Directed Study Journal - February 28, 2018
This week was mainly about:
- identifying communities for interviews and partnerships
- drafting letters to request interviews
- starting to shoot short interviews with members of the community
I'd been finding it a challenge for my project to define the right organizational partner and went into my process meeting with questions about which organizations would be best suited to help with this thesis. In some cases I had identified groups that would be helpful from an activist and advocacy standpoint: the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, for instance. I'd also selected some academic organizations with the Berkman Klein Center and MIT Media Lab as top choices. Some research groups like the Platform Cooperativism group and Data & Society were also tagged. Finally, some organizations that focus on media were selected: Art Not War and Brave New Films were the front-runners there. None of these organizations, however deeply invested in this space they are, seemed a complete fit and so I approached the meeting with some reservations that any of them would prove to be right for the project. After some discussion, it was decided that my project didn't necessarily fit the prescription for a single organizational partner and that it would be fine to move forward with several of these groups and that they may all supply research assistance or interviews and be helpful in some way. This was a relief and I agreed that this was the best course of action. I was now free to start framing the piece and start to draft letters to request interviews from some of these orgs.
I began drafting letters and over the course of that time continued to collect and read research sources. In doing this, I discovered a business called "Wibson," a Silicon Valley company developing blockchain and app tech for data collection and monetization. As this was an early idea I had considered, I joined their site and looked into their mission. This organization is fairly new and were set to launch in Barcelona at the end of the coming week. They have developed a system (although it isn't clear to what stage they've reached) that seems akin to a data marketplace and a companion app prototype to go along with it. They are focused on enabling individuals to profit from data sales which I believe poses some deep problems going forward so I decided to reach out and request an interview when they return from Barcelona. Hopefully, they'll agree. I'd like to ask them some detailed questions about how they see the ecosystem developing and how much they think the market will grow, Interesting stuff even if I think it's a little unsustainable.
Finally, I've begun to do some actually interviews with some of community members. Thus far I have time set aside to interview a data rich/cash poor high school junior, some tech savvy twenty-something creative professionals and some older folks for whom data justice and economics are a foreign concept. I'm also formulating some questions for dome "speed interviews" I hope to hold at Emerson soon. I'd like to get these questions as buttoned down as possible as I don't want any of the footage to be of limited use. Completing these interviews now will leave some time for the academic/advocacy/research groups to get back to me with responses to my interview requests so I can build the schedule for those.
Before I sign off, I've also done a few camera tests and have defined a setup to use for the process. It will be a multi-camera shoot at 24p as I believe it will with live either online or be part of the longer cinematic piece I'll complete later. This week also featured quite a lot of paperwork to complete my financial requirements for Salzburg and FAFSA documents for what I hope will be the 18/19 MFA program. Coupled with the Scripps/Discovery merger closing and my ongoing war with the EZ Pass folks, the fact that I got little sleep isn't particularly shocking. Over the break I plan to start assembling the opening few minutes of the film to show at the presentation the Wednesday after we return. Very busy times but on track to meet deadlines.