A few weeks back, i stumbled upon an interesting post by Saurabh Sharma. The post centered around making the point that increasingly, people were recording mass events from their POV along with the media highlighting a 2 way (or 3 way rather) communication paradigm.
Case in point, the recently concluded Beijing Olympics where there was a 'ubiquity of cameras, video recording devices, and mobile phones as the teams starting marching in.' With the prevelance of communication devices this is bound to happen since every individual wants to view an event as a 'piece of me' scenario along with the mass media scenario.
(Further fuelling this self recording spree is the fact that there are a multiplicity of social media vehicles to showcase these seemingly 'personal' moments and gain another step on the social ladder - but thats another post altogether - must add here; saw an interesting Album Title the other day - "What happens in New York.. goes on Facebook!")
Saurabh seems to be making the point that Every performance now seems to be turning into a two way show, that which is being watched and that which is being watched by those who are being watched. I think its safe to add here that its actually also being watched by the peers of those who are being watched themselves. He also noticed that people are choosing to record as much as they choose to experience the moment. He asks the question - is this a new behavior or is this something we always wanted to do but never had the tools?
I dont know if i can answer the question on a general level but on a personal level, i think recording less is a habit that has been 'learned' by me by becoming familiar with recording technology. I went to Kashmir and recorded 4 - 90 minute tapes and i will never see them again. I lost out on defining moments. Humans enjoy films and that tells me that we typically don't like to see more repetition of the same thing. We like to see less of more if you know what i mean. With new recording technologies maybe we try and capture as much as we can till we realize that we probably can't cherish it. More like the classic case of over - eating na? Or the kid who put his hand in a jar full of sweets and could never get it out.
What do you think?
The thought of multiple cameras also brings to mind a possible business model. Live streaming of events through multiple eyes using crawlers (and also bandwidth) that are probably twice as efficient as we know them today? Or to start off - just a timeline led amalgamation of multimedia content with the same tags to experience an event once its over. To the same, Saurabh adds - you could also provide a service that helps people learn the art of shooting and the joy of experiencing. Something like the recording basics, say "do not just look at the world through the lens". Or experience first, carry home later.
Do add your take on the possiblility of business models that can arise as a result of this multiple documentation.
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