In the Guardian technology section, ‘I told America how to eat Jaffa cakes’, written by Leo Benedictus - a tongue-in-cheek look at YouTube and some of the varied approaches to using video. Jaffa Cakes - food; a wrestling group; foot fetishism; filmmaking; dancing. Selected quotes:
In essence, Youtube.com is just a great big memory bank, where you can store your own videos and watch other people’s, banding together into special interest groups if you feel like it…But whether we call it “web 2.0″, “peer production” or “me media”, the transition itself remains clear for all to see: we are moving from an era when we were all consumers of online information into one where most of us produce it too…And it is easy to see why videos are taking over: no passage of text can offer the real personal connection one feels from actually seeing and hearing someone.
I enjoyed Tom Sherman’s (Spring 2005) articles on video in the Canadian Art Magazine. His frustration with the video being called film brought a smile. In the article ‘Video No Film’, he states:
Fuck film. The dead ideas of film are being heaped onto video, Cinematic history is like a ball and chain. Video, as an inclusive soluble medium, is having difficulty defending itself from the weight of this affliction. It has become fashionable to declare, I “filmed this or that with my digital camcorder.” In this ahistorical time, it has become common to use the nomenclature of film, the predominant medium of the 20th century, to declare one’s existence in the 21st. Everyone is going retro. p. 5 of 6
His outspoken views prompted more discussion on the list nettime, by Alan Sondheim. And more here by Sherman, Is the new video ‘film,’ video or film? More on Tom’s video work here.
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On the Nicholas Carr blog ‘rough type’, the article ‘Is video the new fiber?’. He wrote the book, ‘Does it Matter: Information Technology and the corrosion of the competitive advantage.’ (2004)
Today, video may be emerging as the new stress point - the new fiber. Running a big on-line video business is anything but inexpensive. Storage and bandwidth may be relatively cheap, but if you consume enough of them, as video businesses do, they start to get very expensive. Yet we’re now seeing all sorts of companies make those investments, from deep-pocketed big guys like Google and Microsoft and Apple to not-quite-so-deep-pocketed big guys like Amazon to startups like YouTube, Grouper, Motionbox and their brethren.
Another video download from Beyond Broadcast 2006 Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture. The panel session ‘The future of digital community.’ The first speaker Brendan Greeley talking about radio open source.… about:
Open Source is a conversation, four times a week on the radio and any time you like on the blog. We designed the show to invert the traditional relationship between broadcast and the web: we aren’t a public radio show with a web community, we’re a web community that produces a daily hour of radio.
Orginally kicked off with a message board in the 90s the show has moved to a blog. The blog comes first in the process of bringing people to the radio show. The presentation questions how you filter or make sense of the scale of information available on the Internet and make that applicable to a public radio platform. They chose a blog and suggest that blogs are a version of “talk radio.” They favoured the structure of a blog because they could guide the discussion and include participants contributions in that process. The show is therefore structured like a blog. To promote traffic; conversation; interaction; community with people (i.e. getting others linking to their blog) they follow a process where they examine a person’s blog carefully then email them questions asking them for opinions and ideas on specific topics. I found this interesting in terms of promoting more substantial types of content in the broader blogosphere. The approach involves time, focus and analysis with the content on a specific blog. Overall the radio open source system relies on open access for the listeners to engage. As they describe:
we rely on our listeners and readers…“the people formerly known as your audience” to help us produce the show. At its most basic, we look for this production help in the comment threads of this website. Every time we have an idea for an hour of radio we post it to the site. That show may not go on the radio for another month, but we immediately start reading comments — suggestions for guests, questions for guests, suggestions for ways to frame the show or reading material — and following up on them.
Beyond Broadcast 2006‘Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture’. The panel session ‘The future of digital community.’ Speaker Tom Geraco gather.com How do you work with user created content in public media on the Internet? He states that the issue in the blogosphere is that “good content is hard to find because it is lost in a sea of mediocrity” and a blog generally is still a “one-way form of media”. On the gather.com site the “users gather the content, edit the content through raters and evaluation…our users recruit their own readers…to expand their own audience…”, and create topics of interest. The presentation seemed too much like a hard sell for their own web site but there is some useful information in terms of developing frameworks for public participatory media.
Beyond Broadcast 2006 ‘Reinventing Public Media in a Participatory Culture’. The panel session ‘The future of digital community.’ Rhea Mokand Director ‘listen up’
Listen Up! is a youth media network that connects young video producers and their allies to resources, support, and projects in order to develop the field and achieve an authentic youth voice in the mass media.
Rhea focuses on video production. Initially their objective was to bring together a cohesive collaborative space for youth media. They also identified a need to integrate youth media organisations within their own known networks. They have formed a partnership with the Internet archive as a means to get server space. Over time listen up has become the largest collection of youth video on the Internet. The content is made and curated by youth. Each participant has their own space on the web site to meet and discuss with others including production issues for example. The only censorship the organisers do is keep an eye on unacceptable comments. The intiative now attracts particpation from schools and community media organisations globally. The listen up site is an example of an “exclusive” online social media community.
Paul and Rachel’s latest project ‘The Present History’. A reflection of Sean Cubitt’s connection between digital photography and the processes used in printing in his ‘Genalogies of Light’ talk at CCP. An explaination of the project from the ‘The Present History’ website.
The Present History is a grand attempt to create a book which is beautiful, sad and hopeful. It combines contemporary digital culture with the traditional craft asthetic of book binding and finishing. It looks at our past with respect for our achievements and yet grief for some of the the actions that led us here. Together we have also let ourselves imagine what the future might hold in this life and the next.
Notes from Laurene’s exegesis presentation for a project-based PhD. I learnt that:
- The exegesis can be an amalgamation of the durable record and written theory, or remain in separate parts.
- The exegesis can be chronological, thematic or project by project in form - as long as the methodology carries the argument within that structure.
- An exegesis is about what has been learnt, along with the critical engagement with the process followed…
- The exegesis theorises the practice and should provide some links out to other theory and the broader field of study.
- In the exegesis there should be discussion on the changes that have occurred in the practice - in terms of a contribution towards new knowledge.
- The approach towards the project/practice and the exegesis can be in different orders. The project may come first then the exegesis, or the other way around. Also, they may occur at the same time, in parallel.
- The oral presentation needs to have some type of connection with the argument in the exegesis: a description of the findings and arguments; the changes in practice.
Laurene’ s response to the post “…you might like to add to your list that an exegesis can be in any medium and it can include sound, image etc. it does have to have words but they aren’t the only thing.”
The Bruce Mau Incomplete Manifesto for Growth is being used to inspire ideas in Integrated Media at the moment. I noted no. 28:
28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
And, have been thinking how it might apply to the title of my research. The answer may be a working title until that new word emerges. i.e. project: networking video
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I did it again (too much information), you start with one thing a look at the definition of time-based media at Cofa in a fine arts context…and ended up with a great resources link which of course led to many other web sites. But one of particular interest in relation to media research is theory.org.uk and artlab. A read of the introduction then led to the notion of constructionist learning. Useful background for the section on project-based research in my literature review.