Hiperlocal and Airports
Hiperlocal
Já postei nesse Carnet sobre jornalismo hiperlocal, que busca oferecer um conjunto de informações de proximidade, locais, cruzando blogs, twitter, jornais, instituições, etc. Para uma definição veja o artigo de Christopher Wink sobre o tema. Abaixo trechos:
Image by Minh Uong/The New York Times.
“(…) hyperlocal news (n): information gathering about a geographically-specific community that is part or was once part of a broader coverage area or focus.
So here’s what I mean by that. The hyperlocal movement is encapsulating some pretty broad, disparate agendas, from (1) citizen journalists covering their neighborhoods or towns of just a few thousand people or even fewer through to (2) media entrepreneurs who are trying to create news-gathering organizations covering as many as a few hundred thousand people in a specific geographic place — or, you know, data assembled by a computer.
What I think they have in common is the fracturing from or refocusing of an existing coverage area. Maybe a newspaper is struggling to report on a portion of its long-held coverage area with a smaller staff or one has entirely given up a now too-large readership base as too few of them are paying for that news. (…)”.
Aeroportos
Já havia falado, no Twitter, da experiência do escritor Alain de Botton que passou uma semana escrevendo um livro em Heatrow, Londres, contratado pelo aeroporto (BAA). Interessante ter um escritor residente em um aeroporto escrevendo sobre o que vê e sobre as diversas experiências desse “não lugar” (Augé). Mas o que vemos nesse relato, é que os aeroportos têm também seus idiossincrasias, particularidades, vida própria. Eles seriam assim, “lugares”. Vejam o post do City of Sound sobre a experiência. Não li o livro mas já está na minha lista. Deve ser bom de ler ouvindo o “music for airports” do Brian Eno.
Abaixo alguns trechos.
“(…) Perhaps with this in mind, he addresses the issue of his patron, BAA, right away, and does so carefully, thoughtfully, and with humour. He’s intensely aware of his delicate position here, and the power structures around him. He partly suggests that the new economic reality of the publishing industry has made him consider this alternative, and ancient, business model. I’m not sure that’s relevant – it’s a well-understood model, and we can judge the book on its merits, reading between lines as we see fit. I think once given the green light to say what he likes – and as mentioned above, BAA have chosen a writer that is hardly going to stick the boot in; at worst, a thin smile disguising a delicate stiletto nick – de Botton would clearly jump at the chance of this commission.
And who wouldn’t? Airports are fascinating places, and emblematic tokens of our civilisation. This last year has been a year of flying for me. I’ve probably done over 2000 km per week for the last year, on average (with an appropriately hideous carbon footprint as a result) and so I’ve overly familiar with certain of these spaces. But curiously, I still enjoy them, as places. They perform a compression of so many things the experience is both everyday (almost) and surreal simultaneously.
And de Botton picks apart that paradox from almost every angles one can imagine. In fact, his starting point is that the airport is essentially the emblematic human structure:
‘In a world full of chaos and irregularity, the terminal seemed a worthy and intriguing refuge of elegance and logic. It was the imaginative centre of contemporary culture Had one been asked to take a Martian to visit a single place that neatly captures the gamut of themes running through our civilisation – then it would have to be to the departures and arrivals halls that one would head.’ (…)”
Comentário:
Aqui tentamos, com o jornalismo hiperlocal e com o “lugar” aeroporto, pensar na dimensão menor do espaço, uma visão do ínfimo e do mais próximo. Sobre o pequeno e o próximo, vejam abaixo esse belo clip sobre “Small Life” (via Digital Urban), com uma técnica (que já havia apontado nesse Carnet) que faz tudo parecer miniatura, mais próximo e mais distante també. Um lugar que se torna pequeno, uma miniatura viva…
Small Life in Saxon Switzerland from Christoph Schaarschmidt on Vimeo.