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ATTANON WONGLUANG # 3320483004MA DESIGN CRITICAL PRACTICE

open documentaryWhy ?

‘ Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technol-ogy and, on the other, fundamentally different from it.’

(Heidegger 1977 P.35)

As technology is embedded in our everyday life, and people tend to forget the meaning of

technology. As a consequence, more and more people begin to question technology, we control

technology or technology control us?, are we free from technology or are we tie to them? and if we

are tie to technology, how can we be free from them? In order to answer these questions, we have to

understand our relationship to them and understand its essence. This essay aims to introduce the possi-

bility to open our relationship with technology and answer the question why open network is better

than close one, by comparing the theoretical research with the project I’ve developed namely, ‘BBC

open documentary’.

This essay is divided into sixth sections altogether. The first section is the part where the termi-

nology of technology from Heidegger, 1977 is discuss and the relationship between human and tech-

nology is illustrate. The second section describe the role of communication technology such as com-

puter, internet, cyberspace. Also a possibility of how to be free from technology is introduce. The third

section is the introduction of BBC open documentary project, a collaborate project between Gold-

smiths and BBC, starting from the description of BBC network itself in this section. The fourth section ex-

plains about the concept of ‘BBC open documentary’ and its sub-project called ‘Future documen-

tary’ I’ve developed. The fifth section shows four scenario of how to use both ‘BBC open documen-

tary’ and ‘Future documentary’. And the sixth section explains about the benefit of BBC and its users.

Lastly, it is the brief conclusion.

Section 1 :How technology control us ?

Before I discuss further on why open network is better

than the close one and how to be free from technology

that constructed our life, I would trace back to the history of

technology in order to understand the relationship between

technology and human. So, what is technology mean to

us? According to Heidegger, M. in his essay ‘the question

concerning technology’(1977), In general people under-

stand technology in term of instrumental which would bring

the imagination to existence. In the ancient doctrine, tech-

nology can refer to ‘a mean to the end’ or to explain, tech-

nology leads to the end of each product in the production

process.

Furthermore, the process of making in ancient time

based on Aristotle’s four causality. I would give a process of

making ceramics cup as an example in order to explain four

causality. First is the material cause (hyle) is the clay,

second is the formalis cause (eidos) is a shape of the cup,

third is purpose (telos) is the purpose of a cup which to hold

water and fourth is ‘cause efficiens’ is the craft man who

shape up the cup. All those four causes are being respon-

sible for each other in order to make something into pres-

ent, especially the ‘cause efficiens’ which would be the

one that combine all causes together and give something

to existence. But after the invention of modern technology

the relationship between four causes that have changed.

People tend to think of modern technology as a mode of

revealing. People use technology to reveal nature, unlike

the old time that nature reveal itself to human which I would

explain in more detail.

The way of producing goods in modern world is far dif-

ference from the past. Heidegger M.(1977) mentioned that

‘enframing means the gathering together of that setting-

upon which sets upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to

reveal the real, in the mode of ordering, as standing re-

serve.’ In the past we designed something from the reason

of what it is but in modern world people design something

by creating a frame and complete the requirement within

that frame. The example of how people ‘enframing’ and

pushing technology forward in term of architectural design,

was mentioned by Jennifer S.(1999) that ‘Crawford’s de-

scription views malls as places of consumer domination. Yet

this position on ‘the mall’s fantasy machine’ is architectur-

ally determinist, viewing consumers as passive rather than

active and even imaginative users of space and products.

Crawford did not interview shoppers but rather looked at

how the mall trade catagories them. This methodology

makes it very difficult to find creative uses of mallspace’.

And she also mentioned that ‘Other scholars have tracked

mall users differently, finding they are not duped into con-

sumption, but rather that they use space within malls, with-

out buying, for other purpose such as socialise. We can not

deny that technology have brought us this far and give birth

to many innovations which help us solve problems. On the

other hand, the thing that could be the negative effect of

developing technology by ‘enframing’ is the lack of under-

standing in its essence. It is true that technology could make

life easier and more convenient but the misunderstood of

technology will lead to the improper use of them. And the

reason why people are not free to technology is that they

don’t understand the essence of technology and accept

them as they were, so people can’t escape form them and

still remain tied to technology.

‘ Enframing ’human - reveal - nature

Section 2 : computer, cyberspace and how to be free

from technology?

