GOING LOW WITH CRYPTO - Fringe Documentation

Documentation Context

The Fringe festival I am documenting on will be directed by Mathias Poulsen and Robert Lundberg. The workshop is called reimaging digital cities, exploring public space from the point of view of everyday digital technologies. Speculation and play will encourage engagement, so I want to document the many unique perspectives of what occurs in the workshop. Based on the speculative nature of the workshop, I expect the session to be very open to interpretation. I assume the workshop will drive self-reflective activities for the participants and myself as I document.

My documentation process will consist of capturing the workshop's experience, depicting the participant's perceptions and experience. I will capture the session through photography with fisheye and macro lenses. This type of documentation will function as snapshots to the flow of the night, working towards a storyboard of experiences. The use of the juxtaposing lenses will also display the scale of perspectives, communicating the breath of the experience. I want the images to highlight the many different perspectives that will come from speculating and empathising with technology to view our city. My documentation method is observational, attempting a photographic storyboard that captures the multifaceted stories and experiences of the workshop.

At first my main approach was to observe and document the participant's perceptions and experience of the workshop, but I transitioned into becoming a participant and documenting my own experience. Therefore, I ended up as the subject of documenting my own perceptions of the session. This was because it was hard to follow each of the many perspectives through the many thought-provoking activities. This documentation of my point of view can only reflect a fraction of the collective and collaborative experience of the workshop. This perspective could have formedfrom observing the activities, where we personified technologies to see their world as they do.

The speculative practice of the workshop was most likely influential over my documentation process. The immersivity and interconnectedness of the experimental methods, allowed me to observe the events in a less standard and systematic way. As a participant, the technology I chose to personify was glass. Glass fosters observation, so reflected me as I was documenting. My fellow documentarian, Jacquie, chose the technology of cameras. We partnered up and our values of glass and cameras eventually synthesised our objects to make Reflecto, an empathic thing that perceives and reflects the experiences of everything around it. The object looked like a scope wrapped in glad wrap and its construction only took a few minutes. We came up with our creation in a very short time because we were too busy documenting everything and that idea is possibly reflected in the reflective qualities of Reflecto.

Workshop Analysis

At first my main approach was to observe and document the participant's perceptions and experience of the workshop, but I transitioned into becoming a participant and documenting my own experience. Therefore, I ended up as the subject of documenting my own perceptions of the session. This was because it was hard to follow each of the many perspectives through the many thought-provoking activities. This documentation of my point of view can only reflect a fraction of the collective and collaborative experience of the workshop. This perspective could have formedfrom observing the activities, where we personified technologies to see their world as they do.

The speculative practice of the workshop was most likely influential over my documentation process. The immersivity and interconnectedness of the experimental methods, allowed me to observe the events in a less standard and systematic way. As a participant, the technology I chose to personify was glass. Glass fosters observation, so reflected me as I was documenting. My fellow documentarian, Jacquie, chose the technology of cameras. We partnered up and our values of glass and cameras eventually synthesised our objects to make Reflecto, an empathic thing that perceives and reflects the experiences of everything around it. The object looked like a scope wrapped in glad wrap and its construction only took a few minutes. We came up with our creation in a very short time because we were too busy documenting everything and that idea is possibly reflected in the reflective qualities of Reflecto.

Documentation Conclusion

I assume my interpretation of the activities wasn't the same for any of the other participants, it is entirely possible I misinterpreted a lot of the activities. However, the workshop still made me actually try to empathise with technology and engage with its unique surroundings. The workshop also made me contemplate on how my perspective was influencing my documentation process. I then transitioned to documenting myself as the participant to better make sense of my perception of the events and activities.

Working in a playful and speculative design environment have guided me to engage with my perception of technology, public space and myself. I may be overthinking the experience, but that only reinforces my personal engagement with the workshop. Furthermore, this level of engagement has influenced me to reflect more in my future documentation and design, where I will attempt more immersive and inclusive approaches.