The document discusses the evolution of telepresence technology and its implications for documentary-making, highlighting how platforms like Skype enable emotional and time control in communication. It explores the intersection of live performance and documentary, asserting that real-time interactions can enhance narrative engagement while preserving core documentary impulses. The text poses questions about the future of live documentaries, urging the integration of emotional narratives to foster deeper audience connection.

1. Live Documentary
CMS Masters Thesis in
Progress

2. The New Telepresence

3. “Skype, which was the fantasy of our
childhood, gets you back to sitting there
and being available in that old-fashioned
way. Our model of what it
was to be present to each other, we
thought we liked that… But it turns out
that time shifting is our most valued
product. This new technology is about
control. Emotional control and time
control.”
Sherry Turkle
(Call Me! But Not On
Skype or Any Other Video
Chat…, TIME, Jan. 2010)

4. In 2012, artist John Clang created a series of Skype family photos capturing distant family members in a single
portrait by projecting “Skyped in” individuals into their loved ones’ physical space. It is a vision of telepresence as
it was originally theorized, creating the feeling of being-at-a-distance.
Being Together photo project

5. “The mission of the Web Real-Time
Communications Working Group,
part of the Ubiquitous Web
Applications Activity, is to define
client-side APIs to enable Real-Time
Communications in Web Browsers.”
“These APIs should enable building applications that can be
run inside a browser, requiring no extra downloads or plugins,
that allow communication between parties using audio, video
and supplementary real-time communication, without having
to use intervening servers…”

6. Research Snapshot Spring 2013: A Word Cloud Apologia
And then…

7. OMG: I’m interested in this topic for the same
reason I’m interested in documentary
(What if I combine them? Can you do that?)

8. Research Focus: Live Documentary
Live Performance
Live
Subject
Example project: Elaine
Live-streaming
Live Subject

9. What is a documentary?
Walter Cronkite announces the death of
LBJ after taking a call with the White
House Press Secretary on the air

10. What is a documentary?
What are the impulses
of the documentary
genre that endure?
How do you remediate
them for the web?
What are the web
affordances that can
strengthen the documentary
impulse?

11. LIVE PERFORMANCE
Sam Green:
Utopia in Four
Movements
The Love Song of R.
Buckminster Fuller
Taking documentary
back into the theater
as semi-performed
and semi-constructed,
a new node of early
cinematic practices
MAPPING
THE
FIELD

12. LIVE DATA
Jonathan Harris & Sep Kamvar: We Feel Fine
MAPPING
THE
FIELD

13. MAPPING
Sam Gregory
CoPresence4Good Initiative
Documentary Witnessing  Real Time Witnessing
THE
FIELD
LIVE STREAMING

14. Bear71, National Film Board of Canada
Presence in Story:
User as Live Video
Avatar
A Reflection of
Content: Tracking,
Tagging,
Surveillance
MAPPING
THE
FIELD
LIVE STREAMING

15. Elaine McMillion, Hollow
MAPPING
THE
FIELD
“LIVE” SUBJECT?

16. LIVE TWO-WAY INTERACTION
in DOCUMENTARY
MY NECK OF THE WOODS: A time-limited live documentary
MAPPING
THE
FIELD
Unidirectional live-streams  Live two-way conversation between viewer & subject

17. What’s at stake?
Homophily & “Flocking” Online
Can we use narratives to entice
people to meaningfully engage
outside the flock?
Potential formula:
Emotional propulsion through
narrative
Orchestrated moments of free
communication through
‘liveness’ tech
A new route for documentary to
the longstanding vision of
impact

18. Get in Touch
jfische2@mit.edu
@jufisch
SKYPE: JuFisch1222