Edgar Gómez presented the paper Photography as a networked practice in everyday life: the case of SortidazZ in Barcelona at the The Nordic Network for Digital Visuality (NNDV) workshop on 28-30 March 2012 as part of the Helsinki Photomedia Conference at Aalto University, School of Art and Design, Helsinki, Finland.
This workshop explores ways in which digital photography, especially cameras in their various forms, ‘act’ as a nexus in everyday life across time and space. The goal of our paper is twofold. On the one hand it discusses the main digital photographic practices of a heavy user group, and second, it describes the way the group is constituted and formed as a collective identity performing those practices. Two critical conclusions are proposed: the traditional role of snapshot and amateur photography is changing, from a memory device to a connectivity practice and from having a primary social cohesion role to be a key element in group formation. And second, that the formation of a “social network” goes beyond the specific technological platforms of mediation (flickr, Facebook, twitter, etc.). Although the studied group was born in flickr, their consolidation requires several instances online and offline where digital imagery plays a key role on their practices.