Identify”-Ing a New Way of Seeing Amateurs, Moblogs, and Practices in Mobile Imaging

HEIDI RAE COOLEY “Identify”-ing A New Way of Seeing Amateurs, Moblogs, and Practices in Mobile Imaging Metal filings? Ice crystals on a bathroom window? A passing Tyrannosaurus rex? In November 2002, web designer Adam and a place via his/her MSD provide access Greenfield, coined the term ‘moblogging’.1 to not only a person’s running commentary Derived from ‘mobile’ and ‘weblog’, regarding his/her daily interactions but also, ‘moblogging’ indicated a shift, the emergence and more important to this essay, images that of a distinctive trend in weblogging (also correspond to the way s/he sees the world known as blogging), a form of electronic around him/her.4 journaling on the internet in which a person A particular moblog of interest is “Identify logs his/her thoughts and provides links to Game” located at the Textamerica website other sites to which others can respond and (identify.textamerica.com). Like the other contribute. The prefix ‘mo-’, an abbreviation moblogs hosted by Textamerica (as well as of ‘mobile’, redefined the character of other moblogs on the web), “Identify Game” blog journaling as it had been practiced posts images uploaded from MSDs and previously.2 Whereas blogging required a invites comments, or in the case of “Identify stationary point of access to the web, usually Game,” guesses, from visitors about the a desktop computer, moblogging happens images. However, the images posted to on-the-go. With mobile screenic device “Identify Game” are substantially different (MSD)—such as a camera phone or PDA with from the majority of those posted to other imaging capabilities—in hand, one can move moblogs; they demonstrate a particular about the city or other places and “post [his/ and extreme example of the imaging that her] experiences, narratively and visually, on MSDs foster. Typical images that appear on a shared message board.”3 Crucial to this ordinary moblogs are of smiles and grimaces activity is the ability to upload information of friends, family and passers-by, the leisurely from a MSD to a website, which means that reclining pet peering through lazy eyes, any place is a possible site of transmission even the orchestration and color of various of text and image. The moblogs that grow food items at a restaurant or on a local fruit out of such engagements between a person stand. These are framed images that provide Rethinking the Amateur: Acts of Media Production in the Digital Age 65 Broderick Fox, editor, Spectator 24:1 (Spring 2004) 65-79. “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING a context to which can be ascribed a meaning related to issues of the amateur, past amateur or interpretation: they function through their practice , and new (amateur) technologies? In legibility. As such, they are images that what ways do these images require that we are reminiscent of (although not the same revise our conceptions about documents and as) amateur tourist photos, snapped in the documentation? Finally, how might we come moment of ephemeral pleasures, to be read to understand such images as indications of a at a later time. Unlike these views of the new way of seeing? This article is envisioned everyday that appear on ordinary moblogs, as an initial response to these questions, and what appears on “Identify Game” are sundry it is an invitation for further conversation glimpses of everyday objects—images that regarding the very peculiar images that are relatively illegible. By ‘glimpses’ I mean appear on “Identify Game” and in less partial views, or what, in cinematic terms, concentrated form on other moblogs on the might be considered extreme close-ups or web. canted angles of ordinary things.5 In fact, the moblog’s invocation to post explicitly requests The Amateur and Mobile Screenic Devices such images; its description line reading, (MSDs) “Send an abstract picture of a common object and see if anyone can guess what it is.” The Since MSD imaging is a practice of presumably point of the game is to see playfully, i.e., to everyday people, it seems appropriate in image the ordinary in ways that surprise and, their contemplation and theorization, to thereby, trouble reading, as can be seen in turn to considerations of the amateur.6 In the numerous attempts made by site visitors fact, the term ‘amateur’ surfaces periodically to identify the images. In response, people in relation to discussions about MSDs and with mobile picture phones and PDAs with the images they produce. Usually such imaging capabilities regularly post images of discussions refer to the ways in which MSDs hardly recognizable items that they happen serve as devices for news reportage (e.g., upon during the course of the day. The providing real-time images of natural disasters images that have been posted thus far tend and traffic conditions), as well as the fact that to be of the unusual details of things; they are they multiply the promise of amateur video images of textures and peculiarities, surfaces as a tool for activism and ‘new surveillance’ and flaws, obscure angles and