Approach and Concept

Using participatory design techniques related to the notion of performance , we have proceeded with an innovative approach that involved exploring, communicating, and testing design ideas related to a common object in popular culture: the live music performance. In hopes of effectively exploring the innovative ideas emerging through recent technological and cultural developments, the following description of concept and approach used for this study will assume that a balanced position can emerge by reframing the interaction of audience, performer, and designer as a collaborative activity. That is, rather than a zero-sum game where some players win at the direct expense of others, we will assume an appropriate design solution could benefit both the artist and the audience.

Furthermore, for the purpose of this paper, we will also assume symmetry between the notion of audience and artist with the notion of producer and consumer in capitalist society. By extension, just as the line between artist and audience has become blurred in the postmodern society, postindustrialism has led to the blurring between producer and consumer in the market system. Using a framework from Iacucci, Iacucci, and Kutti , the design/research approach in Fan with a Movie Camera aims to (1) explore this interactive and mediated space of blurred roles and boundaries, (2) communicate potential user scenarios that emerge from these explorations and which can inform design, and (3) test these scenarios by applying them in practical activity.

Exploring

In their 2002 paper on performance and design, Iacucci et al. describe “exploring” as a way to understand work situations and build up characters of users. Informance design approaches are often used here to generate and evaluate ideas relating to object of study – in this case it is the phenomenon of live music performance - rather than taking the analytic view prescribed in user testing. Iacucci et al. also suggest experience prototyping and the use of SPES (Situated and Participative Enactment of Scenarios) as additional exploratory approaches. Both approaches involve the design team as participants in the actual activity, though in experience prototyping, the design team acts in the roles of various users while the SPES involves having actual users play out scenarios in their natural environment.

In order to explore the object of the live music performance, we considered the following contexts of our work:

• The research was already informed heavily by previous work of one of the researchers through an art project called Travels in Intertextuality. This project has a similar focus on the nature of performance, i.e. the notion of authorship and the activity of “writing” given emerging tools of digital culture. As a result, the entire Fan with a Movie Camera project involves a level of subjectivity that would be at odds with calls for objective, empirical, and generalizable research. However, this subjective position is recognized as an understandable tension the study of any cultural object, and has been addressed in previous works by the researchers. (see Appendix A)

• With the above subjectivity addressed, we began our project with some cultural historical perspectives that could be applied towards generating user scenarios. Rather than working with a varied set of users for a particular cultural moment – such as a live performance – we instead profiled a user at different moments in his/her cultural development. In this way, the user profile aimed to communicate developmental aspect of cultural psychology originally proposed by Vygotsky in the early Soviet Union and later reformulated by Michael Cole and others through the translation of Vygotsky’s works many years after it was written . (see Appendix B)

• Finally, the researchers performed several informal and preliminary field work by attending several live music performances in Vancouver from February 17th to March 15th 2005. At these events, the researchers observed audience members interacting with the performance in situ, tested recording equipment, and informally worked out scenarios as a lead up to a testing scenario that was planned for a March 17th performance by New York artist Joseph Arthur at the Red Room in Vancouver. (see Appendix C)

Communicating

Cultural psychologist Michael Cole views recent developments in video recording and computer technology as a promising direction in “research on multi-person joint activity”. Cole suggests that the fusion of video and computer technologies can allow for “more solid empirical possibilities” for cultural research “in the context of its institutional settings”. (Cole, 1996, p. 342) Such contextually situated activity can obviously include the specific phenomenon of live music performance on its own, or, in the case of a single performer, the “joint mediated activity” of the video recording of the performance as a whole. This larger performance activity reflects Bronfenbrenner’s notion of embedded contexts, i.e. the metaphor of “concentric circles” or “Russian dolls” to show context within context.

Iacucci et al. describe three possibilities of video and computer technology used to communicate cultural research: (1) formal focus groups, (2) improvised video, and (3) the use of video for explicitly communicating scenarios. The research undertaken in Fan with a Movie Camera is primarily concerned to (2) and (3), though a formal focus group could have been arranged in conjunction with the IART 842 class. For the purposes of this project, class discussions surrounding the project remained mostly informal.

In terms of improvised video, we arranged for three video cameras to be at the event, in addition to any other cameras (video or still) that the audience may have with them. Other than having one camera at the center position and the other two cameras working from the left and right side angles, no instructions were to be given on shot selection. In other words, there was to be a high degree of improvisation in the video recording. Additionally, through similar video work of live music performances done in the exploratory phase of the research, we created scenarios of video recording and editing approaches that could be viewed by those working the cameras at the March 17 event. Again, as opposed to scripting the camera movements during the performance, these scenarios were designed to simply suggest potential outcomes of the video work once the various clips were combined in what we’ve described as a “content pool”.

In the previous section on exploration, we briefly discussed experience prototyping as an approach to design for the ephemeral and intangible nature of live performances. This kind of prototyping “emphasizes the experiential aspect of whatever representations are needed to successfully (re)live or convey an experience with a product, space, or system.” (Buchenau and Suri, 2000). This description seems particularly appropriate when applied to our research interest in the live music performance, and is further discussed by Jacucci and Isomursu in their work on performed “happenings” and experience design for ubiquitous computing (Jacucci and Isomursu, 2002). However, the problem with such research, pointed out in the article, is how to access deeper levels of user expression when “each route reveals a different story” (Sanders and Dandavate, 1999 cited in Jacucci and Isomursu 2002).

We have already acknowledged the subjectivity that results in situating activity in its institutional context, for example the Travels in Intertextuality project of one of the researchers involved in this project (see Appendix A). However, we also feel that the difficulties that may arise due to subjectivity in observation are offset partly by the ability of the video recording technology to provide both a richer form of description than a text description. Furthermore, if contextually situated by engaging real people in a real setting, we feel that these rich media sources can provide a reasonable level of objectivity for testing and analyzing scenarios.

Testing

As explained in the previous sections, the testing scenario took place on March 17, 2005 at the Red Room in Vancouver, where video material was captured by a number of cameras, one of which was operated entirely by one of the researchers, and then collected as best possible. The intention for material would be to then synch this multi-angled video to the high level soundboard audio that is recorded, copied, and sold by the artist – i.e. Joseph Arthur – and the three individuals assisting him with this process at every performance. Preliminary results from these efforts can be found in [insert section name when we get to it]

In addition to the video materials gathered at the show, the researchers also attempted to lay the groundwork for this material to be “fused” with computer technology, as suggested by Michael Cole. To this end, the researcher also were involved in the following…

[here’s where Jason can provide info on the cards, email address, website aspects of the experiment. Just needs description of the intended approach, we get at results later in the paper]

Contact

Please send email to joearthurshow "at" gmail.com.