Hand-notes, photographs, video images… Which of these tell us more, or better? What do you do with a family photo album? What does it tell us that words don’t? A video camera is sitting in the corner to record…but isn’t it possible that it becomes part of us, moves with us, and participates actively in the everyday setting to make things happen? You interview a person: s/he talks and you receive her/his views. Objects don’t talk, and yet they tell us amazingly a lot. Can our research activities be creative activities that change the world? “Ethnography” means “being there,” bearing eye-witness to human activities, creating documents, and “producing (new) knowledge” about society and culture. Traditional field research relies a lot on note-taking. When our field research involves the use of audio visual tools, we approach and relate to the world differently. This course has two main components: to learn how to study our everyday culture and produce knowledge about the world using visual media, and to study visual objects in our everyday life, such as photographs, movies, maps, posters, materials on YouTube, graphic design etc. to see what they tell us about the world in which we live. This course discusses in depth important cultural theories, history of documentaries, creative impulses in urban studies, and research methods in anthropology.
This course is project-based, individual and in groups. Students are expected to be independent learners who are ready to discover more via reading, research and creation.