media interventions

countercamera (and now counterGIS?) projects

I have had an ongoing documentary project oriented toward co-opting and re-framing certain narratives and models involved in international capitalist development and ecological conservation.  

These are critiques of the media and technology employed by development and conservation agencies and NGOs, which, in the rush to fundraise and promote projects, campaigns and actions, sometimes risk overlooking the details of social and environmental justice. 
  
This has involved looking at perceptions of scale and value used in dominant media and communications tropes. What do narratives and models of development and conservation  do in representing, and thereby, making the very world to which we relate? What methods and what audience interactions can reclaim (or satirize) the views posited by these representations of the world?

• in representing identity?
• in media campaigns focused ostensibly on sustainability?
• in databases and maps focusing on ecological conservation? 

Example 1: USAID sponsored reality TV project focused on ex youth gang members





Example 2: Oxfam scams environmentalists





Example 3: Yes Men Fix the World



 

Example 4: Beating Chevron to the Punch



  
And now...