User:Laura Macchini/Laura Macchini, I'm already falling apart and I haven't even started the video yet, 2012

I'm already falling apart and I haven't even started the video yet

Description

My graduation project revolves around confessional youtube videos.
It consists of a mashup of videos: a series of playlists, streaming from youtube, that will be influenced by the audience's behavior.
The content I work with is confessional videos, with a focus on "troubled stories": I have collected so far about 100 clips, 8 hours of video material; the videos I use deal with topics such as sexual abuse, sex change operations, cancer, drug related problems, alcoholism, eating disorders, loss of a loved one, etc.
Different playlists refer to the nature of the information given by the protagonists of the videos: there is an 'introduction' level, in which people greet their audience and, for instance, state their name. Other levels refer to the kind of 'intimacy' that would be required to discuss a certain subject in a generic relationship. Three ulterior levels are present: low, medium and high intimacy.
Factors that influence the progression of the playlist-storyline are, at this moment, the number of people present and the length of stay of the visitor.
During my tests with the installation I noticed that the kind of content that disturbed (and intrigued) visitors the most, was not what I called "high level of intimacy required" (statements like "My brother died today" or "I feel like I can't stop self-injuring"), but the in-between talk, the buildup of the confession, the moment right before describing the problem at hand; a sample statement would be "upset doesn't even cover it, I can't even think of a word to describe how I felt".
For this reason, the scale of "intimacy" is going to be inverted: when the visitors enter the room, the starting playlist is going to be the one of "high intimacy", fast paced, short clips containing details about the protagonist's problems; the more the visitors linger in front of the projection (also the fewer they are) the more the pace of the confessions is going to slow down, the clips are going to be longer, the details are going to become vague. Slower paced, less aggressive revelations invite the visitor to sympathize more with the people portrayed in the videos, encourage curiosity in their stories.
The goal of my installation is to explore the patterns of confession in videoblogs, to create multiple environments for the visitor to experience those videos in different ways.

Media

video

Pictures

Videos

example of playlist-progression [Ogv Video] here

Essay

Confessional videoblogging is the central focus of my graduation project. The focus of this thesis on the other hand, will be to shed some light on why confessional videoblogging exists in the first place, also identify and explain some of the reasons why people would decide to talk publicly about their private life. In conclusion I will trace a connection between interests that the users and the consumerist society have for user-generated content to be constantly produced and updated. The goal of this text is to explore the source of the need to be exposed, the collapse of personal privacy that is especially prominent in confessional culture.

[Link to Thesis text]

Bibliography

• Erving Goffman - The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
• Jorinde Seijdel, Liesbeth Melis - Open 19: Beyond Privacy: New Perspectives on the Public and Private Domains
• Geert Lovink, Rachel Somers Miles - Video Vortex Reader II
• Geert Lovink, Sabine Niederer - Video Vortex Reader I
• Andrew Keen - The Cult of the Amateur
• Don Trapscott - Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation Is Changing Your World
• Amy Henderson - Media and the Rise of Celebrity Culture.
• Stefanone, M., Lackaff, D. & Rosen, D. - The Relationship between Traditional Mass Media and “Social Media”
• Calvert, Clay - Voyeur Nation: Media, Privacy, and Peering in modern culture

Additional Information

Working script - test version | here

non optional

• One page itemised budget estimate