Synchronicity: the blind camera

September 29th, 2007

I joined this presentation on a whim, having overheard that Flickr was somehow involved. At the less techy end of the scale in terms of presentations, Sascha Pohflepp showed us “Between Blinks & Buttons”, his thesis project from the University of the Arts in Berlin, Visual Communications Dept.

Timestamp was the first type of metadata associated to images, introduced by Polaroid in the late 70s, but nowadays quantities of information is saved in the EXIF file associated with each picture.

The greatest change in photography is the way we share images; a billion images are viewed daily on Flickr, yet it only represents 2.5% of the photo uploading market.

Harnessing the power of metadata and the way we share images, Sascha created a blind camera. Unlike a traditional camera, this one has no optical parts. Using the time factor, or synchronicity, the blind camera records the timestamp at which the button is pressed, then searches Flickr for a picture taken at the same time, somewhere else in the world. Within a short time, images are uploaded to Flickr and appear on the screen.

This is particularly interesting here because a mobile phone is used for the screen, and a mobile connection to send the information to Flickr and receive the matching image. Sascha describes it as “Seeing the world happening at once, and creating connections on the sole basis that they happened at the same time”. Fascinating, odd, and refreshing amongst geekier presentations!

Entry Filed under: Talks