trees are people too

Ok, this is my initial brainstormings regarding my manifesto. I have since developed these ideas somewhat, but thought it might be useful to track my creative process.

Of Sherman’s statements, these were the ones which really resonated with me:

‘It is the people’s medium…Video is the way people place themselves at events and describe what happened’

‘The technology of video is now as common as a pencil….’

What fascinates me about what Sherman is saying is the democratisation of video – both through the ubiquity of it and the ability and need to be fluent in it, to understand it, to practice it as a means of connecting with today’s world. Everyone has a story to tell, and so video as a decentralised communications tool, has (and will increasingly) become for everyone, everywhere, everyday. It is this aspect I want to focus on, this is my catchphrase, if you like. Everyone, everywhere, everyday. Video is available to everyone, is omnipresent (everywhere), and is more and more familiar (everyday).

In my manifesto, I’ll need to identify why this is revolutionary, important, essential, and how we can work and develop this media to provide us with something more than just, well, video. How we can harness the power of video… what can video do for us?? (Think stories, noise, reflexive, reflexive, reflexive, what can video teach us?)

NB. I was doing it wrong. I started with a picture of what I wanted my manifesto to look like – purely aesthetically focussed – before I had worked out the objectives of the actual manifesto itself. Without the objectives, I couldn’t justify why people (including myself) should believe in it. It looked great in my head (should have been a designer, sigh) but it was a concept, not a call to arms. I realised this, funnily enough, when Adrian told us to find a title. The quest for a title was incredibly difficult – I struggled for ages before I realised that the reason i couldn’t find the title was because i hadn’t worked out the objective…. I’d started in the wrong place.

I’ve worked on this a bit and it is slowly coming together in more recent brainstorms. I found a title, which is a start. Watch this space.