Archive for October, 2007

t-vlog

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in vlogging
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T-Vlog …is a participatory tv-platform - a direct link between viewer and transmission. Videos uploaded here are transmitted on Copenhagen local-tv station tv-tv. You too can become a t-vlogger!

The Art of the Overhead The way that Microsoft’s PowerPoint application owes its concept to the Overhead is a schoolbook example of remediation. Yet, is it possible to re-capture this “old” media through artistic interpretation in order create something neither simply “new” nor nostalgic, but a medium for telling meaningful stories today?

malmo networked media

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in Education and vlogging
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There is some interesting initiatives going on in and around Malmo University (Sweden) in Media and Communication.

Networked Digital Storytelling is a course that critically explores the artistic possibilities of new networked media such as videoblogs, social media, mashups and locative media. Participants in the course use these technologies in a series of workshops built around the theme of mediating and telling stories about the city.

a video conversation

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in project-based research
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I went back for another look at the excellent Homo Faber: Modelling Architecture show at the Melbourne Museum.

The Terrior stand was interesting for ideas on models, process and an upcoming video conversation with SH next week. They write:

Terrior began as a conversation the model engaged as a tool for giving material ideas emerging from that discussion…the model is understood as a conceptual tool…bound by the project constraints such as site and scale…Terrior rarely produce presentation models relying instead on models that communicate conceptual issues for the presentation of projects…At time of crisis in a project, the family of models that precedes the current hiatus is exhumed, studied, broken apart, re-rejected, re-formed and from this swapping of body parts a new conceptual understanding of the project often emerges to provide new direction.

A model that seemed ready-made for conducting a videoblog conversation as I try to resist planning **”grimace (pre-production). On Peter Downton’s stand:

Sometimes drawing was banned

I am banning pre-prod.

cut up video interviews

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in folksonomy
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On the ARTNODE site they used this simple method to provide the user access to a video interview in parts. Each part relating to the interview question. The answer link leads to the video excerpt on a separate page. An abstract is also provided with each interview which covers briefly their background and the premise of the interview. I note they also use quotes in text from the interviews as an introduction into each interview. The full video interview is also provided as a straight linear run of the entire interview.

These are screenshots of the set-up from the website. These screenshots are of the Alex Galloway interview which is one of six in a series with specialists critiquing digital art.

ivAValex.jpg

ivAValex2.jpg

The Wealth of Networks

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
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I located this book, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. by Yochai Benkler via a podcast from Berkman. The text is available in a wiki. Our library has one on the way. More later as I read.

Real time crisis

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in critique, forecasts and participatory, sharing, P2P
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Presentation at Melbourne University on New Media and Journalism by BBC World’s Anchor, Nik Gowing, BBC World. About:

BBC World is the BBC’s commercially funded international 24-hour news and information channel broadcasting around the world from its base at BBC Television Centre in London.

Nik Gowing is a major news anchor, presenter and works for BBC World a continuous news channel. The presentation titled ‘Community in Crisis New Media & New Real Time Tensions’. A excerpt from the brief for the talk sent out by email:

In the new, fast-changing information environment the traditional media are no longer alone in being witnesses of acute real-time crises. With the advent of camera phones, PDAs, broadband and ‘blog’ technologies, a new breed of ‘information doers’ have emerged. Illustrated by video examples, Nic will highlight the increasingly unresolved tensions in newsrooms, governments, military commands and corporate organisations.

Opening image for the presentation poster, a television with the cord pulled floating on an angle. Context given for the talk by Nik - political science, securities and new media. Title on his powerpoint, ‘Real Time Crisis - New Real Time Tensions’ These following notes are my own interpretation of what was presented and in some cases are direct quotes or my own short hand.

Tyranny of real time - previous paper online; other paper ‘War and Accountability - Media in conflict: the new reality not yet understood.’ The battle between rumours and news. News wants to deal with hard facts. How reliable are images from mobile uploads for example? The potential for a digital camera or mobile phone to challenge government policy. A “creditability crunch”. The issues centre around “immediacy”. His immediate example video taken of people arriving to the presentation dropped into his powerpoint.

Transparency, the connected networked nature of the world. Level of denial. What do I mean about real-time? Governments believe that they will be able to control real-time events. Example given of President Bush receiving news on television while he was on-air, of major events he was not aware had taken place. Governments, officials trying to shut down public and personal media coverage when events take place. The issue of perceptions sticking when news breaks (often based on personal media coverage) which may not be accurate.

