Look closer.
Each photo tells a story.
First there were buildings.
I started taking pictures of buildings.
Then, after a while, I moved slowly from buildings to persons.
From stones to bodies.
From walls to skin.
I went inside.
Opened the doors.
Windows became eyes.
So, this is my town. My country.
This is where I live.
In persons.
Next week Akbar and I will meet in Amsterdam.
I need more information about him. Stories I can use.
Could he be the “owner” of the Media Me pool on Flickr, in the script?
The textdocument on my desktop is getting shape, in a chaotic way.
Chaos comes with the subject: The digital revolution.
Next to the voice of Pictureman there are two other voices talking.
I call them A and B.
They’re like commenters, sitting in an editroom, surrounded by lots of machines.
Since this worklog is on the frontpage of the new RVU website, here’s an update on Media Me, you’re in my story.
On this Media Me worklog visitors can take a look at video’s, pictures and texts, which will be used in a new film to be made: Media Me, you’re in my story. Sound, music and voice-overs will be added to the video’s in a later stadium. (So there’s nothing wrong with your computer. These are all half products you’re looking at so far; fragments, non-lineair.)
The film is about The Digital Revolution and what it does to us. Where will it bring us and how will it affect us?
The narrator of the film is called Pictureman and is played by Akbar Simonse, a streetphotographer from The Hague. I met him on Flickr. We just finished a photoshoot and now I’m working on an radioproof audioscript, inspired by the videoclips we made so far. The Media Me photopool on Flickr, where it all started, is still growing. At this moment it counts 5317 pictures and 537 members.
“I’m trying to put some things together right now.”
About worklogs.
When I start working on a new project, I start a new worklog.
I document the workproces in sound, image and text. Visitors can leave comments or come up with inspiring links, suggestions, poems, requests, questions, etc. All comments can be used in the script. That’s the deal.
Some visitors participate in an active way by getting involved as a related person, others just read and watch. When the program is finished and broadcasted, I publish it. Then the long-tale starts.
I used to write and direct radiodrama. I still do, but since the internet entered my work I have direct access to images and video’s as well. This inspires and fascinates me. I’m a Flickr fan. Next to that I use Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for creative and practical purposes. As a mediamaker from Hilversum I have to reach masses, on my log and platforms I can reach persons. For connecting is the core business on the internet, communication in all kinds of forms and variations has become one of my main themes. My specialty is drama and fiction.
First worklog was about an iPod soundwalk for two persons in Amsterdam, Screened.
Second one: Flick Radio, from weblog, to radiodrama to tv-film.
Third one, about a trip to Poland: Een homo in Polen (about gays in Poland).
All projects are still online and downloadable. My radioarchive is here.
So as a programmaker I use the internet as a communication- and researchtool, as a stage and workplace at the same time.
I write in English, because we’re on the internet and Media Me wants to be an international project in which many universal themes will be explored and dramatised.
Sometimes I feel lonely.
But not when I’m behind my computer.
A picture can be company, you know.
Writing comments.
Being social.
Making connections.
I know them.
I’ve met them.
They know me.
So that’s it.
When I freez, I socialize.
I like documentaries.
And… the Simpsons.
But that’s personal.
I almost never look at movies.
I hate dramaseries and soaps, I don’t care.
I don’t understand.
Games and shows are not for me.
Don’t even talk about it.
I just don’t understand that kind of fun.
I never watch television on my computer.
I need a big screen.
My eyes are getting tired very often.
I’m a very tolerant person.
The only thing I hate are intolerant people.
It would be a nightmare for me, if my pictures would be used for something I can not identify with.
Identification is important.
I love my pictures.
I love people.
I love to learn.
But I hate manuals.
I never read them.
When I bought my camera, I read the first twenty pages.
Then I stopped.
I thought: when I need something, I’ll look it up.
When something goes wrong with my computer, I call someone to help me.
Technique has to be easy.
