Home Truths? Video Production and Domestic Life * Video Cultures: Media Technology and Everyday Creativity

Abstract

On the cover of Home Truths? we see a stock photo of a young girl gazing intently at the screen of a hand-held camcorder. The image is entitled ‘Young videomaker’, so we can assume that she is replaying footage recently recorded with a camera. It is fitting that a child is shown on the cover page of this book, as children appear within the text not simply as objects of the camera's gaze but as key users of video technology. There is a sense of awe and wonderment in the girl's stare which signals the magic of video replay and the alluring qualities, experienced by so many, of the camera's screen. The girl on the cover of Home Truths? represents just one of a number of different groups who enjoy the pleasures offered by videomaking. This book, along with Video Cultures, documents the findings of the AHRC-funded research project ‘Camcorder Cultures: Media, Technology and Everyday Creativity’ (2005–08), which was the first major assessment of the diverse range of videomaking practices that constitute the amateur field. Having first encountered this research project at a seminar at the London Knowledge Lab in July 2007, I find it interesting to see the work that has taken place in the intervening years.