs and only those who really care about photography can recognise and appreciate a good photograph. (the meaning of my project)=
Every week I used a different medium to demonstrate the effort that photographers put into creating an image.
Digital ( My Canon 6D and Canon 5Ds) Medium Format ( Digital PhaseOne and Bronica) 35mm Canon A1 (Black&White and Colour Films) Large Format, Phone Photography, and Screen Shot from a Video Camera.
This has also helped me understand which medium I feel more closed to, what medium to use in order to achieve the result that I am looking for and what is more suitable for my taste and needs.
I am very impatient, therefore I don't particularly love using the large format, although I absolutely love the quality of the images that can be produced from it.
The medium format PhaseOne camera is my favorite in terms of image quality and result, yet it is limited in terms of speed of processing images.
The point of the project is, however, to demonstrate that it does not matter what medium photographers use because from the moment that the picture gets uploaded on Instagram becomes ephemeral, immaterial, an “information” on the computer.
PRODUCTION & PRESENTATION
The presentation will be a recorded video projected onto the wall.
Simply because I wanted to explore diverse ways of presenting images that were not the typical prints hanged to a wall.
I have also used material objects such as eyeless and brainless ceramic dolls to represent humans while using phones.
In addition. created an Instagram account under the project’s name where every week I would upload all the images created.
Ultimately, I have made 3 metal stands in the 3D workshop to support the dolls.
The fact that the video will be on loop with no sound makes it feel like a “meditation”, where you just look and reflect. The dolls are symbolising people too.
My initial idea was to place a phone connected to a projector at the exhibition for people to play with, but I thought just a projection would be better for people to just watch and reflect as the phone can be distracting if people start just playing with it.
What techniques you use to produce, display, or disseminate your images (fine printing? Instagram? Digital postproduction? Fly-postering?). How does the presentation play into the meaning of the work?
Emotionally, my project communicates my feelings towards the changing status of photography and the role of the viewer as well as the fact that we are slaves of it.
Mine is MEDITATION to what’s happened to photography in the 21st century, more specifically to the speed in which images are consumed, forgetting about the depth of them.
It does not matter how much effort, time, planning and commitment the photographer is investing into making a photograph, using the most expensive and sophisticated medium or model or setting or equipment or concept, because when uploaded on Instagram, the pictures will all be looked at roughly the same way.
The viewer will stare at the soundless video and “meditate”, also will look at the dolls and realizing that those are there as a “comparison with us human, they represent us,
We are becoming brainless and eyeless creatures since technology is having such a strong impact on social development.
As photographer I am expressing my personal feelings towards what is happening, I am my self producing those images with these magnificent pieces of equipment, I am even making the metal stands, I am my self investing so much of my time and creativity in planning, producing and processing these images that will be then “scrolled” in quick and effortless way.
I am also putting my self in these images in a very intimate and vulnerable way to see if the viewer will notice that or will simply “scroll” through.
(Screen Record of Instagram Scrolling - Will be projected on the wall) and ( Ceramic dolls on stands made by me )