Project

Video Weblogs

This work exploits the spontaneity and connectivity speed afforded by mobile devices, combined with the organizational structure of a Weblog, where brief captured experiences can be expanded and further reflected upon. A group of friends are using their cell phones to correspond and exchange mediated messages with one of their friends who is in the hospital undergoing a medical procedure. In introducing this approach to documenting the recovery process, we strive to create an evolving, "architectured," story process that is built up of many voices and interpretations. On an immediate level, there is a desire to connect and extend our physical reach and to provide comfort and companionship to a friend, which is met by the friend's wish to help remove the alienating distance of the hospital and its attendant medical procedures. The Weblog additionally makes visible the stages of recovery, delineating individual progress made in the context of the continuing day-to-day goings-on of the rest of the group. This experiment will be extended as we introduce MOVITS, a custom-designed application for the cell phone that offers a methodology for gently interrogating lived experiences, where the time-lag between experience, interpretation, representation, and display becomes, on some levels, miniscule.