The video vortex conference has put a call out for papers. A short precis below of the topics visit the post for full description. Conference website. Deadline for submission of abstract (500-1000 words) and biography (100 words): August 14, 2007.
Suggested topics:
- database theory
- software studies
- online video analysis
- YouTube criticism
- alternative platforms/open standards
- theory of participatory culture
- collaboratory data generation
The conference aims to raise the following questions:
· How are people utilizing the potential to independently produce and
distribute independent video content on the Internet?
· What are the alternatives to the proprietary standards currently
being developed?
· What are the commercial objectives that mass media is imposing on
user-generated content and video-sharing databases?
· What is the underlying economics of online video in the age of
unlimited uploads?
· How autonomous are vloggers within the broader domain of mass media?
· How are cinema, television and video art being affected by the
development of a ubiquitous online video practice?
· What type of aesthetic and narrative issues does the database pose
for online video practice?
The Video Vortex conference has a vv wiki up online where pre-conference plannning will be written up. Including a list of possibel speakers and artists.
I have been keeping my eyes out for media literacies resources for teaching networked media.
Michel Bauwens sent some links to me recently which I would like to follow up. First the work by the peer-to-peer foundation on education. The New Media Literacies project list of skills for younger people on engaging with participatory media, along with David Warlick’s writing ‘Redefining Literacies for the 21st Century’.
Warlick’s slide presentation.
I found a useful social media report on Adrian’s blog. The sections on blogging provide an overview and follow up links. The white paper Social Media: or “How I learned to stop worrying and love communication”, is written by Trevor Cook (Trevor’s blog Corporate Engagement) and Lee Hopkins. It tackles as the sub-heading states “An introduction to the power of “web 2.0″. The blogging section covers tips on writing for blogs. The extra reading suggestions are this Stephen Downes paper E-learning 2.0. (includes a useful video version) and James Torio’s article Blogs: A Global Conservation which is a pdf (the links is down for the moment?) plus slight aside on podcasting Kevin Dugan’s post 20 Creative Uses for Podcasts. The white paper and many other extra sources provide a pragmatic, current overview on social media from a more commercial perspective.
Following up from my earlier rights online forum post, I found Andrew Garton’s introduction presentation. Which as he describes is influenced by the APC Internet Rights Charter , the Association for Progressive Communications: Internet and ICTs for Social Justice in Development. Andrew also provides on his blog an interesting report on the iCommons Summit 2006 held in Rio de Janeiro.
Good news!I made it into the still/open workshops being run by ANAT. A open/still group blog has been set up for the project. From the about:
Still Open will be as a series of free two-day workshops in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane, each accompanied by a public evening forum. Facilitators will work with 15 artists, scientists, writers and developers in each city to introduce open source modes of thinking and resources for collaborative and distributed development; to provide hands on experience; and to initiate local networks and projects.
Still Open focuses on both the practice and theory of open source which can be applied through networked art and software development, print and online publishing, and in the scientific arena where the open science movement encourages a collaborative environment in which science can be pursued by anyone who is inspired to discover something new about the natural world.
The facilitators who will help run the workshops are:
Alessandro Ludovico (Italy) editor in chief Neural
Andy Nicholson (Australia) new media activist Engage Media
Beatriz da Costa (USA) interdisciplinary artist/researcher, open science
Peter also introduced me to a new hybrid video recording option the Canon powershot TX1. I have been checking out reviews which offer mixed perspectives but I like the HD format option and 44khz audio in such a small apparatus. Another review which offers a comprehensive spec low down.
I was up in Sydney and bumped into Peter at an artspace opening a performance by Guy Benfield, Maximum Commune (Ugly Business… on the basis of disbelief.) Peter produces a panoramic VR weblog. Turns out he winds down by hitting YouTube for hours on end and he put me onto videosift a site he uses to sort out his viewing. It looks like in the about on the site they only work with the Flash format which ties in with the YouTube connection. Also, they utilise the voting system as way to promote certain viewing for users.
VideoSift is a website that allows its members to submit interesting videos from around the web. Submitted videos are posted in the VideoSift Queue for the consideration of other VideoSift members. Users may vote on videos that they like. When a certain level of votes for a video is reached, the video will be published on the front page.
The site acts as the name suggests as an editor for large random sites like YouTube by using user-geneerated votes.
Summary of presentation by N. Katherine Hayles at Re-Mediating Literature conference at Utrecht University, July 4-6, 2007.
N. Katherine Hayles: “Narrative and Database: Remediating Literature Through Data”
Recently several theorists have proposed that database is replacing narrative as the dominant cultural form, among them Lev Manovich and Ed Folsom. This presentation will argue for that narrative is essential for human communication and culture, but it will also acknowledge that contemporary narratives are transforming through the impact of data. Remediation here implies that the feedback cycle described by Bolter and Grusin in Remediation can also be understood to take place through different cultural forms as well as through different media, where the dynamics are informed not by the hypermediation / transparency dialectic they describe but rather by the circulation through narrative and data.