A flip lecture that is taken from two readings. Please read these two articles beforehand then refer to these notes in the blog entry below. Write a blog entry that responds to the questions in these notes below. Write a second blog entry that reflects on the readings in relation to the affordance you are exploring this semester in your group.
Hjorth, L. 2007, Waiting for immediacy catalogue , Yonsei University: Seoul.
A useful reference provided by Richardson:
Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use , By Mizuko ITO
Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, Edited by Mizuko Ito, Misa Matsuda and Daisuke Okabe, MIT Press, Cambridge
— in regards to the outcomes of this course and the qualities identified in the case studies and preliminary sketches.
Mobile Screens and Portable Worlds – Ingrid Richardson pp. 10-12
In regards to the notion of mobility Richardson draws attention to ‘physical mobility’ (p.10) which raises the idea of thinking about mobility from different perspectives. ‘Physical mobility’ – the mobile phone in relation to the body. What other perspectives can be made on the concept of mobility in this context?
This evaluation goes on to examine how mobile phones are ‘…held and touched…an object always at hand to being almost always in the hand and close to the body’ cited from Larsen 2004, Richardson 2007, p.11)
‘the mobile phone is customarily accepted almost as a body-part or appendage…'(Richardson 2007, p.11)
Body extension/ weapon – Motorola RAZR Tv Ad – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkE_-Cp4_q8
‘a pocket microworld container’ (Richardson 2007, p.12)
‘Containment’ concept (Richardson 2007, p.12)
Motorola Razr V3 Silver Commercial – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsRxJaa4ZpM
Explorations
One-handed use of phone
Two-handed use of phone
Leaving a phone on while it is not in use
The mobile phone as a body part
A created microworld recorded on a mobile phone for screening on a mobile phone – i.e. a fabricated miniature world using toy figures or created sets
Recording people using mobile phones in different locations and situations
A useful reference provided by Richardson:
Personal Portable Pedestrian: Lessons from Japanese Mobile Phone Use , By Mizuko ITO
Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, Edited by Mizuko Ito, Misa Matsuda and Daisuke Okabe, MIT Press, Cambridge
Personal
Personalisation of mobile phones – the personalisation of media to the individual from the masses or large and small groups. The personal characteristics of a mobile phone – with smartphones each one is set up differently – people do not touch unless for instance they are family members answering incoming calls or look at what appears on a screen, like for example an SMS message. Mobile phones are sacred
They provide sole connection to an individual and contain that persons’ world. This access to the individual sets up intimate or personal communication between couples and close friends. A means for intimate communication. ‘Tele-nesting’ practices.
The personalisation crosses into individual selections of covers and adornments, call tones etc – that are added to smartphones.
Explorations
Documentation of mobile phone personalisation using photography.
Audiovisual documentation of mobile phone call tones.
Intimate exchange between two people i.e documents SMS messages
Other documentation of the personal nature of mobile phones – a video recording of an an unanswered call etc.
Portable
quotes from online pdf – Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, Edited by Mizuko Ito, Misa Matsuda and Daisuke Okabe, MIT Press, Cambridge
‘keitai, might roughly translated as “a portable,” or “something you carry with you.”’
‘…lightweight, and mundane presence in everyday life.’ ‘…include digital cameras for still and moving images (that can be emailed to other and the web)’
‘It is less about the ability to communicate “on the go” and more the fact that social relations are always close at hand.’
‘…mobile phone communication was done with a small circle of close friends and family, generally 2-5 others, rarely more than 10.’
‘…we are finding an emergent social norm around frequent text messagers that they will signal their unavailability from the shared online space’
‘Many of the messages that our research subjects recorded for us in their communication diaries were simple messages sharing their location, status, or emotional state, and did not necessitate a response.’
‘These lightweight messages can be sent and quickly viewed while engaged in other activities such as in classroom settings, as one is in transit, or even while engaged in a social situation.’
‘Portables colonize the in between spaces of everyday life…’
Explorations
What does ‘video email’ look like? – how could it be documented/represented using video?
