The Vital Focus Project

A new form of open source documentary generated by audience interaction with an audiovisual archive.

Background

Vital Focus began in 2001 as a not for profit network of media makers with the objective to produce representational media based on socially and culturally significant happenings. Its purpose was to deliver material to as many mediums, formats and audiences as possible for a truly broadband production. In 2002 Vital Focus produced the first open source documentary of its kind. The archive was collected during the 2002 This Is Not Art (TINA) festival and as a byproduct of the archive a 25-minute audiovisual impression of TINA was produced: Dancing to Architecture (DTA) – a motion picture about TINA. The archive was made available to the public at the same time as the release of its Documentary preview.

Since and largely because of DTA the producer, Kristefan Minski, has been working toward producing a new form of documentary experience. ‘The Vital Focus Project’ is a culmination of 5 years of ideas, notes, experiments, projects, academic research and professional work experience in the realm of the non-fiction audiovisual medium and experimental media art and design.

Abstract

The Vital Focus Project aims to develop a new form of audiovisual documentary and in doing so will produce a valuable software tool for future documentary makers as well as a creative treatment solution for audiovisual archivists. The purpose is to reduce the probability of bias and provide a more truthful and significant documentary experience by removing the filmmaker’s interference with the content and replacing it with the outcomes of audience interaction. The assertion is that the traditional documentary filmmaker is unable to accurately portray certain types of phenomena and therefore a different approach is needed to treat such actualities. Our intention in this documentary project is not to discredit or discount the role of the traditional filmmaker but rather to eliminate them.

Please email us for a the detailed project description.