we designed the interface so that the RAW output can be experienced in an installation format. the images are projected onto a large screen, while the sound is being played through a set of speakers and headphones. the audience is discovering the image progressively: when the first minute of sound begins playing, the image appears and slowly begins to zoom out from a point of detail, reaching its full size at the moment in the audio that the user actually took the picture. because we left the audio signals of the camera turned on, the audience can hear the sound of the camera taking the picture at this precise moment. then, while the second minute of sound plays, the image slowly fades away to black.
we added a graphical “timeline” at the bottom of the screen (after having tested a physical slider representing a timeline). the beginning and end of this line represent the start and end times of the user’s session, and each photograph is represented by a small square. the distance between each square represents proportionally the length of time between each picture. the timeline is interactive and allows an audience member to click and jump from one photograph to another. a separate menu allowed the audience to change to any of the 23 complete records captured during the study.
the RAW tool uses a binaural recording apparatus that strives for the closest possible recording and reproduction of what the user of the tool is hearing while they are taking pictures (the microphones have the shape of "earbud" headphones, hence are situated in the user's ears). this design decision was made in an attempt to enable the later audience to immerse themselves “into the shoes” of the person who originated the content they are experiencing, and to place greater emphasis on the subjective point of view of this original source. the immersive effect of binaural audio recording is best experienced when wearing headphones, yet we set-up external speakers in parallel, to provide a wider listening experience.