In regards to ‘small circle’ intimate communication – surreal poetry produced with small groups – echo poetry and automatism techniques
In relation to the concept of ‘unavailability’ what type of video recording could be produced to represent these non accessible periods? The user is ‘off air’ not available for contact as part of ongoing social contact.
In reference to indicating ‘location, status, or emotional state’ – how can this be represented using video?
An interesting concept to explore the ‘in between spaces of everyday life- – what do these look like?
Pedestrian
‘…a street level presence that melds with pedestrian urban ecologies.’ – both in relation to perspectives experienced on the street and banal, everyday aspects of those engagements.
‘“nagara mobilism”…Nagara, which could be translated as “while doing something else” is a term used to describe young people’s tendency to multi-task, to read while watching TV, to eat while walking, or, in the case of nagara mobilism, to use the mobile phone while walking or biking.’
‘…pictures taken by the camera phone have a more pedestrian quality to them than those taken by the traditional camera (Okabe and Ito 2003). While users prefer to use a film camera or a higher quality digital camera for special occasion and archival photos, pictures taken by mobile phones are often of the more fleeting and mundane moments of everyday life—a cake that looked good at a café, an interesting but everyday scene or viewpoint, or a sudden moment of cute kid or pet activity. Often these pictures are enjoyed for a few days and then forgotten, soon to be erased from the limited memory of the camera phone.’
Explorations
What does pedestrian video look like? What type of activities and imagery, sounds?
How do you represent a ‘street level’, ‘pedestrian’ existence with video?
Recording video while engaged in other activities – multi-tasking’ – i.e. recording video while having a banal conversation with someone else where that conversation has no connection with what is recorded.
Recording while moving through locations via different modes of travel – on foot, on two wheels and using other modes.
In reference to ‘fleeting and mundane moments of everyday life’ and the notion of these potentially being small self-contained throwaway moments (vignettes) – recording vignettes as individual separate actions then editing them together into a longer duration work.
Back to the ‘Waiting for immediacy catalogue:
Interstitial moments – Scott McQuire
McQuire examines ‘stance’ – how the body is used to capture/record/document. – What happens if the body is used as a tripod/stedicam? In reverse recording someone as a extension of a camera as a tripod/stedicam.
In relation to the photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, McQuire discusses the photographic camera (an extension of Bresson’s body/eye). What would the ‘videographic camera’ look like? if similar processes are applied to video?
The mobile phone and the video camera on it, are always available – they are carried continuously by the user.
MCQuire discusses the use of cameras to understand things that are unfamiliar or new experiences in regards to tourism. They provide an intermediary level between the person and what is being experienced. (quote) – ‘a means of coping with the unfamiliar situations’.) – How is a smartphone used to deal with the new both at new locations and changes that occur in familiar locations? How is it used to document things/activities that are new or being worked through? What would these video moments look like?
The mobile (camera) phone reconstructs ways of seeing.
(quote) Interstitial moments; in between times and places whose meaning and significance is highly localised and extremely mobile.’ (McQuire p.21)
Meaning – interstice (Online Merriam Webster)
There is a connection with the earlier ‘the in between spaces of everyday life’ and “nagara mobilism” (Personal Portable Pedestrian, M. Ito)
Camera Phones Reconstruct Our Ways of Seeing – Dong-Hee Lee
(quote) “picture thinking” allow us to record the dialogical relations with the world experienced on the move, and thus provide the conditions for individual practices of seeing that can evade the ways of seeing defined by the mass media industries.’ (Lee p.24)
Dialogic – wikipedia
– What is ‘moving-imagery thinking’?
Kodak Moment – wikitionary
Thinking in Pictures, Chapter 1: Autism and Visual Thought, Dr. Temple Grandin
Personal everyday visualisation of experiences. ‘Everyday lives, unfolding before our eyes…’ (p.24)
‘Self-camera’ – People capturing themselves in a variation of ‘spatial’ and ‘temporal’ situations. – The ‘video selfie’ (short-form) video like with Vine. What would an exploration of self-recorded moments look like/ An extreme take on the selfie using video.
Lee refers to these moments as an ‘individuals’ micronarratives’ (p.24)
Key reference:
Hjorth, L. ed. 2007, Waiting for immediacy catalogue, Yonsei University: Seoul.