distortions. (e.g., circulating images of political What is significant about this phenomenon, upheavals; making visible what authorized as it materializes on “Identify Game,” is that it accounts might conceal); less frequently, they invites us to (re)consider established notions align MSDs with individual creativity and of and expectations for imaging, which may artistic expression and, therefore, amateur still be informed largely by assumptions that photography (e.g., capturing the red glow of privilege the aesthetics of print photography, a sunset).7 Certainly, MSD imaging practices in which legibility is fundamental. A site such may, in fact, replicate those aligned with as “Identify Game,” then, demands that we amateur video and photography, which tend engage images differently and, by extension, to involve preserving a personal, or at least approach them with their specificities in a personalized, view of some thing, event, mind. As such, it calls upon us to think about or person. However, the analogies that are the people who take and post these images constructed as a result may be misleading, for and the technologies with which they do so. these devices and the ways in which they are Likewise, it asks us to attend to the implications used do not so much reinforce former notions of such activities. Perhaps the following of amateurism as open them up. questions provide a point of departure for Historically, notions of amateurism such considerations: How might the imaging have operated in tandem with those of practices, as exhibited on “Identify Game,” be professionalism. As Patricia R. Zimmermann 66 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY A sample round of Identify Game posted on 3/21/04 by user “jaybudder.” RETHINKING THE AMATEUR 67 “IDENTIFY”-ING A NEW WAY OF SEEING indicates, amateurism and professionalism into the professional sphere—but only to the are categories that function symbiotically to extent that the containment of the amateur perpetuate social relations determined by is effectively achieved. That is, the amateur capitalism.8 Within this system, the amateur, never (completely) disrupts the conventional coincident with leisure and the private, is codes that govern and perpetuate the set in opposition to the professional, aligned dominant mode of representation. with work (i.e., wage-labor) and the public. But MSDs trouble the structuring binaries The individual as amateur engages his/her that inform conventional notions of the activities during leisure time and often within amateur. Insofar as they have Multimedia the context of or in relation to the nuclear Messaging Service (MMS) capabilities that family.9 The nuclear family simultaneously allow images to be sent from mobile phone provides a place of refuge from the demands or PDA to friends and family (i.e., their and divisiveness of the public sphere and mobile phones and e-inboxes) or uploaded functions as a site of containment, whereby to moblogs, MSDs invite people to engage the freedom and expression ascribed to the in imaging at all times of the day, in and amateur as individual are re-routed. from any location whatsoever. As such, Camera in hand, the amateur records key they problematize the categorizing binaries images that will ensure ‘good’ memories, of work/play and public/private. Leisure images which, as Michelle Citron enumerates, time, a function of play and private, does include “having fun on vacation, children not operate to describe and domesticate the with animals, families that play or celebrate imaging that MSDs produce; the pretense together.”10 In the process, s/he reproduces of hobby (which emerges as an articulation expected narratives, which never pose any of play and private) no longer disguises the challenge to the expertise, rationalization and processes of socializing at work in amateur control of the professional, corporate sphere. activities. At the same time, commercial discourse Additionally, the boundary between promotes ever improving professional-quality professional and amateur is dismantled. technologies to amateurs, whose footage will Professional does not exist in direct potentially be purchased by news stations or opposition to amateur; instead, the line shown on television shows such as America’s delineating the two has been blurred. Those Funniest Home Videos. Here, the amateur is who participate in imaging with MSDs are professionalized (though not professional); hyphenated: amateur-professionals and s/he produces footage that is incorporated professional-amateurs. Now the professional 68 SPRING 2004 HEIDI RAE COOLEY includes everyday business people such requires a return to the site of undoing, where as real estate agents, construction workers, the categories of amateur and professional salespeople of various kinds, as well as dissolve. What remains is a commonality surgeons and emergency medical technicians, of practice: the imaging that typifies MSD all of whom use MSDs for purposes of use is informed by a will or desire to clarification, demonstration, verification and document.

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