VideoCulture Project

“VideoCulture” started as an international research project that dealt with possibilities of audiovisual, media creation as a means of intercultural communication. Main goal of the project was to discover possible forms of transcultural audiovisual language in media creation and means of using this language to develop and improve the capabilities of young people in the area of media creation. The project was introduced by research groups in Germany, England, Hungary and in the Czech Republic.

Author of the text: H. Niesyto:
.. this problematic applies mainly to young people. Many contemporary studies come to a conclusion that today’s childhood and adolescence could be described as „medial“. Children and adolescents grow up with media: media becoming an essential part of their everyday lives. For children it’s easier to understand the audiovisual language and to naturally describe their capacities and skills that could be summed up as „media literacy”. These children are as well more playful and more open-minded to media experiments. The goal of the “VideoCulture” project is to explore possible means for developing new forms of media-aesthetic skills among young people. Plans for this creation were prepared in a form that enables comparability of individual working sites in terrain. Each of the creative groups was formed by 5 – 6 young people and had same technical equipment: S-VHS camera, sound registration and digital cutting systems. Each audio-workshop lasted for four days. The material shoot was limited to three minutes. All young participants were working on the same subject matter that is close to the cultural needs of their age group and that could be visualized on a high level without high technical skills. Filming in a professional way was not the goal. Researchers involved in this project were interested in current media literacy of young people in its widest range and limits. Their goal was to observe and register the forms of symbolic representation applied and to analyze the individual video productions and their interpretation“.