Natasha Beattie

Mondovision is also doing a location based online doco – here are some of my thoughts…

We Are Where We Live?
Location based communities exist in a very ‘real’ sense and certainly are significant part of how we define ourselves. ‘Where do you live?’ like ‘What do you do for a living?’ are questions asked as ways to get to know each other. Why is this? Do particular areas gain particular identities which are then say something about the people that live in them? Or do similar types of people live in certain areas which then comes to define the area? 

Representative Democracy.

Location based communities exist in a very ‘real’ sense and certainly are significant part of how we define ourselves. ‘Where do you live?’ like ‘What do you do for a living?’ are questions asked as ways to get to know each other. Why is this? Do particular areas gain particular identities which are then say something about the people that live in them? Or do similar types of people live in certain areas which then comes to define the area? Our layers of government are in a sense based on the idea that location based communities exist. We elect representatives for federal, state and local parliments based on geography. Our cost of living is even affected by where we live – just consider the vast differences in housing and grocery costs even within the Melbourne metropolitan area. It can even affect our personal safety and likelihood of losing possesions to a home invader.

That’s Nationstate Not Nationmate…

These ideas are particularly pertinent when viewed in a global context. It is very clear that our quality of life and identity is largely determined by where we live. Will the nationstate eventually be transcended? The idea of global community takes on a utopian hue when consideration is given to how many problems could be solved. Manuel Castell’s argues that:

In my empirical investigation I have found identity-based social movements aimed at changing the cultural foundations of society to be the essential sources of social change in the information age…[s]ome movements, that appear to be the most fruitful and positive, are proactive, such as feminism and environmentalism. Some are reactive, as in the communal resistances to globalization built around religion, nation, territory, or ethinicity. But in all cases they affirm the preeminence of experience over instrumentality, of meaning over function, and, I would dare to say, of use value of life over exchange value in the networks. (Castells:1996, pp 409 -10).

So perhaps the key question as we enter a new era of human evolution is the same one that humans have always grappled with – who are we and how do we live together?

Castells, Manuel (1996). “An Introduction to the information age”, reprinted in The Media Reader: Continuity and Transformation. Edited by Hugh Mackay and Tim O’Sullivan London: Sage, pages 398-410 (Originally an address to the Conference on Information and the City, Oxford, 1996).

Making Global Connections With Online Documentary.

Situating the online documentary within a global context is not something that had occurred to me until I read Lynchmob’s post about his psytrance community. He has not only succeeded in documenting the local scene, and communicating a sense of identity, he has also provided links to global communities and to music creative commons.

Private Space and Public Blogs.

This approach seems to embody most of the key elements of the Transient Spaces learning outcomes in a very precise and insightful way. I will endeavour to similarly investigate sites and docos that share the preoccupations of mine. As my community is location specific ie my unit block , it should be quite easy to find other bloggers who document their immediate environments. In fact, further personalising my documentary may provide a way for me to reflect upon the act of blogging and on the process of making private spaces publically accessible.

Specificity and/or Avatar? 

As the act of representing is in itself an act of creating, the authenticity of any one point of view isn’t necessarily accurate. I can definately incorporate this idea into my online doco and perhaps try and make a broader statement about urban isolation. Although intially I was attempting to document the diverse types of people living in the block – in a social documentary way – not enough people have agreed to participate to make it interesting. And of those that have agreed, not all are comfortable about being online.

The Names Will Be Changed…

Consequently, and given the direction that my subsequent research has taken, I will focus on modes of communication. I will profile four tenants and look at the ways in which intersecting lives affect each other. I will also look at modes of communication as this may be a way of arguing that online communities – because of the potential for anonymity and the different codes of etiquette – can complement and strengthen real world communities.