Technique should make me feel comfortable.
Most of the time it makes me feel stupid.
I don’t want to feel stupid.
It has to be simple.
Look at me.
Just an old man with a camera and a hat.
This is how I look, late at night.
This is me.
I never try to look like someone who isn’t me.
These are all parts of me.
Privacy doesn’t exist anymore nowadays.
Not in this society.
Don’t touch the internet, they say, for it will touch you.
But I don’t want to stay at home all the time.
Why should I?
The moment you walk the street, you lose part of your privacy.
There it starts.
I don’t care.
I have a mobile phone.
I call and sms.
That’s it.
Once I took a picture with my phone, but I don’t know where it is right now.
It’s gone.
I have my camera, so why should I take pictures with my phone?
Internet on my phone? I don’t think so.
I will become an old, maybe a bit worried man.
I’m not very enthousiastic about my own health.
My health bothers me.
Being alone bothers me.
How did it change me?
Did it change me?
It’s hard to say.
(Silence)
I have to think about that.
(Silence)
Well, I look things up.
If I want to know something, I look it up.
I’m in charge.
I read newspapers.
I watch the news.
But I never search for news on the internet.
I don’t have to know everything.
Most of the time it doesn’t interest me.
Maybe it will interest me in a few years.
I can wait.
I’m not in a hurry.
I don’t want to be informed about anything.
I just de-connect from information.
I’m glad I’m not a news addict.
I’m addicted to people.
I like comments.
Sometimes it becomes a story.
I upload a picture, give it a title, and people start to comment, just like that.
They start to interpret.
Sometimes they see things I didn’t see.
It makes me laugh.
Sometimes I love to be offline.
As if it is not there.
Time flies when you’re online.
I also love to stop.
A few days, a week.
And now something completely different.
I consider it a world.
Strange, yet common after a while.
It’s all about how quick you get used to certain habits.
During the photoshoot with Akbar Simonse we did an improvisation in the attic of the building with photographer Marco Habanero.
Here Akbar walks the stairs as a King, transforms into a Pierrot and poses.
Music and text will be added in a later stadium.
Camera and edit: Ronnie Griens.
Akbar Simonse, Ronnie Griens and Marco Habanero during the Media Me photoshoot in Leiden.
It went very well. Akbar was king, pierrot, angel, astronaut, superman, a yogi, an 18-th century old man, an early Holbein, a Da Vinci homo universalis and finally, almost nude, like a Dove commercial.
Branding. Identity. Privacy. Entertainment. Drama.
Props: laptops, wires, mirrors, camera’s, globes, headphones and iPhones.
All material has to be selected and edited now. Soon online.
(We’re considering a Media Me Pictureman calender.)
Next week we try to plan a shoot at the Medialab in Breda.
Pictureman in a CAVE.
With Hans Bouwknegt. update: Friday: Breda.
After that, a new phase in the project will start.
A script has to be written, based on the clips.
Deadline for mediafonds: november 2009.
For tomorrow we rented several costumes, which will help to symbolise the nine themes of Media Me.
Akbar is our model.
Like a doll, we’ll dress him with care. He will be Superman, an astronaut, King, etc.
It will be a game with identities aswell. A portrait experiment: theatre, icons.
The shoot will take place in Leiden. Ronnie Griens will film the whole proces.
Maybe we can improvise some mise-en-scènes as well.
The Kings Robe symbolises the status of every user of the web: “We’re all kings and queens here.”
Marco Habanero will use several camera’s and techniques.
I do the catering.
Looking for the right King Robe for the photoshoot next Saturday with Akbar Simonse as Pictureman.
Goal is to collect images based and inspired on the nine themes of Media Me. Interpretations. Theatrical.
Playing with symbols and metaphores.
Marco Habanero: Photography. (We had a great day! Thank you.)
Comtumes: plenty. Props, light and atmosphere optimal.
To be continued.
(Also found a crown…)
Media Me 