Lifemirror:collective cinematic thoughts

Online crowdsourced art has received little attention from researchers or art historians [1] and online crowdsourced film perhaps even less. When Giles Deleuze began the first ontology of film image in his ‘cinema books’, he proposed the medium to be ‘a producer of ideas’ [2]. Through this lens, crowdsourced filmmaking promises to ask new questions on the evolution of the image. Due to the advancement of digital technology, instant and networked film-based media is destined to bypass traditional production and distribution systems. As recording acts become increasingly intimate through mobile phones and wearable technology, it is possible that camera use will emerge as something close to an expression of thought. This suggests a need to reevaluate the flow of user- generated media and investigate the behaviors of a camera- connected community. The Lifemirror project has been initiated to enable the creation and deconstruction of an unedited crowdsourced film image, the analysis of which might open questions of design and meaning in mobile video practices. Borrowing Gregory Ulmer’s words in his preface to Teletheory (2004), ‘My goal within this process is not to explain video, but to think with it’ [3]