rushes.be (In Progress)
Conceived as both a living archive and a participatory space, Rushes aims to preserve cultural memory while experimenting with new ways of linking image, sound, and place.
About the project
Rushes is a hybrid artistic project that combines an online platform with a collaborative audiovisual archive. The project was created in the context of fieldwork conducted in the landscapes and communities of Donegal for an Irish Arts Council grant. This initial research led to the development of a functional prototype in 2024, which allowed users to explore collected video and audio materials on an interactive map of Donegal.
Among these materials are field recordings of traditional music, captured both in pubs and private homes, as well as fragments of public archives gathered during my research. These audiovisual documents formed the kernel of the project, situating artistic experimentation within a specific geography and community.
Conceived as both a living archive and a participatory space, Rushes aims to preserve cultural memory while experimenting with new ways of linking image, sound, and place.
How It Works
The platform operates on a cycle of contribution, analysis, and discovery:
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Contribution: Filmmakers from the community are invited to upload “rushes”—raw audiovisual clips, typically 5-10 minutes in length. These are unedited, they can be fragments of a portrait, a soundscape or an event. Each clip is submitted with key metadata, including its geographical location and a brief description.
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Analysis: The platform analyzes each clip uploaded on multiple levels. It processes visual content (recognizing objects, landscapes, colors) and audio components (transcribing dialogue, identifying key sounds). This data is transformed into a vector embedding—a numerical representation in high-dimensional space that encodes semantic relationships, allowing clips with similar content to be compared and retrieved.
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Discovery: Users can explore these embeddings through different lenses: by contributor, by spatio-temporal context, or by semantic similarity. The platform’s key feature is its ability to generate a ‘broadcast’ that weaves these individual clips together, creating a continuous and ever-evolving collage through the distinct pockets of life it contains. Inspired by surrealist games like Exquisite Corpse, the platform is designed to reveal unexpected connections between people, places, and time.
Goals
The project is now based in Belgium where I live and work as an editor. Its goals have matured to address the needs of the local filmmaking community:
- To Foster Exploration
The platform is designed to serve as a base for a collective of Brussels-based filmmakers, offering a space to experiment outside the constraints of traditional production. By juxtaposing rushes from different creators, the platform encourages lateral thinking and fresh perspectives. It allows artists to see their own work in a new context, sparking new ideas and breaking creative habits.
- To Build a Community
Rushes aims to be a hub for serendipitous collaborations. By connecting the local filmmaking community through raw archives, it becomes a space for artistic growth. A sound artist might discover the work of a director through a shared interest in industrial soundscapes; a documentary filmmaker might find relevant footage from a specific location they’re interested in. In the long term, the goal is to build structural partnerships with local organizations like GSARA, Dérives, Mediarte, and SACD to solidify its role as a resource for the Belgian film community.
- To Ensure Sustainability
The platform is built on principles of non-commerciality, creator ownership, and open collaboration. Each user’s footage is stored in a personal, sandboxed archive using multi-tenant SQLite databases. At any time, a user can download their entire archive as a self-contained file, ensuring their work remains accessible to them regardless of the platform’s status. The platform will not rely on advertising, venture capital, or private equity. Like any archival project, its ultimate aim is to persist rather than disappear, and this requires a model of viability rooted within the community itself.
Contact
If the project resonates with you—whether as a contributor, partner, or curious spectator — drop me a line.