In mid-20th century the first computer have been cre-

ated and bring people to the arrival of the age of cyber-

space. Originally computer was a programmable machine

that automatically carry out set of a sequence of logical

operation. After a development of programmable com-

puter, as a consequence many kind of electronic products

were created and gave people a better life(an easier life).

Therefore, computers have become a fundamental elec-

tronic objects in almost every household. In late 90’s, the

internet was created. According to Oxford English diction-

ary, the internet is ‘a global computer network providing a

variety of information and communication facilities, consist-

ing of interconnected networks using standardized commu-

nication protocols’. And ‘Internet also carries a vast range

of information resources and services, such as the inter-

linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW)

and the infrastructure to support electronic mail.’ As a con-

sequence, internet become a part of people’s everyday

life routine because of the efficiency network of the internet

that made communication easier.

In term of technology, most of the people still don’t un-

derstand the essence of the internet so they use internet just

the way that internet network provider created. Most of the

early internet network were close platform; network pro-

vider generate all of contents, users can only be able to re-

ceive it. Jennifer S.(1999) pointed out that ‘cyberspace is

heavily dominated by elite group, yet often presented as if

open to all; its privatized spaces presented as if they are

public’. Hence, it draw a question of how to untie people to

the technology? And how to open up the relationship be-

tween user and the network? In order to answer this ques-

tion, I’d like to introduce the term ‘ecotechnic’ by Jean-Luc

Nancy. Nancy(1997) stated that ‘the more clearly

‘ecotechnics’ displays what is henceforth possible: either

eocotechnics takes on the sense of autism of a ‘great

monad’ in a process of indefinite self-expansion and/or it

takes on the sense of the disruption of all closure of signifi-

cation, a disruption that opens them up to coming

of(necessarily unprecedented) sense.’ To explain ‘ecotech-

nics’ in term of the internet network, the internet network is

where everyone can be connected within the system. But

everyone is unique and difference. It is a great opportunity

to open up the possibility for users to corporate, share, pro-

duce and help building a greater network. Thus, the idea of

collaborative between people across the network can be

imply to the ‘open source’ platform.

‘ ecotechnics ’open up to sense

Open source platform is widely used in many area from

non-electronic activity such as recipe sharing to the soft-

ware programming. According to Oxford English dictionary,

‘open source’ mean ‘denoting software for which the origi-

nal source code is made freely available and may be redis-

tributed and modified.’ Therefore, users can be free from

the frame that constructed by technology and ‘open

source’ also open up the possibility for creative use of them.

Further more, Product which base on open source platform

would never come to the end but will grow bigger and it

can be re-represent all of the time. Finally I would apply the

idea of open source platform to the BBC network.

‘ open-source ’open up the world

Section 3 : BBC network

BBC (British broadcasting corporation) is largest the

public service broadcaster in the world which based in

United Kingdom. BBC provide many services including 8 na-

tional TV channels plus regional programming, 10 national

radio stations, 40 local radio stations and an extensive web-

site. More specifically on BBC website, there are 16 catego-

ries including online radio station, news network, entertain-

ment and also educational content. In term of cyber

space, BBC website is such a massive network of informa-

tion and media broadcasting to the public which is easy to

access for the audiences. According to Jennifer S.(1999)

mentioned that ‘An efficient home-delivery media system,

in contrast, tends to make shut-in of otherwise healthy indi-

vidual; the more people receive news in isolation, the more

they become susceptible to manipulation by those who

control the media.’ Therefore, to make BBC network more

open and transparent would gain more trust from the

people. Thus, the new platform which I would design for

BBC network is ‘BBC open documentary’.

What is documentary? Documentary film is a non-

fictional motion picture that documented history or event in

form of moving images. Documentary film have a broad

categories such as history, nature, education, science and

many more. Documentary film was described as filmmaking

practice but become more narrative-base on the true

events. Unlike film, which based on fictional script but

documentary makers can arrange and direct the true

events based on their perspective. Hence, documentary

film was considered as a close product even though it re-

corded the true events but it was produced from one

perspective(from director/ documentary maker). Roland

Barthes(1977) pointed out that ‘ text is made of multiple

writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual

relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is

tane place where this multiplicity is focused and that place

is the reader, not the author. The reader is the space on

which all the quotations that make up a writing are

inscribed without any of them being lost; a text’s unity lies

not in its origin but in its destination.’ Documentary makers

are similar to author but they both have a difference

method of represent their idea in a difference medium. Au-

diences or readers who were received the content from

author/director whether it is text or motion picture, they all

have a difference understanding. As BBC network is a mas-

sive platform that participated with users worldwide. Thus, it

is appropriate to open up the network and give rise to a

new possibility to share the perspective from the audiences

across the world.

