Knowle West Media Centre meets Simon Willis
December 14, 2006 Posted by Roz in : Education, Digital Challenge, e-democracy, Community Media, Learning, Skills, Connecting Bristol , trackback6 November 2006
I met with Simon Willis who told me that he has worked for seven years as a detached youth worker in Knowle West and adjacent areas. He told me he had worked in Merrywood and Hengrove with young people on the brink of exclusion. Simon highlighted that detached work is very different from other ways of working with young people. He said that he thought this was to do with being on young people’s own ‘patch’ and the consequent impact on the power relationship, which shifts in such contexts.
Simon explained that he establishes a relationship with young people through dialogue, to get a sense of what might interest them and sometimes he might make suggestions. Simon then talked about the ways in which he has used digital media as a means by which to engage some young people in a process. He talked about how engagement in a meaningful process gave young people a reason to be around youth workers.
Simon told me that he has done things using digital media like photography exhibitions, digital storytelling and short films. He said that these were all projects that were enabled through the help and support of professional media workers. He added that working with other professionals added another dynamic to the process. Simon then talked about the expectations there are for the outcomes of such project work. He said that, for him, the process is the pivotal thing, and so if the output isn’t as good as it could be then this is not necessarily an issue. However, he said that professional media workers have a role in such work in ensuring a balance of priorities and the quality of the end product.
Simon said that using digital media can help to make the quality of the final product more impressive, as can the post production work that media workers might do.
Simon said that young people want to produce something that is of an impressive, high quality. Simon said that whilst this is possible using new media, it is also possible to utilise the quickness with which something can be made, in order to easily engage young people. However, Simon said that quickness doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s great. He talked about Pinhole work that he has been involved in and cited this as a non digital tool, which is very slow in comparison, but can just as easily be used to engage young people and to generate just as impressive end products.
Simon said that one of the big issues on the estate was about commitment and how long term commitment is quite difficult to establish. He said that the other big issue was about ‘taking credit’. He said that young people he works with often find it difficult to take the credit for what they have done. For example, a group of young people involved in a VJ project went to a VJing weekend in London and they continued to make work afterwards in order that they might perform at Ashton Court Festival. Simon said that once the boys had performed at Ashton Court they found it hard to take credit for what they had done and their interest consequently ended there and they didn’t want to do any more VJing. Simon explained how, in this way, it is hard to sustain interest.
Simon reflected on this and added that perhaps it was also to do with taking the group of young men as a whole, and that it may be better to focus on individuals and their aspirations.
Simon then talked about the ‘Knowle West Trilogy’ films and told me that a researcher from Bristol university had asked a question about whether Simon thought an editing course would be useful for him in supporting such projects. Simon said that for him there is a clarity around roles and that there is a need for both a youth worker and a media worker to support such projects. He said that it would be difficult for a youth worker to take on the role of the media worker too, as this would detract from the important elements of the youth workers role. He said that the push to disseminate skills is sometimes misplaced. There is a benefit to it, but also the chance that you might lose out. He added that similarly, when working with young people, if there is an emphasis on them learning new skills it can be off putting for them.
Simon then talked about the way that funding works to determine how many people need to be engaged and how that engagement is accredited. He talked about how this can limit work and exclude opportunities for smaller scale work.
Simon said that young people are often seen as consumers of digital stuff; e.g. music; rather than as producers, and that it was important that young people are perceived as producers or potential producers.
Simon then talked about the myth about young people and digital media. He said that it wasn’t necessarily the ‘hook’ into engagement that people often imply it to be. He said that the initial hook in is something that is difficult for media workers to do unless they are happy to go out with a detached youth worker and work in other ways, such as through dialogue, to begin to engage young people. Simon talked about the culture of the young people he works with, and the fact that they don’t ‘surf the web’. He emphasised that not all young people are into digital media and that consequently it’s not the cure all that it is often portrayed to be.
Simon said that it was important that an appropriate amount of time is afforded to any project to allow it to develop through work with young people, because it is crucial to establish an exchange with young people prior to actual beginning the work itself.
Simon talked about the need to recognise the culture that you’re working within. He said that young people he works with are not searching the web or gaming internationally on the web. However, he said that the flip side of this is that it is the role of youth workers to challenge young people and extend on their experiences. He cited an example of a trip that has taken place whereby young people went to Tate Modern, and the value of that experience. He said that such activities lead young people to question things, whether because of the artwork itself or something else about the trip, and that this is a useful process.
Simon talked again about the VJing example and said that for some young people involved, when introduced to the idea of VJing, there was a lack of interest that was articulated by them saying ‘and what’s the point of that?’ He said that this response was partly about the lack of narrative that they could recognise in the work and so they challenged the value of the work.
Simon then explained how the emphasis on ‘tapping into young people’s potential’ is somewhat problematic given that lots of young people live in the present, not the future. He underlined that this is how such plans often fall down and how important it is to be aware of this.
Simon said that he thought it was crucial to recognise that it is the way people work with young people that is important, and not the technology. He said that in some instances the emphasis on equipment has led to situations where people have equipment but no staff who can use it. He pointed out how this often leads to a scenario whereby it is only the young people who know how to use the equipment themselves who can access it.
Simon then asked a significant question about who is driving the emphasis on digital media and whose need it is driven by.
However, he added that digital media has a role, potentially, as being another tool for use by the army of youth workers. He said that as a tool for engagement it might be useful, but that what is important is the exchange and conversations that take place when, or through, using digital media. He said that any equipment is only as good as the workers who are using it. He said that this is why there was a need for both media workers and youth workers to support young people’s engagement with new media and their application of the tools.
He underlined how important it is that the youth worker’s role remains focussed on engaging and talking to young people, not on making work. Making work using new media may just be one way of extending the possible conversations with young people.
Simon said that funding could be used to ensure the equipment, training and time to allow partnerships to develop on a face to face level, where individuals with different skills come together to ensure coherence re expectations and ways of working.
Simon talked about the potential for instant gratification when using new media. He said that this isn’t always a good thing as it is misleading because things actually take longer to do properly and it can undermine the significance of having time to carefully think through what you are doing and why. For example, Simon said that when taking a photo on film, there is an emphasis on not wasting the film, and so there is a tendency to think more carefully about the photo you are taking, how it is framed and what it means. Simon highlighted the importance of such opportunities for thinking. He said that this can be short circuited when using digital photography, and that the ability to take endless numbers of photographs with a digital camera can camouflage a lack of talent.
Simon said that the best digital media work he has seen has been work that has a very strong thought process behind it, whereby it is grounded in a pen and paper approach or a properly thought through plan. He said that sometimes something that initially looks good can easily unravel, or fall apart through analysis because there’s no depth to it, whereas some simple clear ideas conveyed as a message through digital media can be really powerful. He said that it’s the thought process behind it that is important. For example, he said that big projections can be impressive but if the content is not informed then that impression and consequent response is only fleeting. We discussed this for a while and agreed that people can be ‘entranced’ by the new, modish applications of digital media, but that such experiences will inevitably fade over time. Simon said that he thought there was a current tendency for some people to be a bit like the people in the story of the ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ whereby people are too embarrassed to challenge anything digital for fear of appearing to not understand new media.
Comments»
Hi.
I am Scott Farlow of White Design Associates.
I read this article with great interest and would like to learn more of Simon's work; particularly in relation to Hengrove.
White Design is working with Ginkgo Projects to devise a public art programme as part of the Hengrove Part Developments.
Please could someone pass his details onto me at your earliest convenience.
Many thanks and best wishes
Scott