27 Jan 2023 – 28 Feb 2023
SCREAM – STREET CORNER REALITY: Ethnography As Mockery is a spatial practices observation game inspired by the pioneers of Sociology and Urban Ethnography on the one hand, and the artistic avant-gardes of the 1970s on the other.
The main idea of SCREAM is to realise a video shot by choosing a perspective and a single sequence to which a ‘script’ is subsequently added. The aim of SCREAM is to challenge the tradition of ethnographic observation by reversing it without invalidating it. Ethnography is in fact a method based on the organisation of field notes or detailed descriptive accounts of any observation of reality made during a given period. In contrast, SCREAM creates a fictional text from the indications provided by reality that manifests itself without mediation by revealing inspirations, expectations, curiosities and patterns of everyday spatial practices.
Below are the ‘instructions’ for making a SCREAM video.
- Observe the space near your location and choose a perspective from which to shoot. It is important that it is a public or mixed space where different daily activities take place. Choose a shooting point that is reliable and does not disturb the activities of the space to be filmed.
- Equip yourself with a video camera or smartphone, a tripod and possibly a directional microphone (not necessary but can be useful).
- Record a single sequence. You can also move the camera or zoom the shot.
- Watch the recording. If you are not satisfied, try again, but try to find even in the most seemingly insignificant gestures and practices something to “play with” and meaning to bring out.
- Add your own audio commentary in the form of a choreography or script of what really happened.
I realised until now 3 SCREAM videos in Berlin, Florence and Dublin.