Tate Encounters

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Background to use of visual ethnography within the project

Given that the questions being undertaken by Tate Encounters largely concern visual culture and subjective experience, Visual Anthropology was deemed by the research team to be an appropriate discipline through which to conduct research into the subjective experiences of the participants in the gallery and in their lived experience. This video essay seeks to outline some of the various ways in which visual ethnography (specifically using video) is being used as a methodology to document data, to generate data and to facilitate reflexivity among participants and the research team in the Tate Encounters project. It is meant to illustrate my starting points, which open to a set of ideas and are part of a larger open process which will be worked into a future paper.

Uses of video in the Tate Encounters Ethnography

The video camera has been a consistent presence from the beginning of the project, and has now expanded into various researchers' tool kits for a variety of purposes. While video has been used often to simply record the workshop series to create a resource and archive for when we move towards the analysis stage of the project, it has also been used in my ethnography in more active and interactive ways – the videoed moment becoming a site of fieldwork in itself, as '...ethnographic knowledge does not necessarily exist as observable facts...[it] is better understood as originating from fieldwork experiences.' (Pink 2007: 98). Participants are also utilising the video function on the mobile phones we have distributed as tools to document their encounter, and though the image and audio quality is relatively poor, it is an non-intrusive tool that can be carried around as one of their everyday accessories. However, it has been noted that so far digital photographs have been the preferred medium of documentation by participants. This is perhaps due to a perceived notion that 'video' is a specialist skill compared to the ubiquity of camera phone photography. That is, it is easier for a mobile phone video than a mobile phone photograph to 'look bad'.

Seeing and being seen

In a couple of cases participants have used my video camera during visits to the gallery and the surroundings of Tate. In Toksy's case, his professional identity as a film maker meant he was interested in encountering the gallery in this way, and having the lens turned on me allowed me to better understand the experience of being videoed and how it affects one's 'performance'. Laura also filmed me with participants in the gallery. In her case it happened spontaneously, and resulted in the footage below of Deep's encounter with Edward Burne-Jones’ The Sleep of Arthur in Avalon. It is interesting for us to have the visual perspective of that moment from a participant who has not been trained at all in video use and she managed to capture the moment in a way that included all the interactions going on with an attention to detail and the weaving of an almost seamless narrative that was effectively edited in camera. Through doing this she was able to better understand what it is like for me to video impromptu encounters in the gallery.

A networked ethnography

The advantages of using video in our research are many. On a basic level, at the stage of 'production' my fieldwork site is a fast moving city and I am conducting research with participants who are 'on the move' and short of time. As such it is essential that I am an ethnographer 'on the move' (I can regularly be seen coming in and out of Tate and LSBU with a wheely hold-all, which alas is not full of holiday clothes, but video equipment) and flexible as to where I can record, reflect upon and edit audiovisual material. As such, in terms of participant observation, I am learning to, like the participants, evolve a kind of 'seeing on the move' (Dibosa 2008) which is recorded by and emerges from the video footage. In addition, this mobility and the accessibility of the medium means that audiovisual information can be shared easily with the research team and the participants to encourage dialogue and reflection. Many different kinds of media, such as digital (or digitised) photographs, YouTube videos, web pages, music, audio recordings, and participants' interactions with them can be recorded, and at the stage of 'post-production' of ethnographic video, these media can also be incorporated. Life is a journey that involves all the senses, and video can go at least some way towards engaging with that reality. With the research project's emphasis on process it is an effective medium with which to cohere various elements of research and experience occurring in different times and spaces.

The positioning of video within lifeworlds

The presence of the video camera also allows us to be reflexive about performativity and the different identities that we assume and relationships we develop in changing contexts. The ways in which participants and researchers respond and interact with the video camera also indicate different agendas regarding video technology and recordings, and the way in which video as a medium is situated in their lived experience. For example, in the clip below where Deep Rajput takes us on a tour down Neal Street to one of his favourite stores, Forbidden Planet, he is performing to the camera much like a TV presenter would, and in fact subverts my role as interviewer on the impromptu arrival of the artist we had gone to see, by becoming the interviewer himself. In a different context, such as his life story interview, he was much more reflexive. In another context again, such as in the gallery, he was happy to be filmed in an 'observational' style, interacting with the space and the artwork, and other participants. I am also constantly changing my identity and my relationship with the camera – not only at the stage of shooting footage but also when editing. My role is shaped by how the participant relates to me and to the camera, but must also be guided by the research agenda whilst allowing the participants to experience their encounters on their own terms.

Methodology

The nature of doing fieldwork in a fast paced city with large, or at least time consuming distances between possible fieldwork 'sites', and more importantly with participants who are limited in the time they can give me, is that on occasion I will not have the opportunity to meet with a participant for some time, while at other times, I may be meeting with several quite frequently. As such there are always several strands of multi-sited ethnography running concurrently which converge and diverge at different points in time. This methodology - an ‘ethnography on the move’ - is much more suited to the way people are living those life stories which I am attempting to understand. An urban ethnography demands a different modality which is reflective of the lives people lead. Employing such a modality, the ethnographer can co-evolve, with the participants, a way of seeing -, and being-in-the-world.

One of the principal elements of my Tate Encounters visual ethnography is the video interview. Over the period of participation, I am conducting at least three interviews with each participant: The first is an 'Entry Interview' conducted soon after the participants join the project – a life story interview concerning who the participant is and what 'cultural baggage' they are bringing to their encounter (though of course this information continues to emerge throughout the project in both formal and informal discussions). The second interview is a 'Lived Experience' interview and focuses on what the participants' lifeworlds comprise and how they are negotiated and navigated. This takes place within the home or somewhere 'out in the world' that is not the gallery. The final interview will take place in the gallery and will address how their life story and their lifeworld relate to the collection, space and politics of Tate Britain and how this has been played out through their sustained Tate Encounter.

In addition, for some of the participants the ethnographies include their families, in order to examine how generation and gender impacts on the experience and creation of visual culture. While time is too limited to conduct a deep ethnography, where possible I shall be trying to conduct these three types of interview with three generations of the participants' families.

Although the three types of interview outlined above are distinct from one another, the information emerging from them is also related to and reflected upon in the workshops and in individual meetings over the course of the project. As such it is possible to make connections between moments, and for certain encounters to inform others. Prolonged fieldwork of this kind facilitates the emergence of moments – sometimes visual – and thus video becomes a medium not just to record data, but through which ethnographic knowledge is created.