So the other day in my J110 class, Danfung Dennis was our guest lecturer. I thought his presentation was totally cool and made me think of discussions we've had in T101. He is a war photographer, film maker, and CEO and founder of Condition One.
Condition One is an app for tech devices where the user can swipe the screen and move the view of the camera. Or just move the entire device to the right or left to change the view. (Check out the video above cause it's sort of hard to explain!) It makes you feel like you're really there, simply moving your head to see to your right or left. Kind of scary if you ask me (uncanny valley-esque??). Not that photography and film can't capture events, but this brings a whole new level of emotion and intensity to the viewing experience. I'm pretty sure they're using some type of fisheye lens but I really don't know enough about technology to figure out the mechanics behind how this thing works!
But anyways, the video above shows a clip covering wars around the world, but what it makes me think of is what if all of our news was covered like this? Think about it, you're scrolling on your iPad reading the news about some protest. Instead of just seeing pictures, you could click on a link to watch a video like this, where during a speech you could look around and see the faces of people experiencing it right then and there. To me that's so crazy to think about.
It shows how media is developing. Media has this amazing power to connect people all across the globe and I think Condition One is a perfect example of that. It shows how media is evolving to blend into our lives and try to replicate actual reality. I'm excited to see what happens with Condition One in the future and if it becomes a tool used by mainstream media.
