Tourist Video Methodology I Go To A Landmark Location

tourist video methodology i go to a landmark location in a large, well known city. i choose a popular tourist destination such as the view

Tourist Video Methodology
I go to a landmark location in a large, well known city.
I choose a popular tourist destination such as the view of the
Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, Big Ben in London, Notre Dame in Paris.
There is some particular agenda involved in this selection. For
instance in terms of Big Ben, it is the clock-tower of the Houses of
Parliament. I see this building as representative of the government
and thereby notions of Empire indicative of The United Kingdom. In
Paris I was thinking of the huge cultural influence of Catholicism in
the culture as referenced by Notre Dame.
Initially, my attempt was to contrast a video I shot (with a tripod)
of a local resident telling a story of being in another city, with
videos shot in that very same location by other visitors. Ultimately
this comparison proved uninteresting, primarily as the goal of
contrasting experiences wasn’t achieved through the use of the camera.
I had hoped this might afford an access to the simple yet complex
empathetic understanding of an experience of the ‘other’. Instead the
visual manifestation of the footage shot by others so strongly
referenced ‘home movie’ due mostly to the hand held, moving
camera-work, that it stopped there. Rather than opening up the
complexity of different views of a similar experience, the videos
became so easily categorized that one looked no further. Here is where
my further intervention of transcription begins.
But first I shall finish a description of my actions before returning
to the actual transcribing. Also, the videos I shoot of local
residents has become a project all on its own, “Landmark Videos”. I
see this as a situation in which I began with a large bundle of ideas
that have needed to be separated and engaged with individually in
order to bring out the density of each idea.
I attach a retractable dog leash to my camera, the other end to my
belt loop as both a safety measure but more importantly as a physical
connection to me. Then, I basically approach everyone whose eye I can
catch. There is no demographic imperative at all other than whom I
perceive to be a tourist rather than a local resident.
There isn’t much of a selection process other than just screwing up my
courage to approach total strangers, explain that I am doing an art
project and would they like to participate. The request is ‘to shoot
whatever they like with my camera for one minute.’ Initially I offered
something in return, a way to ‘pay’ them for their time and activity
and to play within a sort of barter economy. I offered to make a DVD
of whatever they shot and mail it to them at a later date. This
entailed taking their name and address and having them offer a title
for what they had just shot. This did open up an interesting avenue of
creating a correspondence between myself and the participant. In a few
instances this evolved into further communication and engagement,
extending the ‘artwork’ over time. However, the use of consumer
cameras and software points out the sort of redundancy of this
service. It suggests that the point of the endeavor is to engage with
unsuspecting tourists and for them to choose to engage with me, an
artist, participate in ‘art making’ and that is not a direction I am
interested in. Also, in a few instances, particularily at Big Ben in
London, it seemed that people were reluctant to give their name and
address, fearing some sort of subsequent illegal activity. Therefore I
discontinued the offer as a constant part of the activity.
One thing I should mention here is from the beginning the importance
of pointing out that what i was doing was free, and the difficulty in
doing so especially in attempting this explanation in languages other
than English.
There is also the tendency on the part of the camera operator to
assume I want my image included in the video. That I am alone and
therefore unable to shoot myself and am therefore asking a stranger
for help. I finally solved this problem in a rather elegant way. I
began to see the ‘leash’ as an opportunity to be led, rather than as a
limitation for the person shooting with my camera. Initially I tried
to discourage this by putting my head down, also as a means of timing
them as the guideline is ‘to shoot for one minute anything you want’.
Then I physically positioned myself behind them and said that they
could go wherever they wanted to shoot and I would follow.
Transcribing came about as the failure of the visual image on its own
to expand rather than constrict meaning. It makes sense to me as even
as I attempt to access an other’s perception of a place, it is always
filtered. So it seems logical to interrogate the camera’s point of
view as a means to locate the conflation of my experience with the
other’s.
In transcribing the video to text I base my observations solely on
what is visible in the moment of looking at the tape. I employ the
corresponding language to indicate when something is off-screen,
perhaps only heard and not seen, in a way that reflects this
situation.