RAW: Conveying minimally-mediated impressions of everyday life with an audio-photographic tool

This paper traces the development of RAW, a system combining a tool and a process for capturing and conveying audiovisual impressions of everyday life, The project aims to enable a relationship between the user of the tool and an audience in a different place or time with an absolute minimum of editorial mediation by a third party. The tool itself incorporates a digital camera and a binaural audio recording device that captures the minute of sound before and after a picture is taken. To inform the design process, we tested prototypes in a progression of three studies within different cultural contexts in Ireland, France, and Mali. We present the results of these experiences, in which we observed among our participants an emerging set of ways of exploiting the tool for different purposes: social glances, depictions of activities, active documentation, and intentional discourses. We also discuss more generally the advantages and pitfalls of multicultural analyses of prototype technologies like the one we undertook.