Digital Vulnerability V1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Digital Technology and Human Vulnerability: Towards an Ethical Film Praxis
IRAS ID
183493
Contact name
Michele Aaron
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Birmingham
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 0 days
Research summary
In making or watching film, we are confronted with and asked to position ourselves in relation to the acts and needs, and even joy and suffering, of others. We are required to feel in relation to them, and to care about what happens to them. Film is, in this way, an inherently ethical medium: it creates a relationship, an ‘encounter’, between the various parties involved and one rooted in their different positions of power and privilege. When the film that is being made, or watched, is about pain or vulnerability, this ethical dynamic becomes especially evident (and its potential effects especially potent). Digital technologies intensify this dynamic further – e.g. lightweight, unobtrusive, easy-use cameras can increase intimacy and immediacy, and the Internet’s capacities for sharing content extends its potential reach – but little research has been done in this area.
This research explores how the use of digital technologies transforms our engagement with, understandings of, and response to human vulnerability and, in particular, terminal illness. It does this through a filmmaking project with users of the John Taylor Hospice (JTH) in Erdington, Birmingham. Over 4 months, filmmaker Saxon (CI) will provide practical and creative training, and Aaron (PI) critical understandings, to enable participants to make their own films. The research team’s monthly meetings will review the issues arising for and from participants, such as creative, physical and ethical challenges. At the end of the project, the films made will form part of a local exhibition. Working with the Art therapy and wellbeing team at the hospice, the project will provide potential therapeutic benefits for the participants but will have enduring impact, for all stakeholders, through the digital spaces – the website and exhibition – that will be developed as part of the research and will bring its outcomes to wider and new audiences.
REC name
Wales REC 1
REC reference
15/WA/0434
Date of REC Opinion
4 Dec 2015
REC opinion
Unfavourable Opinion