| art description | (1) Overview RAW
is a system combining a tool and a process for capturing and conveying
audiovisual impressions of everyday life. The tool itself incorporates
a digital camera and a binaural audio recording device that
captures the minute of sound before and after a picture is taken.
The tool was used during a set of workshops in the African country
of Mali, in August 2003 by 23 participants in Bamako, Timbuktu and
S\'{e}gou. (2)
Installation The
installation presents the 23 RAW records authored by these participants.
The material gathered with the tool ``raw'' and unedited all the
way from production to archive to presentation; hence the name of the
project. (3)
Background The
RAW project began with the realization that, for many reasons, we don't
always have a good sense of what everyday life is like in other places
in the world, and that having this sense might be helpful in improving
understanding and relations between people in different cultures.
Records and accounts of everyday life in our pasts and presents
are often mediated by numerous third parties. We feel this mediation
degrades the full sense of awareness and appreciation we could
achieve of other peoples and places, above cultural stereotypes and
clich\'{e}s. The goal of the RAW project is to develop a new kind of
recording tool, together with a method for processing and presenting
the material captured with the tool, that enables a more direct,
minimally-mediated relationship between its user and the later audience,
possibly in a far away place or time. (4)
The RAW system RAW
is a system combining a tool and a process for capturing and conveying
audiovisual impressions of everyday life. The project aims to
enable a relationship between the user of the tool and an audience in
a different place or time with an absolute minimum of editorial mediation
by a third party. The RAW tool consists of a digital still camera
and a high quality digital stereo audio recorder that captures the
minute of sound before and after a picture is taken. The relationship
created between sound and image forms a disjoint flow and opens
a new field of audiovisual expression. These previously uncaptured
moments in time can be kept as personal artefacts (diaries, journals),
for cultural exchanges, for story-telling production or archived
for later study. Audio is recorded binaurally using high-quality
miniature microphones that are placed in the user's ears. The apparatus
strives for the closest possible recording of what the user of
the tool is hearing while they are taking pictures. This design was chosen
in an attempt to enable the later audience to immerse themselves
``into the shoes'' of the person who originated the content they
are experiencing, and to place greater emphasis on the subjective point
of view of this original source. (5)
Mali We
chose the African country of Mali as a starting point for thinking about
the RAW project because we feel this country has a particularly rich
and diverse culture that is not well recognized or understood within
Western societies. We conducted a large scale workshop over three
weeks in August 2003 in three locations in |
| art placard | RAW is a system combining a tool and a process for capturing
and conveying audiovisual impressions of everyday life. The tool
itself incorporates a digital camera and a binaural audio recording
device that captures the minute of sound before and after a picture
is taken. In
August 2003, the tool was taken to Mali in Africa and given to 23 people
who expressed themselves on their daily lives, recording sound and
taking pictures, without editorial direction. The
installation presents their content, without alteration, and allows
the audience to immerse itself in a collection of moments of humanity.
The
project aims to enable a relationship between the user of the tool and
an audience in a different place or time with an absolute minimum of
editorial mediation by a third party. It is also addressing the questions
of the editing process and mediation in audiovisual narrative
experience. |