Abstract

RAW is based on a tool that captures a minute of sound before and after a picture is taken. It is meant for allowing people to capture their everyday subjective experience. A third party, like journalists or documentary filmmakers, doesn’t mediate the sound and visual material created (it remains ‘RAW’). 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.

• Joëlle Bitton (FR/IE), from the Human Connectedness group at Media Lab Europe is an artist and researcher exploring perceptions of the world. How do they affect our life and understanding of others? By confronting people with intriguing or disorienting experiences, she wants to challenge our assumptions and habits of urban, social and intimate environments. In particular, the project RAW presented at ISEA2004 invite people to shift the awareness they have of a distant culture. Her academic background includes post-graduate studies in media arts at the School of Fine Arts of Paris and in history at the Sorbonne where her research focused on the influence of emerging technologies and networks on the 19th century European society. She co-founded Superficiel in 2000, an experimental platform for digital art projects: ‘Palpitations’ on sexuality and memory; ‘Plakatieren Verboten’ with Rupert Huber, ‘Kindergarten’ on children and fair monsters, ‘Passages’ inspired by Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project… She has also been working as a free-lance interaction designer between Vienna and Paris and presented her work in numerous international events.
• Stefan Agamanolis  (IE/USA)
• Matthew Karau  (USA/IE)

Full text (PDF)  p. 139-142