Interdisciplinary and visual research in video calls.
In relation to the commercial innovation of Facetime Application in June of 2010, our interdisciplinary research began in 2010 with two main objectives: Firstly, to determine who is using video communication on smartphones and learning about the uses and users of this type of application. Secondly, to understand the issues that underscore the adoption of the application, and explore the ubiquitous sense of place, our research questions the research endeavours to:
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Describe use of this new communication technology to understand the form of adoption (or rejection) using a social and human sciences perspective (Squires 2002).
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Explore the potential existence of a ubiquitous presence or reality associated with the uses of mobile media. The perspective is more phenomenological (Merleau-Ponty 1962) and more ethno-sensory (Pink 2009).
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Involve a filmic and artistic modality approach to produce a representation of a social use but also intimate practice.
- Produce images of mobile users and visual chats. These practices are also a relational aesthetics (Bourriaud 2002) and are included in participatory methods.
Through issueing surveys about video calling we found users for preliminary interviews. An important step was initially fixed with the production of a documentary, a website, and an exhibition with a few visual installations. A part of the work in progress is shown in a special website: www.visualdistance.com
Some visual contents are being analyzed by disciplinary views and also by transversal and interdisciplinary comparison.
In this workshop, we will show visual results of the research (footages; website). These visual elements reflect the choices of this interdisciplinary research in relation to a visual object of research. We’ll provide analysis of behaviours in front of the “front stage” of the phone camera. We’ll also comment on results about forms of rejection of this software.
The international interdisciplinary research team represents the University of North Texas (USA) and University of Savoy (France) and five different academic units:
Radio Television Film department; School of Design and Visual Arts, Department of Anthropology; Communication and Hypermedia Department; Image and Information Laboratory.
Jacques Ibanez Bueno - IREGE Laboratory I&I - University of Savoy (France)
Tania Khalaf - RTVF Department - University of North Texas (USA)
Melinda Levin - RTVF Department - University of North Texas (USA)
Susan Squires - Department of Anthropology - University of North Texas (USA)
Jenny Vogel - College of Visual Arts and Design - University of North Texas (USA)
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