DEVELOPMENT POST 3 (PB3)
In response to the feedback we received last week we have begun to refine our ideas more and develop a stronger concept that we can create with the Korsakow software. The major conceptual aspect we had yet to completely figure out was the interactive aspect of the project. How could we create connections between the close up shots in a landscape? How could the audience interact with the project so that they move from one space to the next.
To address this we brainstormed as a group and have refined our concept further. We have decided that we will have three close up shots of actions that make sense within the space and three that do not make sense, but could make sense in another space. So for example, the action of swimming at the beach makes sense within the space, but this could connect to a close up of the same action occurring at a park where it does not make sense. In this way, we can visually connect actions between the places in terms of what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense.
Something I find quite difficult to grapple with is the notion of media products having or lacking a point. The experimental aspect of the concept we are developing makes it difficult for me to understand how audiences will interact with it. New media has allowed for internet spaces to become awash with seemingly pointless content. However, this weeks reading Making (with) the Korsakow System: Database Documentaries as Articulation and Assembly (Soar 2014) has provided some context or ‘point’ to the ‘small scale’ (Soar 2014) online documentary projects that appear to be pointless. For the case of some small scale documentary projects it is not about informing the audience about a specific thing or making a specific argument, rather it is about the work being experiential and personal (Soar 2014). The process of conceiving the interactivity of our work has forced me to take the work out of context. Our initial intent for the project was to create an visual sensory experience for the audience utilising cinematography. As our work will focus predominantly on the human experience of places the audience will likely create its own meaning from the work. Korsakow is software that affords this experience through tagging IN and OUT keywords. An article I found argues that ‘ultimately a Korsakow piece is built around the choices of a user, who has to perform the project to be able to see it’ (Raetzsch). Each audience member will have a different experience of the work through their own associations with actions and places but also simply through visual associations and aesthetic subjectivity.
Thinking about these small scale documentaries from an audience’s perspective, I have been considering the fact of engagement. How do these small scale documentaries engage audiences if they seemingly have no point or direct message? Perhaps it is through the fact that they have no inherent point that attracts audiences. For example, when I first viewed The Whole Picture, my immediate reaction was to question the point of the work. However, this intrigued me to try to figure out the point of the work and derive personal meaning from it. I suppose this is the kind of effect our upcoming project work could have, although I do think that the overall intent of our work will be obvious through visual repetition of actions. However, audience understanding derived from thing can be unique, personal and subjective.
Soar, M 2014, ‘Making (with) the Korsakow System: Database Documentaries as Articulation and Assembly” New Documentary Ecologies: Emerging Platforms, Practices and Discourses’, Palgrave Macmillan
Raetzsch, C, ‘The Korsakow System?! What the Korsakow System can do for your film’, mediamatic, available at: [https://www.mediamatic.net/en/page/13757/the-korsakow-system]