The introduction was spacetastic!

Week 1

Back to uni in 2016 and immediately having a new module: Activist Media Practice. What sounded promising according to its description turned out to be really interesting already in the first meeting. I was literally glowing by inspiration when talking through the course plan, especially the prospect of working a lot with film, sound and photo software, whereby everybody is asked to use their creativity in a way that works best for each.

After the introduction we built groups and looked at some parts of the reading "General introduction to the practice of everyday life" from Michel de Certeau. My group and I had to distinguish the terms "place" and "space", which can be summarized by his own words "place is a practiced space". Afterwards I took a walk around uni with Hongfei in order to find some interesting spaces that we can record and analyze. We found a lot, like illustrated or worded street signs, paths, sitting areas and various colored recycle bins - our favorite however was a bike shelter, which became a particular space due to its construction and the functions coming with it.

Here are pictures from our findings:



Inspired by some video material on YouTube I am trying to think of three ideas at the moment which I could work out for a project. In particular I really liked an animated video about the European refugee crisis at the moment, which can be seen here. I'd love to experiment with illustrations, but also with real film material, maybe put them together as well. Afterwards, I will have a closer look at the Certeau reading and hopefully work out a third idea from it.