Much of the points around immediacy in relation to video reminded me of the theorists Paul Virilio’s (Open Sky. London: Verso, 1997) comments on real-time video technologies and their effect on perception. Another theorist Jean Balludriard and his ideas on Simulacra and Simulation.

Back to Nik. The battle that goes on to secure the air waves (media) during and after a crisis. The acute difficulty of getting accurate real-time facts in a crisis situation. Transparency, the ability to transfer into the airwaves instantly from isolated high security locations through broadband, the Internet. A live feed in Lebanon is being streamed in real-time from a mobile phone from the Syria border. In detail in this example the video is delayed (called Store and forward video held on a laptop). The audio is real-time (when it was received - broadcast to the on-air TV news desk).

Transformation of the media by personal media producers. What is the status of personal media content? - the ability for anyone to record and upload. Serial deceivers. A real issue with accuracy. “A proliferation of attempts to confuse and mislead.” “Insurgents as media producers.” Stressing the trend of validation, working out what is accurate. Validation, trying to work out the source proves to be more and more difficult and a paramount issue. Also, concerns that journalists are being targeted, camera people recording events.

Digital divide - journalism - personal media making governments accountable. “Creditability Crunch” - the openness is leading to “law-fare rather than warfare”. The military needs to be aware due to “omni media” that they have to be accountable for everything.

Conclusion - We need to get smarter in regards to the battles emerging in the contemporary media sphere. “Asymmetric power”. The new empowerment creates ad-hoc groupings in a time of crisis. In the final example he showed mobile phone video recordings of the explosions underground in the London bombings. The way people are prepared to record events in a time of crisis in very insecure environments. From a news perspective there is working with what he calls a “user centered hub” at BBC world. During and after the bombings, they where barraged with personal media content (”1000 images, 20 video clips, 20,000 emails, 3000 text messages”). Dilemma for the news room, who do you run with the government who is behind what is actually going on, or the material coming from people at the scene? But, eyewitnesses also exaggerate or misinterpret and some are eager to get their faces in the media. How do you check what they are claiming? Where will it all lead? Next development will be live broadcasts streamed live on the Internet.

We need to question what the media is today. “Media ?” The technical definition of media. The ability to reveal. YouTube, Flickr, Crikey ..they are all becoming significant broadcast platforms.

specflic 2.0

Published
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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in Art, design and online video
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An audiovisual work the artist Adriene Jenik refers to as “speculative distributed cinema”. Part of the description from the web site promoting the work:

SPECFLIC 2.0 portrays characters in a future library in simultaneous story-layers that provoke the audience to consider the future of reading, writing, the book object and storytelling.

The main story frame represents a near-future 2030 world in which audio-visual media dominate, even as written communication and reading retain important, though narrow functions. The factorial explosion of information and information flows has catalyzed new forms of categorization of material and the next generation of students and scholars is developing within this constantly reconfigure-able info-sphere.

knowledge - Dave Weinberger

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
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From Sean, a video presentation by Dave Weinberger at the Library of Congress, 2004, captured on CSPAN. Weinberger is the author of the book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined: a unified theory of the web, Cambridge MA,Perseus Publishing, 2003.

ReTransmission

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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in Tools and independent media
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This is an interesting iniative with loads of good information in this Transmission.cc Report report. And the video resource http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Video

ReTransmission is a gathering of citizen journalists, video makers, artists, programmers and web producers who are developing online video distribution tools for social justice and media democracy.

The Free Open Source Software community has provided a wide number of production and distribution tools on the Net, while the Creative Commons copyleft licence offers a way to share content without commercial exploitation. The event has been organised to add to the work of these and other communities to contribute to the building of real world usable tools for distributing and sharing video online.

www ethics (future video)

Published
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seth.keen
on October 5, 2007
in critique, forecasts, online video and web2.0
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An article in NYT titled by Adam Cohen titled “Why the Democratic Ethic of the World Wide Web May Be About to End” which references video:

Consider online video, which depends on the availability of higher-speed connections. Internet users can now watch channels, like BBC World, that are not available on their own cable systems, and they have access to video blogs and Web sites like YouTube.com, where people upload videos of their own creation. Under tiered pricing, Internet users might be able to get videos only from major corporate channels.

Sir Tim expects that there are great Internet innovations yet to come, many involving video. He believes people at the scene of an accident — or a political protest — will one day be able to take pictures with their cellphones that could be pieced together to create a three-dimensional image of what happened. That sort of innovation could be blocked by fees for the high-speed connections required to relay video images.