Distorted screen

This shot of an outdoor cinema screen erected at the Mabatini grounds, in the informal settlement of Mathare, is distorted by a thick cloud of dust kicked up by the generators used for its inflation. It was taken during the Slum Film Festival in August 2012, a week of outdoor screenings in two large slums in Nairobi, where I worked as part of my ongoing PhD fieldwork on the relations between audiovisual production and humanitarian aid in Nairobi. For me, this photo highlights some of the unique material challenges that face media production and distribution in slums. It also stands as a metaphor for the challenges of doing ethnographic work in media studies; a hazy and uncertain collection of lights and indistinct shadows. I chose this photo as an articulation of this lack of articulacy, an irony which underwrites much of my research.