Video editing reflection

My video editing practice has recently been completed. The outcome of this work, visually, I am moderately pleased about. I hope this isn't because the content I used enhanced it and I do wonder if using my own material could still give the same reaction. The outcome conceptually and as a development of my overall project was surprising. I did not understand fully when making these edits what it was I was doing it for.

Through this process I decided to test the experiment on someone else. See what would happen if a person unfamiliar to the show was to watch it and see what they could recall a day later. Their outcome gave recollections quite similar to mine but what was difficult to understand was how exactly it appeared to them outside of what they were telling me. This was how I understood that I am making these clips to come as close to a simulation of what I was picturing in my head when I was recalling them, which is not what the recording devices are doing even if our intentions for them is.

What this means is when we go out and use recording devises to take images and videos as ways of collecting experiences and moments we don't fully understand what we are wanting for the outcome. The outcome we get from the devices we think we are satisfied with because that is the only outcome we have seen from the devices. If the visual output was to look as it might in the mind (which my practical work narrows down on that comparison) what would the reaction be like? The video I made however may only be fully understood by myself as I was the one who know/sees both outcomes, memory recall and video output. Really this is all a stage of how I am looking at human intentions with technology and the right satisfaction from an outcome.

Another question to ask is are we are using these 'devices' for acting as our brain or using them because we think they are better than our brain? Do we want the recollection from the camera to be the same as the memories?  

 References

Hunter, T. (n.d.). Mad Men. Mad Men. AMC.

Maddening memories

A week ago I decided to generate some ideas through some practical means. An experiment I committed to was doing something as an experience that would be recorded. I would then wait over a certain amount of time and then recall what I remembered of it in quick succession. The pieces of the experience I remember would then be used to edit the recording of the experience and create a new video of just the remembered parts. This is to be compared to when someone recalls an experience in their head as they communicate to others.

I decided to use a television series I have been watching called Mad Men. I watched a new episode, waited a day, then wrote down in 5 minutes as much as I could of the episode. Elements to this were quite interesting. For one I wanted to get as much content down as possible so I imagined the people on the show, not in a particular plot point but just in a certain context. They would be doing something but I would not be remembering why and in relation to the scenes order of the episode. Something like a woman breaking a chair or a man standing by a door frowning. I also did not recall any sound in the memories, maybe their voice but nothing definitive  Something else that was interesting was everything I remembered I saw as being the same length in time. When editing the parts I remembered I found went from half a second to 30 seconds. The memory of the experience is compressed to an undetermined amount of time. Right now I only have rough cuts of the work but will refine it into how I remember remembering it.

One of the distinct recalls I had when watching.

I know there are a lot of variables that tampered certain parts of my result. As I am quite familiar with the characters so I could recall things pretty well. I also have the recording of what I was watching instead of a recording of the real time of me watching it. I am not doing it as a test to see how well I can remember it and what impacts there are of me remembering it. I am instead doing it to understand what my recollection of the experience looks like through recording technology. Its about the perspective. Taking our memory of the experience out of the context of our head and into a video.

A man frowning

I do know that my final project will not be just screen based work like this, I don't want it to be about video editing and just people watching a screen. It also won't be that personal which is something I need in my work. I see there being an interaction of some sort. I have been doubtful of the usefulness of experiment for my project so far and a little unsure as to what it is I am trying to get from it. I also think this is focused to much on memories rather than experience. I do want to get the most out of this work and give it a completion. I plan on having other people try the same experiment with the same video and make a video edit out of it as well.

References

Hunter, T. (n.d.). Mad Men. Mad Men. AMC.

Technology As Experience questions

As I read through this book on experience and technology I thought it would be good to reflect on what has been discussed. There seems to be quite a few good pointers in there and I need to grasp what they are. I also haven't found much other research yet so this might help with that too.

Someone who came up in the book was Brenda Laurel. She looks into our engagement with computers and how it brings forth an experience similar to theatre. Her work is a little outdated but can still be relevant for the purpose of the type of engagement technology can give us.

Further on in the book some questions were brought up for the quality of engagement for certain types of technology:

Do the technologies connect or fragment experience and life?

Do the technologies help to enrich our experience of what we already
value, or do they impoverish it?

Do the technologies facilitate unfolding potential, critical perception, and
engagement?

The second question is exactly along the lines of what my project is looking into. I don't expect to be able to just gain my answer from the book but I am confident it will give me some justification to what it is I decide.

The book goes on to discuss the aesthetic experience as being fulfilled by the response of the person to and from what it is that is happening/ being experienced. Philosophers John Dewey and Mikhail Bakhtin are exemplified for the theory:

"For Bakhtin, then, enriched, aesthetic experience is created from moments of answerability, the weight of which is located in the relationship between self and other in that moment. For him, the weight of lived moments of experience is felt in answerable engagement with a responsive other. According to Dewey, aesthetic experience involves the interpenetration of self and the world of objects and events, or self and other, according to Bakhtin. This interpenetration of two centers of value, involving what Hicks (2000, p. 231) calls “richly seeing,” entails felt commitment to the other, seeing the other as a center of value."

So I take from this that what the person is expecting, seeking or wanting a response from (i.e technology) will change the engagement of the person's experience. This outlook is becoming quite useful for redevelopment of my project but is still broad. I need a medium.

References

Brenda Laurel. (2013, April 3).Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Brenda_Laurel&oldid=545332938

McCarthy, John C. Technology As Experience. MIT Press, 2004.