Spatial Representation on YouTube

September 20, 2007

One of the coolest theoretical aspects of the Internet is its opening up of new ways to represent and annotate places. Just a few weeks ago I caught an NPR discussion on the new digital atlas that is arising from social networking sites. Maps are interactive and annotated with personal memories.. but the aggregate of these personal memories seems sometimes to be on the verge of becoming a great democratic atlas.

Video (sometimes linked with other media) is another way to represent places. Video has been around forever.. so that is obviously not new.. but distribution mediums such as YouTube allows for a whole new aproach to film. I want to comment on two approaches to place that could never have existed without the Internet.

This video entitled "Where the Hell is Matt" hardly needs any publicity. Over 7 million viewers watched it before me! It is a really fun 3:42.. so I recommend that everyone give it a view. The Matt that dances at tourist sites all over the world was a video game designer who quit his job and traveled around the world. In an interview also posted on YouTube Matt explains that after finishing high school he worked at a video game store.. a job which turned into a work for a video magazine.. and then at 19 he switched to a job designing video games. At 26 he quit that and with his savings took off on a trip around the world.

The sense of wonder in the video is captivating.. but the video (this one and others) makes no attempt to interpret what is in front of the camera, it simply records Matt's presence at various places. It can be thought of as an animated succession of traditional postcards. Many a traveler has sent back home a series of such postcards.. and this video captures perfectly that tourist pleasure in postcard scenes. Just like those postcards, this video lacks any context and any suggestion of the work necessary to understand a culture.

This video from The Daily English Show takes us along on a road trip to New Denver, British Columbia. The calm voiceover from Sarah allows us to follow the trip with ease. Even though she and a friend are hitchhiking, she is able to get footage through the car window.. and at least one driver pulls over at different places so that she can take pictures. Step by step she documents her progress and then gives well chosen views of the small towns in which she finds herself. I would say that this is the most successful video travelogue I have yet seen.

Part of its success as a travelogue may stem from the fact that the central idea of The Daily English Show is to provide (almost) daily clips of people speaking English.. with a view to helping viewers learn English. This practical concern with language makes for a cool willingness to talk about small daily matters.. and that in turn makes the video much better than a succession of postcard views. It becomes a video guide to an area that is off the beaten track. What is it like to travel through this region of the world? What sorts of things does one see while traveling? Those are questions answered by this documenting video. I wish Sarah would do more of these travelogues..