RULES FOR VIEWING

Through my response to this brief I hope to address an interest in the themes of illusion that manifest in much of the media we consume.

In my Investigate response I commented on the invisible nature of the pre-designed systems present in our everyday lives, and the illusion of control we are often presented with as a part of packaged user experiences. Similar ideas manifest in media, particularly entertainment products. Teams of writers, as well as increasingly focus groups, testers and and other market-driven mechanisms are part of an industrial process that generates content for public consumption. However, these systematic occurrences are often critically shadowed, either by a focus on the product itself or on ‘auteur’-type figures given credit for the overall ‘vision’ of content.

One component of providing a true critique of media should, in theory, involve recognising and exploring the influence of these often unrecognised systems. As such, when examining the relationship between medium, message and circulation, these same factors must be considered.

My proposal is to impose these factors on a piece of incidental media, such as a video recorded accidentally or without direction, so as to interrogate the role they play in shaping what and how we consume content. In essence, I aim to take an ‘un-designed’ piece of content and change its medium so as to impose design restrictions. From this, a further reformation will test the effects of this intervention into the form of the original content.

I began by using Petit Tube, a website that presents visitors with a randomly chosen YouTube video with zero recorded views.  Sourcing a selection of videos, I then proceeded to adapt the contents into a screenplay format, transcribing dialogue and imposing details and directions on how to replicate each scene.

I have selected three videos based on their decreasing levels of ‘inconsequentiality’, in terms of the amount of direction or planning that went into their production. In some sense, the mere presence of the camera has shaped the actions that have occurred before it.