Camera as Cultural Critique: Trancultural Dialogue in a Digitized World

"Cross-cultural understanding is a major challenge in a world characterized by increasing global interdependence but also by deepening ethnic, religious, and national divides. Participatory forms of research that employ audiovisual media provide an important but still underexploited resource for dealing with this challenge. This project aims to develop audiovisual and participatory research practices to enhance cross-cultural communication as well as cultural critique, since we assume that transcultural dialogues are driven by and stimulate cultural reflection and self-critique. Our central hypothesis is that audiovisual means of inquiry afford ways of dealing with the immediacy of social life that avoid the tendency of much social analysis to accept premature conceptual closure and temporal reduction. In a contemporary world saturated with audiovisual and digital media, this project explores how platforms for transcultural dialogue and critique can be established by using digital social media, visualization through photo and film, and interactive exhibitions" (Quote: description from research project web page)