Joëlle Bitton, Stefan Agamanolis, Matthew Karau (2004). "RAW: Conveying minimally-mediated impressions of everyday life with an audio-photographic tool”

About the Text

The authors talk about how they try to note everyday life. They came up with a camera, which captures 1 minute of sound before and after the taking of the photo.

As an example, how people get ready for work or eat lunch is quite different. This also changes in different cultures and every person lives in a different environment, what makes the 2 minutes sound interesting by adding immersion to the image. Getting those insights can reveal much about the rhythms of the societies and cultures that people inhabit. It also helps to provoke to reflect for the audience and the maker of the audio-photographs.

Before the authors declare the RAW project as a success, they want to see relevance and value in different cultures.

About RAW

• It’s a Tool that combines a digital still camera and a high-quality stereo audio recorder
• The tool records 60 seconds before and 60 seconds of sound after taking a picture
• The RAW Tool records binaural sound, means it records like the persons who take the photo hears
• No modification of the end result possible

RAW Development

1. Conception of a prototype and initial test in Dublin
2. A workshop with children in Paris
3. A series of experimentation on a larger scale in Mali