Sunday, November 01, 2009

Introducing We Are Watching

We Are Watching is a video / surveillance / book project that investigates ways of watching during the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics that are to be held in Vancouver this February and March.

Currently, I am collecting video footage of the Olympic Torch Relay and Celebrations by soliciting participants to video document the events as they pass through Canada. The video documentation can be collected by cell phones (and any other video capturing devices one might have) and the resulting footage is submitted by email to wearewatching2010 [at] gmail.com. 

For relay and celebration map and details, click the link on the right side bar.

The footage will be projected, unedited, on a building housing the Jeffrey Boone Gallery in the Lower Eastside of Vancouver during the Olympic and Paralympic games. During the games, people can send me their clips documenting any aspect of the Olympic games and celebrations that are happening in Vancouver and Whistler. These images will be instantly snatched out of my inbox and slotted in chronological order to be projected.

Also, the clips will be considered for publication in a book of the same name that will provide an archive of alternative-to-the-official images that will be flooding the world.

The on-site viewers watching the projection will be captured by a surveillance camera which will be projected in the Jeffrey Boone Gallery in real time.

This project is curated by Jeffrey Boone, from the Jeffrey Boone Gallery (for more information on the Jeffrey Boone Gallery see www.jeffreyboonegallery.com) and part of the Bright Light project and generously funded by the City of Vancouver.

Please inform your friends and family who might like participate, I am anxious about getting material.

Thanks!

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:42 PM

    www.ctvolympics.ca is a link to where you can watch the whole torch relay live :)

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  2. Anonymous3:06 AM

    I caught a few minutes of the Global news coverage of the Olympic torch relay tonight, ironically there was a shot through the Global news camera of an onlooker videoing the torch run through his cell phone.

    on another note...

    The advertisements on tv for CTV news have the anchorpersons wearing Olympic clothing. Actually, the CTV emblem on the toque is stuck to the Olympic emblem causing the two separate emblems, in some ways, to become one, in some ways, to become complicit.

    I wonder if the visions of one of Canada's largest private media companies might differ from the visions of those of us not wearing the sweatshirts?

    p.s. if one was to google the word "toques" right now in order to find out its correct spelling, the first website that comes up would be vancouver2010.com/store

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  3. Emblem mashing sounds terribly exciting to me and I am tempted to run out and buy a t.v. just to see this toque! Ahhh more fodder...

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  4. I'm looking forward to hearing how this project turns out. It sounds very neat.

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  5. This is really exciting stuff. Now, I'm watching We are Watching!

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  6. Thanks you guys! Please come to the show and introduce yourselves, I will most likely be there often, or send me an email as to when you can come by, and I will make an effort to be there.

    Kind regards.

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  7. Anonymous11:12 AM

    We like the participatory dimension so far as contributions are concerned. But the editorial process tends to be less communal or collectivized, is that right ?
    The International Community Film Forum
    www.icff.info

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  8. What editorial process are you referring to? I am using all footage, unedited. Please be more specific and I will try to answer your question. I looked briefly at your website, and I am intrigued at how the words "participatory" "collective" and "collaborative" seem to be used interchangeably. Personally, I believe there are sharp and specific differentiations. My job as an artist with a participatory practice is to lay a platform or structure that people can use to fill with content. I am not collaborating, if I were, I would have to share my CARFAC fee.

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