Optic Matters: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 10:31, 1 March 2025

Participation is about co-presence.

Such co-presence during the TEK interviews, however, materialized unevenly across locations.

Though absent in body, the BearWatch researchers were still materially entangled with these interviews through the physical presence of camera rigs, microphones, digital optics and sound to required to technically facilitate such presence.

This creates a paradox: while technology enables co-presence across distances, it also reconfigures intimacy.

The very materiality of cameras and screens imposed an external logic onto the interviews. The remote gaze doesn't merely observe, it conditions the unfolding of the interview, shifts power, affect, and ways of knowing in ways that were not reflected on before the conducting of the interviews.

"Detour" to Cut 2 to trace the ways in which camera equipment provided different terms of engagement in other parts of the research project.

Or,

"Return" to Cut 3 to pick up the thread after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.

Detour to Cut 2: Community-based filmmaking

Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:The wrecksite.png|thumb]]
-A mounted phone, a large table-stand microphone and two go-pro cameras, of which one mounted on a structure that was built over the dining table to film the mapping exercise that was part of the interview, were required to respectively live-stream the go-pro recording, a conference call and to also record high-quality audio.
+Participation is about co-presence.
-Other materials required for these interviews included a large paper map of Southampton Island, an acetate sheet and waterproof markers in front of the interviewee, and a piece of paper to mark specific timestamps in front of the interviewer.
+Such co-presence during the TEK interviews, however, materialized unevenly across locations.
-This was in addition to another phone mounted on a tripod elsewhere in the room to record an offline version of the interview- and of course, the masks, handsanitizers, and informed consent sheets.
+Though absent in body, the BearWatch researchers were still materially entangled with these interviews through the physical presence of camera rigs, microphones, digital optics and sound to required to technically facilitate such presence.
-[[File:Distanced observer.png|thumb|The material wreckage required to facilitate detached observers.]]
+This creates a paradox: while technology enables co-presence across distances, it also reconfigures intimacy.
+The very materiality of cameras and screens imposed an external logic onto the interviews. The remote gaze doesn't merely observe, it conditions the unfolding of the interview, shifts power, affect, and ways of knowing in ways that were not reflected on before the conducting of the interviews.
 <div class="next_choice">
-'''"Detour"''' to Cut 2 to trace another way of engaging with optic technologies like camera and recording.
+'''"Detour"''' to Cut 2 to trace the ways in which camera equipment provided different terms of engagement in other parts of the research project.
 Or,
@@ Line 23: / Line 22: @@
 '''"Return"''' to Cut 3 to pick up the thread after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted.</div>
-<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="9" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour to Cut 2: Aesthetic Action]]</span>
+<span class="detour to-cut-2 link" data-page-title="Aesthetic_Action" data-section-id="9" data-encounter-type="detour">[[Point of Beginning Animated Graphic Documentary|Detour to Cut 2: Community-based filmmaking]]</span>
 <span class="return to-cut-3 link" data-page-title="Wayfaring_the_BW_project" data-section-id="5" data-encounter-type="return">[[Wayfaring the BW project#Fieldtrip BW Team Coral Harbour Summer 2021|Return to Cut 3: Wayfaring the BW project]]</span>