‘ documentary ’is a close product

Section 4 : What is BBC open documentary ? and

‘Future documentary’?

The concept of ‘BBC open documentary’ is the open

platform that allow user to watch and make their owns

documentary. Open documentary platform allow users to

search through BBC archive which contain more than

1million hours of media material (including audio/visual and

audio) since 1980’s. As I mentioned before, documentary

film is a close product that deliver only one perspective

from director or maker. Nevertheless, some audience might

agree or not agree with the content, some might ques-

tioned or want to add some information regarding the

documentary film that they have watched. Moreover, open

documentary designed to encourage users to share more

than one perspective; user can make their own documen-

tary by referencing multiple documentaries in order to pres-

ent their owns perspective. Furthermore, tagging system

that platform provided would link all documentary both in

the BBC archive and user made documentary. Therefore, it

would create a documentary network which user can trace

back to the origin and go further to relevant documentary

across the network. Users can also search for the documen-

tary by effective search engine that can search through

time & space. Time & space search engine allow users to

choose the time line and places of documentary that have

been created, and users also be able to search by cat-

egory or any other specific detail.

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Open documentary platform also provide a web

based editing tool to empower user to create their own

documentary. The tool that provided is a simple-to- use tool,

yet fully equipped with necessary feature to create a pro-

fessional documentary. Moreover, open documentary plat-

form encourage user with a study session of documentary

and user can be link to useful site of BBC main page such as

BBC education of BBC film network. In order to create a

documentary fil for beginner user who never have any ex-

perience concerning video editing, this platform also pro-

vide a video tutorials of how to use video editing tool. When

users are ready to create their own documentary, they

need to register and agree on terms and conditions of this

platform then user can use their own footages or select the

already existed documentary within the network and break

it into clips, combine them and/or make a collage from

those clips. Editing tool also provide a toolbar on the right

hand side showing the useful information of user’s account

such as the current project that they are working on, a list of

history of documentary that have been viewed and a book-

mark list. Next to the user account is the hidden search tool

bar which would slide out when user click on the button,

search tool bar fully work as same as time & space search in

previous page so user doesn’t have to go back and forth

between editing tool and search page. After user finish their

documentary they can save it in their account or publish to

BBC open documentary platform.

Video A

Video B

Transitions

Text

Audio

( Editing Suite )Beta

My Account ClipsSearch Help ? Link publish

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How to draw a lion?Politc of robotnumber 56 why are we doing this?World food

Search History

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My history

My project

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Documenatry Trailer

tag add info.

Video A

Video B

Transitions

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( Editing Suite )Beta

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How to draw a lion?Politc of robotnumber 56 why are we doing this?World food

Search History

animation (69)artists' moving image (34)music (32)

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My history

My project

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Documenatry Trailer

tag add info.

Look up Documentaries:

SEARCH

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by organisation or event

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The war in Libya is moving towards stalemate, warns the head of the US military, even though air strikes have destroyed 30-40% of Libya's ground forces.‘Food’


Al Green and CO Education 2010 London 26mins Reference : BBC

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In order to publish documentary to BBC open docu-

mentary platform, user needs to complete the submission

form concerning detail and description of the documen-

tary. And also they need to agree on terms and conditions

which user has to be aware of clearance, rights and copy-

right contents such as ‘you must have a written permission

to use everything and everyone that appears in your film’.

Later on, the documentary that have been submitted to the

platform will listed on a recently added documentary on

feature page(the first page of open documentary). Further-

more, next to the documentary on the feature page, there

will be the details of that documentary including director’s

name, date, description and rating along side those details

will be button of ‘bookmark’, ‘rate’ and ‘report’. User can

report an inappropriate documentary which featured on

this platform and BBC would determine whether it would be

deleted or go back to the feature page again. Beside the

director’s name will locate the ownership of that documen-

tary, if that documentary was created by combined clips

form five difference documentaries, the co-ownership

would show five of director’s name from that five difference

documentaries and also BBC.

