Of Trees and Clouds. Software-Mediated Visions in Documentary and Ethnographic Filmmaking Practices

Software-based technologies deeply saturate our everyday lives. Consequently, they also influence the ways we see and mediate the world. In fact, the ease and flexibility software provides implies a shift in control. Digital media mediates itself, turning software into a co-author. Yet, the potentials of such a co-authorship are still largely constrained by conventions stemming from the need to run strips of celluloid through a projector.
This book demonstrates how software can retrain filmmakers' visions of the world - from branching trees to the shifting contours of clouds. It does so by ethnographically studying one particular technology, the Korsakow System. The result is a methodology for interrogating established software regimes; a task increasingly in need of anthropological attention.