The Global Lives Project
I found my way into the HASTAC newtwork after presenting a poster during HASTAC's Traversing Digital Boundaries conference earlier this year. That poster dealt with The Global Lives Project and because that's the site for my main intervention at the intersection of the humanities, arts, science and technology, it's probably best to begin there.
Like HASTAC, Global Lives is also a collaboratory. We are a collective of filmmakers, architects, designers, artists, scholars, and everyday people from all over the world who are devoted to exploring differences in human life experience through the intimacy of video and the accessibility of digital technologies.
Our initial goal was simple: to record complete, 24-hr days in the life of 10 people selected to roughly represent global demographics. This footage would then form the basis of a unique video installation that could be curated and assembled almost anywhere.
More recently, we have begun to imagine that the footage could also form the basis of a collaborative online video archive of human life experience, open and available to the public through a Creative Commons license.
Have a look at our front page or our community site.
I'd be so happy to hear any reactions to this project. In my next post, I'll speak a bit about my own personal involvement in the project as a Board Member and as the Producer/Director of the Malawi segment.
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Fantastic project
I remember your poster at Transversing Digital Boundaries and I'm even more impressed by the website. At some point in the year, we have to have some kind of forum on new media and transnational social movements (or similar topic) and your Global Lives Project should be central. It's a stunning, powerful, and very moving project and I look forward to spending more time with it.
Thanks!
Thanks so much, Cathy! I would love to participate in that forum - let's make it happen.
participant input?
Jason,
Interesting project. I'm curious, do your participants have any input into what happens with the media after they're filmed?
Thanks,
Mike
http://wikumentary.net
participant input
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the response. Participants have as much input into what happens to the media as they'd like to (or have the ability to from where the are positioned vis-a-vis internet access in the world and the like); however, one of the aspects of our project is that we work through a creative commons license, so the footage of their lives can be appropriated in a variety of non-commerical ways - something that we explain, of course, during pre-production.
Thanks and please don't hesitate to approach us with more inquiries!
J
Have you found that reactions
Have you found that reactions to the CC license vary much among the different cultures you've worked in? On some level, I think of the CC license as a particularly Western/American construct. If you happen to know of any resources or research about that issue, I'd love to see it. Maybe UNESCO has something?
Thanks,
Mike
I am not particularly
I am not particularly familiar with the history of Creative Commons or the Free Culture movement, however one might assume that most innovation coming from or through the web would most likely be Western. Certainly, there is a long tradition in non-Western settings of communities of people sharing resources outside of a commercial marketplace. I would imagine that the CC and Free Culture folks would argue that their movement is one that is attempting to democratize content shared digitally and to challenge the conditions that people talk about when they talk about "the digital divide".
I have my own issues with our footage being up for grabs through a CC license; however, they don't really arise from the historical trajectory of the license themselves. I worry, rather, about the ethics and politics of free appropriation. Though it's a nice idea, I fear that it could be used in disappointing ways.