‘Playful Identities’ research blog

Shoot-n- Share is a documentary made by two young students at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, Lieke van Pruijssen and Bieke Versloot. It is a film about the relation five inhabitants of Rotterdam have with their mobile phone. More specifically: how they use the camera on their mobile phone. The film was shown a while ago at a filmfestival in Groningen, and in Rotterdam April 28, 2008.

The film is a mixture of documentary following a number of ‘Rotterdammers’ an their mobile cam use as well and interviewing the, as well as a showcase of the mobile phone movies and photographs itself that are made by them. This is done quite ingeniously, by blending the two together in such a way that you get a good view both from the ‘real life’ perspective and the ‘virtual media-perspective.

So what kind of people are portrayed in the film? The first are Thom and Osama, two young guys (both 16) who film their daily movements in the city, go to weird places and shoot themselves fooling around a bit, and upload their material to Youtube. See the following Youtube accounts: Osama (osama015); Thom (jump266) ; and together they operate under the nick osamathom1991.

Then there is a young mother Annemarie (24 years old) and her daughter. The mother makes little clips of for instance her daughter and her singing and dancing together, and shares these with friends and family online.

There is Hans, a guy of about 30 years old who mainly takes photos of things he sees in the city in an artistic fashion.

And finally an older man, Cor Been, age 75, who has filmed the entire process of the construction of his new apartment building to which he is moving.

There are a couple of things I found really interesting about this film:

Different age, different use
First of all, the film shows how people from different ages do very different things with their mobile phone camera. Osama and Tom went for the kicks and sought out the ‘dangerous’ and exiting urban places they normally wouldn’t go or weren’t suppose to be. The young mother did it in a very social way to share her life with her daughter with other; the 30 year old guy made all kinds of photographs of the city in a very aesthetic way; the old man used film to get accustomed to his new habitat, as a kind of narrative medium to incorporate the new into his life.

Mobile film as an emerging genre
What kind of new pictorial language is emerging through the use of the mobile phone for photo and film? It is a radical first person perspective; a 3D view of the world, the camera does not only pan from left to right but also up and down (one’s feet!); movement while shooting instead of stills; no cuts; position of the filmer in his own film; enactment in front of camera: it’s is not acting as if it is real but made absolutely clear that it is acting in full awareness of the presence of a camera.

Experience of multiple places at the same time (moving in hybrid space)
The two young guys were making a film while sneaking into a building (hotel?) they clearly weren’t supposed to be. While prowling through the corridors and pushing elevator buttons in a seemingly spontaneous way, all of a sudden one of them yelled: “This is certainly going to be on Youtube!”. This seems to indicate that these kids are adding an extra dimension to their physical world, namely concurrently imagining a digital world. They interweave their here and now experience of what they are doing in physical space with an added dimension of presenting it later elsewhere on a digital platform.

Social aspects of sharing: niche vs. platform
The young mother was sharing films and photos of her and her daughter with friends via online platforms (Youtube, Hyves). There is something very social about creating content. A new sociality? Or sharing as age-old ritual (gifting)? Only within small circle? But interestingly she chooses a platform that is accesible to everyone. This raises questions about how people want to express themselves, either to small niches vs. sharing broadly.

Experiencing city space through the mobile phone camera
Filming the city while being on the move adds an extra reflexive dimension to this mobility. First it adds another lense in front of you, a layer of mediatrion in a (new) visual movie language. And second it enables you to look back almost immediately on what you have just experienced and how you have captured this. The experience of a city may change through this additional reflexive layer. It enables you to distrance yourself from your own immediate experience by viewing it again through the eyes of a bystander, like an being an audience to your own captured experience.

(thanks Bieke for the pictures, additional info, and small corrections!)

Yesterday I went to Urbanfest ‘07 in “Dreampark” Ancol, north Jakarta. This festival, organized for the first time, had lots of contemporary culture such as Indie music and hiphop, street games and sports, graffiti, harajuku & cosplay competition, modded bikes, scooter stunting and more. The Ancol website has the full program (basically a whole list of activities with the word urban in it, haha!)

The general impression I got was that this festival was an experiment to create a setting in which new modern urban identities can be explored, partly influenced by global culture, partly localized and typically Indonesian. I enjoyed it a lot!

Many people used their cameras, DV cams, and handphones to capture a sense of ‘being there’.

Some interesting quotes from an article in Jakarta Post:

“As youth, we present something new, something different from the mainstream. That’s what people call the indie spirit. Now a group is considered indie, maybe later it’s not indie,” Jimmy, a member of The Upstairs [one of the bands playing], told a press conference Wednesday [that must have been August 22, 2007].
…
IKJ Rector [Jakarta Arts Institute, one of the organizing parties] and noted dance choreographer Sardono W. Kusumo said the festival was part of efforts to give young artists space to display urban cultures far removed from those found in the nation’s countryside.

