RYNSA: WORDS

Lately, I have noticed that there is a significant debate among those in the field of digital storytelling: should we use the latest and greatest technological tools, or whatever is available and useful at the time?  In other words, ‘high’ or ‘low’?

For me this represents a false dichotomy, as is often the case with such stark dualisms of this kind.  Actually, when it comes to digital anything (cameras, computers, whatever) there’s really no such thing as ‘low’ tech.  This is a conceit of privileged, ‘first-world’ artists and activists who have been enjoying regular and consistent access to electricity, leisure time, and thriving new tech markets.

That being said, there is a difference between a $10,000 HD, three-chip digital video camera with XLR inputs, for example, and the disposable, point-and-shoot, cardboard and plastic cameras you can get at an American gas station for twenty bucks.  So, there certainly are useful points to be discussed from both perspectives.

One argument that is made towards using costly, ‘high’ technology in the classroom, community center, or other such environment, is the importance of introducing disenfranchised individuals to otherwise inaccessible state-of-the-art production tools.  This is of value not only for general knowledge of how high quality media, etc., is created and distributed, but also for the psychological affect of encouraging marginal folks to see themselves as within reach of the mainstream production systems.  Sometimes it is enough that people have access, or feel that they have access, to excellence, whether or not it is actually utilized.  According to the professional literature presented to me at the VCA, this ideas is referred to generically as ‘avowal,’ as in the acknowledgment or affirmation of participation or belonging.

On the other side of the debate, some CCD (community cultural development) practitioners prefer to take a decidedly streamlined, DIY approach to media education and digital storytelling.  These professionals (and amateurs, for that matter) see access to production tools as an inherently political issue, and one that cannot be divorced from larger, global economic realities.  They believe that technology, whether low or high, simply does not exist in a vacuum.  Without verging too much into Marxism, current neoliberal, capitalistic, global circumstances require distinct class divisions, wherein some folks have and other do not.  Therefore it is seen by many as a terrible mistake to facilitate the desire on the part of disenfranchised digital storytellers to participate in the mainstream media systems that have consistently sustained their marginality.  The discussion is not about ‘high’ and ‘low’ tech so much as it the political contexts of the human being who use it.

If you couldn’t tell by my writing, I am leaning towards the latter in this game of high-low.  Though I recognize the value of certain psychological impacts to CCD work of this kind, I also understand that we cannot build a movement of informed and engaged, tech and media savvy citizens on good feelings alone.  My belief thus far is that there should also be some meta-level talk around the political and economic context of digital storytelling.  If professionals in the field considered the bigger picture in this way, then I truly believe we could move beyond simplistic, materialistic debates and focus more consciously on the liberating potential of our work.  The people are more important than the tools they use.

So, my answer to the question of using ‘high’ or ‘low’ forms of technology is easy: yes!