Memorials, movement and the method of subjective cameras: A multimodal study of person-environment interactions

The return to experience in psychology involves recognising the limitations of traditional mono-modal approaches based on verbal data, detached from activity and context. This paper describes our use of subcams to explore how people experience and engage with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Participants first walked around the memorial on their own while wearing a subcam and second they commented on their experience while watching the subcam video of the walk. The analysis links visuals with participants' interpretations of the site and their understandings of the appropriate norms of behaviour there. The paper concludes with a discussion on the usefulness of subcams as a means of exploring multimodal forms of expression and communication in people's ongoing flow of experience while engaging with the environment.