Corvinus University’s PhD student received the best videography award in Denver

Máté Bencze, PhD student at the Department of Marketing, Media, and Design Communications of Corvinus, who received the Best Videography Award at the film festival of the ACR (Association for Consumer Research) conference in Denver in October this year, told our web-site. The theme of his videography: working and living in a single space, relaxing and fraternizing together – this would be the way of the future?

– How and why have you decided to make videographies?

– On one hand, I received encouragement from one of my consultants, Dr. Dóra Horváth and, on the other hand, after reading about the method of videography in a book titled Alternative Research Handbook, jointly authored by her and Dr. Ariel Mitev, I decided that I wanted to deal with videographies. I prepared the first videography before Covid, under the title Coworkers lifestyle – tribalism in space. I was primarily interested in how the so-called post-modern signs of tribalism appear in offices where people work together in a loosely organised community and they are mainly persons who are independent, free lancers, who could work from home, if they wanted to. More and more of them tend to opt for co-working offices, where they can work in a modern environment, being undisturbed, yet they are together with others. I was looking for symbols that can foster a cooperation among them, and I was also interested to see what kind of common language evolves in these randomly created communities. In 2020 that film was already selected for the film festival of the ACR conference, but the event could only be held online due to the pandemic.

– I liked the most in this film that, when asked about what animal he thought co-workers could resemble the most to, one of the participants answered like this: They are wolves, who can survive and succeed when in loneliness, but they are much stronger when in a flock. Then Covid came and nearly everybody became lonely. To what extent co-living can give an answer to that problem? The title of your videography winning an award at the conference in Denver is Recharge Coliving Camp.

– Yes, this is a next step: that shooting took place in January this year, in Vászoly – a gorgeous village near Dörgicse in Balaton Uplands –, where volunteers spent a week together in Portushome Coliving, a beautiful new building, which is very much suitable for living and working together, and they teleworked online during the day and participated in various programmes in the afternoon and at night. They made excursions in the wonderful snowy countryside, cooked meals together, defined goals for themselves for the year, and had discussions. Participants came here much more to relax and recharge than anything else. Naturally, they made friendships and even business relationships, and, before leaving, several of them stated that they can very well imagine that, when at home, they can spend nice time at evenings in future with their peers they got to know there. In my view, co-living responds to the phenomenon of loneliness by creating an opportunity for workers to travel somewhere and relax in a community by not having to take days off. In this film, I focused primarily on examining what programmes can facilitate bonds to be created between people, and whether a tribal identity can evolve during such a short period of time, and how this process is facilitated by a community manager.

– Will this be the lifestyle of the future after Covid? Working together, relaxing together, a way of living available to more and more people due to the nature of their work – but not to everybody?

– In fact, I expected a much bigger “explosion” after Covid, compared to what happened. After all, more and more people can work in home office now, as workers and companies have made the required arrangements for it. In Hungary, a co-living community space suitable for relaxing and working together is offered only in Vászoly currently, but it is quite fashionable in the USA now. This type of living, with bags and travelling involved, is good when you are young, but you can find some places now where you can go together even with your family.

– You must have had joyous feelings when receiving the award in Denver.

– Indeed, travelling there was great for me in itself, and I learned it from an e-mail message received at the venue that I would be among the award-winners. I was glad to meet others who created films, since, as far as I know, many films have been submitted for the festival and 10 of them have been selected and shown. It was great for me that the jury highlighted the nice European accent of the persons featured in the film, and it was of no indifference for me either that participants at the conference came from the best universities of the USA and many of them knew about Corvinus, for instance, through the EMAC conference held in May this year.

– Who have assisted you the most in preparing the videographies?

– First of all, cameraman Bence Mladin, who has realized the clean visual world I wanted to display, with exceptional sensitivity and professionalism in both of my films. I am very grateful to the owner of Portushome, Csaba Antal, and his community manager, Szilvia Filep, who were open to this cooperation. In addition, I want to highlight the dis:co (design communication) workshop led by Dr. Dóra Horváth and Dr. Attila Cosovan, where I received much freedom and inspiration to create, and support to bravely reach out for alternative research methods in my work.

– Would you tell me about your further plans, your next project?

– My next film – which forms the basis of my dissertation at the same time – will be about how participants of a workshop (architects, human ecologists, sound designers) work together towards a given purpose, namely on a spatial design project, in a community space.

Source: Máté Bencze
Author: Katalin Török