Digital Technology and Human Vulnerability: Towards an Ethical Film Praxis

Digital film technology, in its seemingly intimate and infinite capacities to stage the suffering of others for an ever wider audience, has transformed the encounter between those watching and the vulnerable other. While this 'ethical' encounter is the subject of much discussion within film theory, and media and arts debates, researchers are yet to consider fully the impact of the digital within it, and practitioners lack detailed ethical guidelines that move far beyond basic questions of consent or good practice.

This research explores and reflects upon how the use of digital technologies transforms our engagement with, understanding of, and response to human vulnerability. For this pilot study, the team will work with one group of vulnerable adults, those affected by terminal illness at the John Taylor Hospice in Erdington, Birmingham, to co-create digital films. This filmmaking project, linked to and informed by Art therapy and the wellbeing team at the hospice, will provide immediate therapeutic benefits for the participants but will also have enduring impact, for all stakeholders, through the digital spaces that will be developed as part of the research-the online interactive website and the exhibition-and which will bring these films and materials to wider and new audiences. Ethical issues are at the heart of this research not simply because it involves vulnerable adults, but because it depends upon ethical discussions about the mediation of the suffering of others within film theory, educational and arts practice and global ethics debate. The multi-disciplinary team of practitioners and researchers will work together to identify, share and apply the ethical issues inherent to engaging with human vulnerability from their respective fields through an initial knowledge exchange workshop, monthly review meetings and through contributing to the development of the website and the exhibition. Through all these the research will develop a prototypical model of ethical film praxis for digital arts and media researchers and practitioners, for broader application for the third sector but also as the foundation for further research development and in particular for the larger project that this pilot study initiates.

The research will provide a range of benefits, personal, social, creative/practical and professional, to non-academic communities in the UK and globally. Its development of a prototype of an ethical praxis will meet the growing need for such guidelines within video advocacy and rights organisations, and for journalists, editors and media activists. In supporting the work and mission of John Taylor Hospice, and of end of life care more broadly, the research has the potential to contribute to the nation's health and wellbeing. Similarly, the larger, increasingly profound, benefit of the prototype of ethical praxis, and especially its development and enhancement through the larger research it anticipates, is to interrupt the unethical practices of visual narratives in Western culture, which have worked historically, and still, to entrench oppressive and objectifying constructions of the vulnerable.

Who will benefit from the research?

A: The Prototype of ethical film praxis:
1. Filmmakers and digital arts and media practitioners: the ethical film praxis prototype expands considerably existing guidelines on this, and will inform those using digital technologies to create screen narratives focused on human subjects.
2. Third Sector - video advocacy groups, Human Rights organisations, NGOs and charities, and the ever expanding community of makers/curators of digital films, and screen narratives, on human vulnerability.
3. Media professionals engaged in debates and policy about editorial ethics in dealing with graphic images and/or the use of UGC (User generated content) on human suffering
4. The scoping study will impact the development of future research projects. PI's collaboration with Tear Gas Research team on their 'Data Stories' project, and consultation with Witness on 'ethical guidelines on curating' their Human Rights channel.

B: The case study:
1. Hospice service-users taking part. Various impacts of involvement will emerge during research, but are likely to point to its therapeutic, creative and testimonial dimensions and, hence, enhancing of their wellbeing. The impact of the research will in some ways be evidenced through the films themselves, and will be monitored and supported through the professionals at the Hospice too.
2. Wider hospice community. Staff, other service-users and members of local community, of which John Taylor Hospice is very much a part, will be impacted by their engagement with the results of the research. The digital spaces created through and during the research will support the work and mission of the Hospice and bring them to this community and new audiences. The Hospice will also be able to make use of the scoping report on the collaborative research, and on the ethical film praxis for their future arts projects, and the digital films for other in-house or outreach activities. All digital content generated by the project will be made available to the Hospice for re-use within their own displays and collections.
3. Wider community dealing with terminal illness. The digital materials and scoping report will be useful resources for other hospices and those engaged in end-of-life care and campaigning who can make digital technologies support their goals. The exhibition within the community centre will bring the 'everydayness' of dying into the public sphere and challenge the taboo and isolation felt by those affected thereby enhancing wellbeing.
4. General Public. The digital films and spaces will raise awareness about dying and seek to counter the objectification, disavowal and spectacle or over-sentimentalisation of dying found more widely in mainstream culture. Held in the local community, it will reiterate the hospice's role within it. The exhibition, too, will bring the 'everydayness' of dying into the public sphere.