In conclusion of BBC open documentary, this open

platform allow user to access, edit, cut, combine and pub-

lish BBC documentary from BBC archive. And create a

documentary network which user can study on how docu-

mentary were related trough time & space. All of the docu-

mentary that have been done in this platform will kept

inside the BBC network due to the copyright issue. Thus, in

order to watch documentary, user have to watch from BBC

network only. The restriction of watching documentary is

narrow down the usage of the platform to be more an edu-

cational purpose not the commercial one. However, BBC

open documentary only open up the possibility to edit and

combine between user’s footage and clips of existing

documentary on BBC archive. I would also design a new

way of documentary making, ‘the future documentary’.

SubmissionAccount : Mick_Jagger

Title (documentary):

ducumentary year: month year

Description:(100 words)

Name:

Reference:

Reference:

Reference:

Reference:

Reference:

last log-in 18/04/2011

publishI agree with all terms & conditions

Please complete the submission form before you submit documentary/trailer

‘Future documentary’ is the concept of the incorpora-

tive of people across BBC network in order to make a new

documentary. To explain in more detail, future documen-

tary platform allow user from all over the global network to

share the source. Especially for the director or documentary

film maker who unable to collect the sufficient material in

order to complete the documentary. To get start the proj-

ect on future documentary, founders of the project need to

propose the idea by making a short-length trailer concern-

ing the content, mood and tone of the documentary that

they want to make. Future documentary provide the same

tool as BBC open documentary expect for limited length of

trailer is 2 minuets. All the finished trailer will feature in the

‘future documentary’ first page and beside the trailer, there

will be a submit button for other user to submit their clips.

User who want to submit the clip needs to complete the

submission form then the clips will go directly to the

founder’s account. Moreover, the founder could decide

whether they will use the clips or not, the clips that were

used in the documentary will automatically credited as a

co-ownership of that completed documentary. Later on

when founder publish the documentary to the BBC network,

it will automatically store in the network and also feature in

both BBC open documentary page and future documen-

tary page. Hence, user of BBC documentary network can

watch and learn more about the collaborative documen-

tary that made by multiple users and multiple perspectives.

sign in

FUTURE documentary

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‘ future documentary ’open up new possibilities

Section 5 : How to use ‘BBC open documentary’ and

‘future documentary’ ?

In order to explain the instruction of how to use BBC

open documentary and future documentary, I would set up

four differences scenarios to explain in more details.

Scenario #1 (education)

The first scenario is focusing on educational purpose. If

teacher want to create a documentary about drawing for

the student in their class, he can accesses to BBC open

documentary by go to BBC learning for teacher site and he

will finds a link to open documentary page. After he gets in

to the main page, he can searches for a variety of docu-

mentary concerning a difference technique of drawing. He

can chooses contents that he wants and save bookmark to

his account. Then sign in to the editing tool, now he can

select the clip from his bookmark tool bar and drag the clip

to the tool so he can cut, trim, arrange and also adding

sound narration. After finish editing the documentary he

needs to complete the submission form in order to publish

his documentary. Students who want view the documen-

tary which may helpful for their educational research. They

can access to BBC learning for student where they can find

the drawing documentary that teacher have made. Note:

all of the clips in this documentary are the combination of

BBC documentary so in the ownership will show director’s

name and BBC’s documentary(every director of clips which

he used).

Scenario #2 (beginner)

The second scenario is focusing on the use of beginner

who has barely experience of documentary film making. A

girl watched BBC documentary about cycling in the north

part of England and got inspired to create her own every-

day life’s cycling documentary. She uses her video camera

to record her own cycling trail over the city of London. Then

she has to sign in to her account and upload her own clips

of cycling onto the platform. Then after the submission, her

documentary will be feature on the feature page. So other

user can find her documentary by searching through search

engine and on the feature page. Note: her documentary

will show only her name as an ownership because of all of

the clips were taken by herself.

‘ open documentary ’presents multiple perspectives

Scenario #3 (perspective)

The third scenario is focusing on a difference perspec-

tive of a multiple users. A guy want to make a documentary

about food but he’s realise that food have been prepared

and cooked in a difference way. So he decide to make a

documentary to contrast a difference perspective of how

people making food. First, he search through BBC network

to find the ‘food’ documentary that suit his idea then book-

mark it to his account. After sign in to the account, he uses

the BBC documentary clip concerning a proper way of

cooking fish and ships then contrast to his own clip of cook-

ing frozen food by using microwave. His documentary is

presents a difference perspective between two process of

cooking food. And after he publishes his documentary to

the network, again it will feature on the feature page. Note:

the ownership of this documentary would be his name and

the director of BBC’s documentary name.