“We are open to and ready for even “the craziest” ideas,” Sardono told the conference.

Sardono said there were no “genuine” Indonesian cultures, since the nation’s history has long been open to foreign influences.
…
Organizers said the festival, carrying the slogan “All You Can Act!!!”, are aimed at promoting freedom of expression in the face of rising conservatism in much of the country.

Some of the grafitti art at Urbanfest ‘07.

Guys doing motorbike stunts

East meets west when a hiphop group from Yogyakarta invites a dangdut singer on stage for a jam at Urbanfest ‘07.

Japanese cultural influences: harajuku & cosplay competition at Urbanfest ‘07.

Today, 17 August 2007, Indonesia celebrated the 62th year of independence from Dutch colonial rule. Although my 3rd time in Indonesia, it’s the first time I am in the country during hari kemerdekaan (freedom day). A great day to do some fieldwork on (playful) identity construction ☺.

Together with Lisa & Dini, two girls from my rumah kos, I went to Monas (national monument) in the morning. Under a blistering sun we walked to the Istana Negara (state palace), just north of Taman Merdeka (freedom square). Along the road we saw military units parading. At the palace, young people from all current 33 provinces were present, wearing regional ethnic costumes, featuring on pictures, and busy taking pictures themselves.





Ethnic and national identities at Istana Negara. Mobile devices all over the place to capture “unity in diversity” (Indonesia’s national motto). Tradition and modernity go hand in hand.

After that, Lisa and I went to kampung Melayu, one of the poorer areas in Jakarta. Some friends of her organize a three-day series of festivities in the neighborhood of bukit duri, as part of an effort to make freedom day a real people’s festival. All kinds of traditional games here, vaguely reminding me of the kind of ludic activities that take place on Dutch “koninginnedag” (queen’s day). These kids compete to run three slippery eels from one bucket into the other as quick as possible.



Eel race in kampung Melayu. In the background an activist painting claiming the rights of poor people in Indonesia. The proclamation in the painting reads “Children of poor families are the responsibility of the state. Children at the edge [referring also literally to bukit duri’s location near the Ciliwung riverside] are not sewer rats!”. The painting is part of a campaign in the neighborhood to voice social and economic awareness and identity, as the slums are planned to be cleared due to recurrent floodings.


Pre-paid card infrastructure has penetrated deep into the kampung!

Meanwhile, a bit further uphill, young guys try to climb the greasy pole, in the hope of getting one of the handphones dangling from the top as a reward! I somehow got the sense that in this image, some central notions in my research (identity, play and the mobile phone) come together and lose some of their slipperiness…



Play in front of the quarter’s main Mesjid (mosque) on national freedom day: who wins the mobile phone?

In talking about identity, I feel like adding a more personal note. Today has also been a day to consider my own history and relation to Indonesia. A week back or so I was in a book shop at Taman Ismael Marzuki, and picked up a Soekarno (Indonesia’s first president) biography by Bob Hering. Paging through the book, I noticed my great grandfather figures as one of the prime informants. He apparently was very well-acquainted with many of the key figures who founded Indonesia, and who are commemorated today. From the scarce stories, I know he spoke several indigenous languages fluently and was part of the so called ‘ethical’ movement which tried to reform colonial rule. Yet still part of Dutch colonial system… 62 Years after Indonesian independence, I cannot help but feel both continuity, by temporarily living here and becoming close to this country, as well as rupture, for I am here in a completely different situation and role, as the paths of Holland and Indonesia have split.

Lucky capture while drinking coffee in a downstairs coffee bar in Mall Ambassador. People at all tables seemed very engaged in their mobile media, yet people at two of the three tables where also very much communicating with others physically there. The dichotomous view of “absent presence” (being somewhere else than one’s physical place through the use of media) appears not so rigid in this situation. Here & elsewhere may be combined without any problems.

The last three days I have been at the Mobile Media 2007 conference, organized by Gerard Goggin and Larissa Hjorth. The conference was held at the University of Sydney from 2 - 4 July 2007. Some 120 people attended the conference, many of them belonging to the well-known researchers in the field of mobile media.

A wide range of papers were presented. Most of them empirical, focussing mostly on the modern Asian countries (China, Japan, Korea) and Australia. Also quite some theoretical work, e.g. about changes in time and place, locative media, mobile phone anxieties. Almost all empirical work was about teenagers. Most papers were also at the level of devices, not infrastructure.

I presented a paper about the mobile phone and changes in identity. You can download it here. That session was one of the few with enough time for some substantial debate after the presentation (someone had cancelled) Got some useful feedback on it.

I’ll try and write some more substantial things about the conference soon.

Some pics: