Capturing and Archiving Personal Artefacts

RAW–a project of the Human Connectedness group of the now defunct MediaLab Europe– is a set of tools and processes for capturing, in an unconventional way, everyday subjective experience of a place, a culture, a people. RAW is named for the raw data gathered that purposefully remain unedited throughout the processes. The combined characteristics of RAW (including an emphasis on context of use, non-edition, and data presentation) make this concept a novel approach to authorship, to cultural exchanges, to audiovisual language, and to documentation.

At its core, RAW is an audiovisual recording device that combines a digital camera and audio recorder. Taking a picture triggers the recording of the sound a minute before and a minute after it. The relationship created between sound and image forms a disjoint flow and opens a new field of audiovisual expression. These previously uncaptured moments in time can be kept as personal artefacts and archived for human studies. The collected, unedited data will also be explored in a daring way within public interactive installations.

While RAW can address different intentions, its primary application is to be at the disposal of individuals in a series of social and cultural contexts. Specifically, its use in the African country of Mali has driven the research and development of the project.