Myriam Thyes, Zurich Video Tags, 2012-2014, a participatory art project by and for Zurich residents.

Zurich Video Tags

2012 - 2014Participatory project, videos in location-based app. Unfinished.

A participatory art project by and for Zurich residents. A moving, living map of Zurich was created from personal videos. Zürich Video Tags was a ‘virtual treasure hunt’ that invited smartphone users to

  • find small personal and site-specific works of art
  • become producers of their own artistic content
  • send themselves and friends on a journey through Zurich

Each individual has a subjective view of their own living and working environment. Everyone has personal relationships to certain places, buildings, objects and landscapes. These relationships to such places, some of which are psychological, some of which are intrusive, were activated and made more conscious through the artistic work with them. Users see/hear views of various Zurich residents from different parts of the city. Thinking in images and symbols was linked to spatial and social reality. The ZHVideoTags app (see below) invited users to search for videos in and around Zurich, as well as to create and contribute a new video themselves.

Definition of “Zurich” in this project: city, agglomeration and surrounding municipalities. Definition of “Zurcher*in”: everyone living in this area, regardless of origin + nationality.

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The ZHVideoTags app

The smartphone is a navigator through everyday life. It is used for information, communication, trading/buying and playing – on the move and in relation to the user’s location. A smartphone is designed for the ACTION of its users. Zurich Video-Tags added a level of REFLECTION – observation from the outside (environment) and inside (imagination).

Smartphone apps are usually prefabricated by providers in terms of content and aesthetics and are unchangeable. Zürich Video-Tags called on users to enrich this app, to fill it with their own content and moving images. CREATION was added to ACTION and REFLECTION. That’s why it was important that you couldn’t just upload something (e.g. a cell phone photo) and not just interact with the machine. Instead, each participant put together visual/textual objects, created a video and made it available to the project. This required to engage with the topic. It was also about combining the short–sighted view of the smartphone with the long–sighted view of the surroundings: Anyone who has watched a video will also explore the place it describes in moving images with new eyes.

The ZHVideoTags app was specially developed for the project by software engineer ANDREA GRÖSSBAUER in Zurich. It was ad–free and free of charge and contained the videos, a map with the video locations, all the information about the project and an invitation to get in touch and take part.

 

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