Group items tagged

This is the site of the photographer from the BBC News piece on "A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia." His own account is completely different from the BBC article. He is not, as BBC portrayed him, an ethnographer who stumbled onto a cultural shift in gendered activities-he is a storyteller who went looking for an unusual story, and made it happen. "I had gone looking for my eagle huntress. . .I was amazed by her comfort and ease as she began handling the grand eagle for the first time in her life." I have the same question I asked on the bookmark for the BBC article; why was it important to the BBC to represent this story as ethnography?

Agreed - and even without the quotes, a casual observer could tell that these images are posed. However, I think portraiture-as-documentary photography raises some intriguing methodological questions/concerns. Considering the original piece was published through a (well-respected) international media organization, my guess is that some interesting conversations occurred during editorial meetings regarding the nature of Svidensky's work. Maybe this example points to the blurring lines between traditional news photography and pictures made for ethnographic purposes?

Quite possibly. And if that is the case, it is certainly evident in the two contrasting articles we have here. But I also wonder if we're not watching a paradigm shift to the photo-essay style that Svidensky is making use of. With the rising popularity of sites like Buzzfeed, I wonder if--in order to bring more interest to his work--he's utilizing that same style in hopes of being more "readable" for the masses. What will be interesting, though, is if we see a similar shift to the photo-essay from the sites that push traditional news photography.

From the website: "The Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) is a section of the American Anthropological Association. We promote the study of visual representation and media. Both research methods and teaching strategies fall within the scope of the society. SVA members are involved in all aspects of production, dissemination, and analysis of visual forms. Works in film, video, photography, and computer-based multimedia explore signification, perception, and communication-in-context, as well as a multitude of other anthropological and ethnographic themes.The Society encourages the use of media, including still photography, film, video and non-camera generated images, in the recording of ethnographic, archaeological and other anthropological genres. Members examine how aspects of culture can be pictorially/visually interpreted and expressed, and how images can be understood as artifacts of culture.

The Sensory Ethnography Lab (SEL) at Harvard is a unique collaboration between the Department of Anthropology and the Department of Visual & Environmental Studies (VES). Harnessing perspectives drawn from the human sciences, the arts, and the humanities, the aim of SEL is to support innovative combinations of aesthetics and ethnography, with original nonfiction media practices that explore the bodily praxis and affective fabric of human existence. As such, it encourages attention to the many dimensions of social experience and subjectivity that may only with difficulty be rendered with words alone. SEL provides an academic and institutional context for the development of work which is itself constitutively visual or acoustic - that is conducted through audiovisual media rather than purely verbal sign systems - and which may thus complement the human sciences' and humanities' traditionally exclusive reliance on the written word. The instruction offered through SEL is thus distinct from other graduate visual anthropology programs in the United States in that it is practice-based, and promotes experimentation with culturally-inflected, nonfiction image-making.

Harvard seems to have a lot going on for it... In context for what we /do/ with digital ethnography materials, I wish that more of the projects that are featured were actually available for, at the very least, preview (at odds with the program's description of conduction through audiovisual media...). I wish I knew more about Zeega (and the apparent connection based on large logo presence on the projects page), even if it is only in alpha... http://zeega.org/about.php

The projects at SEL provide a rich landscape for sensory/experiential exploration. This type of work really opens the mind to new perspectives and detail that is often exploited or skewed through popular media - like maintstream cinema or video games. Being a huge fan of the film "Where Eagles Dare" and the old SkyTram at Disneyland, I really enjoyed the Greunrekorder - Swiss Mountain Transport Systems sound recordings. I wonder if anyone has conducted similar research on the Portland Aerial Tram. Many of the trailers were exquisite, too. "Sweetgrass" looks to be an amazing documentary.

(39 Images of occupying Favelas in Rio de Janeiro that don't appear on TV) Here are some great pics of the police occupying the favelas or communities as most Cariocas (People from Rio) would preferred to call them out of respect. This is what they call 'pacification' where drug trafficking is eliminated and police enforcement is ever present. 

Here's another recent article on this from the Washington Post: RIO DE JANEIRO - Squatters occupying a complex of abandoned buildings in Rio de Janeiro clashed with police Friday after a court ruling that allowed the premises to be cleared. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/fighting-breaks-out-in-rio-de-janeiro-as-police-move-to-clear-5000-squatters-from-buildings/2014/04/11/047ade4e-c180-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html.

