MyI presents a collaborative-collective front page based on the concept that the accumulation of constantly updating unedited images from a multitude of viewpoints most accurately depicts contemporary society and events.
An app that allows users to instantaneously upload media from handheld devices to the Internet, MyI builds on the use of ubiquitous photography in modern technology as a key motivator and communicator for activism and information. As witnessed during movements in the Middle East, the Arab Spring became possible because people could send images or video directly to any server. While the primary media/news distribution models are often filtered, censored, and biased, the citizen’s voice arrived unedited and built through mass participation and raw exposure. The public is no longer confined to a verbal or textual narrative attached to images by distributing media conglomerates.
Does the same approach apply to a collective consciousness in photography today? When interpreting a large breadth of images, it is easier to grasp the complexity of the public voice when orchestrated by many perspectives. This method of presentation facilitates the ability to develop new interpretations. Pictorially, a shift from previous hi-res standards to reliability in low-res sources is seen. Hyper-real or polished images are synonymous with selective image manipulation; therefore, mobile devices offer a visual immediacy associated with un-doctored documentation.
The app enables participants to link their Android or iPhone camera to a central server, their Flikr page, and/or personal website to simultaneously stream each new photograph. The photographs are automatically taken at a continuous rate of one image per minute. The MyI website is the central server where images can be experienced as the collaborative-collective stream. The simple, yet dynamic site, sorted images in accordance to their time. The hope is to establish uncensored access for everyone to communicate their experiences to the world.
Android MyI Mobile App
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.shawnlawson.MyI
iOS MyI Mobile App
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/myi-mobile/id460837227?mt=8