Scenario #4 (future documentary)

The last scenario is mainly about how to use future

documentary platform and how to create future trailer. A

guy wants to make a documentary about food from all over

the world, he wants to know what is the difference of mate-

rial and process of cooking food. But he can’t travel around

the world to collect footages of food ,and he can’t find ap-

propriate clips on BBC archive. Moreover, he decides to use

future documentary platform in order to collects the

sources which he needs. Thus, he proposes his idea of

making ‘food’ documentary by create a ‘future trailer’. A

completed trailer will feature on future documentary page

so other users who saw it and want to participate with his

idea can submit their clips to his account. The clips that

other user send to his account will show in the tool bar of

editing tool. So he can use the clips that suitable for his idea

to make the documentary and when he publish it, it will

appear both on the first page and future documentary

page. Note: All the clips that he used to made the docu-

mentary came from other user and his own footages, so the

ownership will show only his name and the owner of the

clips that have been used but not BBC.

Section 6 : What is the benefit of user and BBC?

Beside the idea of open up the people and free their

relationship to technology, BBC open documentary net-

work also have a great potential of bringing good things to

the community. The open documentary could further bring

user from cyber space(online) to a real world. Jennifer

S.(1999) pointed out that ‘some of virtual space, created

with concern about the physical environment, are not dis-

sociated from place. Nor are they cyberspaces of retreat.

Online relationships can be strong, and may continue of-

fline. These spaces are not unreal for people who use them

in their work. From a good experience of corroborative work

could make it possible for directors from open documentary

platform to work together in a real environment(offline) and

produce a good documentary to community.

The BBC open documentary platform also gives a good

benefit to BBC. It bridges the gap between entertainment

and a serious educational, the platform could create an

playful education environment and help people to learn

more about documentary. Moreover, BBC archive have

store more than one millions hours of motion picture and

documentary which some of them have been forgotten. It

is a good opportunity for BBC archive to open up the possi-

bility to bring the old documentary out to public and let the

user re-represent them. BBC will also got a credit in the

documentary that user made by using BBC documentary.

In conclusion, technology is truly drive the society but

to develop technology by ‘enframing’ could lead to a

great danger. However, in term of documentary film

making, both ‘BBC open documentary’ and ‘Future docu-

mentary’ are free people form technology by open up a

new possibility of documentary making from one perspec-

tive to multiple. However, open documentary network was

owed to the technology and Internet networking which

could make this open platform become real. Hence people

form all over the world could help each other building the

greater network by participating within the virtual space

networking. As the idea of ‘ecotechnics’, Jean-Luc Nancy.

Nancy(1997) mentioned that ‘either ‘ecotchnics’ is the

entire sense of labor – of a labor henceforth infinite, dazed

by its own infinitude and by its indefinitely growing totaliza-

tion – or else ‘ecotechnics’ open labor up to sense, in oper-

ates labor unto the infinity of sence’. In the past, people

tend to understand technology as a massive machine that

constructed the whole system. Nevertheless, ‘ecotechnics’

have lead the way to look at technology in a difference

way; as a multiple of labors, ‘ecotechnics’ expose the ma-

terial and the labor of people’s making thing, in the same

time ‘ecotechnics’ can become an infinite multiplicity of

difference system in order to create their product. In term of

open documentary platform, users of platform can imply as

a multiplicity of labor, the platform also provide the educa-

tional tools in order to allow users to compose themselves

and finally, it open up the ability of labor to realise the alter-

natively.

open documentaryWhy ?

Bibliography

Barthes, R. 1977. Image Music Text. London: Fontana Press.

Heidegger, M. 1977. The Question Concerning Technology.

New York:Harper & row, Publisher.

Nancy, J.L. 1977. The sense of the world. Minneapolis:

The University of Minnesota Press.

Oxford Dictionaries(online). Oxford University Press.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/ accessed on 13/05/2011.

Light, J.S. 1999. From city space to cyberspace, in Crang M.,

Crang P.and May J. Virtual geographies, pp. 109-130.

London: Routledge.

book

Documents

essence of technology

technology control

meaning of technology

history of technology

open network

bbc open documentary

benefit of bbc

description of bbc network