I was looking back at this (really interesting) multimedia writing work by Anne Wysocki and noticed how many of the pieces required special players and ample download time/space - Flash Player, Shockwave Player, 1.5 MB of download space - which got me thinking about platform/storage restrictions and digital accessibility. In many instances, a researcher may need not only specific digital skills/knowledge, but also specific platforms, players, software, memory space, etc. to conduct her work. And as players, platforms, software, etc. are upgraded, older digital texts may become less accessible. On that note, I have been taking screen shots of all of the scenes in the Facebook game I'm currently studying. Why? One reason is so I can put these screen shots into a presentation, but the more pressing reason is that another game I'm really interested in looking at (Food Force, a social media game from 2005 - so ancient, right?) is no longer accessible. In its place is a Facebook page with a big bandaged thumb and a "Sorry! This page has been removed." message. An ethnography conducted in a digital space, it seems, requires just as much "recording" as one in an offline space.

The life and preservation of the digital world is a huge question, and one that I don't think enough people are considering. I see more and more of my friends taking all their photos with smartphones and loading them to Instagram or Facebook, or worse never moving them beyond their phones. I wonder what photos will have survived in 20 years when their children are looking to make wedding or anniversary slide shows, or simply becoming interested in their own pasts. There are no hard copies of these images, and while hard copies are vulnerable, so are digital copies for a number of reasons.

great points in this discussion, especially around issues of "access"...which range from having the "right" tech to get into a site to ADA regulations/requirements. Also, preservation is a complicated facet of access and one worth discussing seriously in this course as we think about digital data.

A fascinating article about crowdsourcing and asking people online to help categorize images in the name of research! Presents an interesting take on highlighting the difference between what people and computers are capable of.

Interesting poster from an EdD Candidate looking at "hypermedia ethnography" in a 2009 conference. Abstract appears alongside the Flickr image...

From the website: The Reciprocal Research Network (RRN) is a key component of the Museum of Anthropology's Renewal Project, "A Partnership of Peoples." In addition to the RRN, the Renewal Project comprises several complementary and innovative components, including a new Research Centre, Major Temporary Exhibition Gallery, and Community Suite. Together, they support collaborative, socially responsible, and interdisciplinary research across local, national, and international borders. The RRN is an online tool to facilitate reciprocal and collaborative research about cultural heritage from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. The RRN enables communities, cultural institutions and researchers to work together. Members can build their own projects, collaborate on shared projects, upload files, hold discussions, research museum projects, and create social networks. For both communities and museums, the RRN is groundbreaking in facilitating communication and fostering lasting relationships between originating communities and institutions around the world.

There is not much access to the site without an account, so I requested one. I am interested in looking at how this site functions (where there seem to be numerous projects being created with the materials) in contrast with the Danish Folklore Nexus I posted earlier. Both resources might offer insight in to how new projects are being created with already collected materials.

I finally got an account set up and was able to look around the webpage. The images are worth looking at in the very least, although it looks like you have to join sections to see what is going on with projects. You can also see "user submitted" information in a specific heading to see what information users have contributed to the objects.

Here is a link to San Francisco's center for digital storytelling. The website has a digital storytelling cookbook, a basic guide to digital storytelling including interview techniques and basics of final cut express. The following is out of the "overloaded memory bank" section of the cookbook: "construction system to assist us in this process. Images, videos, sounds, and other representations of events from our life can help us to reconstruct more complete memories and therefore expand the repertoire of story that we can put to use." What are the implications for memory, and storytelling, if it is being framed in the context of a more formal recorded digital story.

and here is the link (http://www.storycenter.org/). There are several videos on the site that might be interesting to check out as well.

By revealing the social networks present within the urban environment, Invisible Cities describes a new kind of city-a city of the mind. It displays geocoded activity from online services such as Twitter and Flickr, both in real-time and in aggregate. Real-time activity is represented as individual nodes that appear whenever a message or image is posted. Aggregate activity is reflected in the underlying terrain: over time, the landscape warps as data is accrued, creating hills and valleys representing areas with high and low densities of data.

Might be interesting to download the software and see what comes of this multimodal effort...takes geocoded activity from social media and "maps" it to an "immersive three dimensional space." While not ethnographic in any proper/traditional sense, this tool foregrounds questions about community, public-ness, social practice, and digitally-enabled culture...

This was a really fascinating piece. I have given some thought as to how the digital world can/will transform the workplace but this is the first scholarly piece on the subject. I am curious to see how these changes will affect face-face (i.e., office) interaction and communication practices in the future.

I investigated the Google Earth "tour" feature I demonstrated today a bit further. When an email is sent of the "tour" to someone, the email contains a KMZ file that will open in Google Earth. Unfortunately the email receiver will either need to have Google Earth installed on their computer or install Google Earth to open the KMZ file you sent them. You can also choose to send a static image of your view in Google Earth as a JPG.