A pdf callout for Video Vortex 8 including the planned themes.The announcing summary:

We are pleased to announce that the 8th edition of Video Vortex will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, Croatia, between the 17th and the 19th of May, 2012. So far Video Vortex has taken place twice in Brussels and Amsterdam and once in Ankara, Split and Yogyakarta. The Video Vortex network was founded in in 2007 and deals with the cultural, political and artistics aspects of online video. Video Vortex 8 is organized by the Kazimir Association in Split and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam.

The documentation for the Video Vortex 7 event in Yogyakarta, Indonesia has just been made available on the VV website.

Video Vortex planned in Zagreb, Croatia, between 17th and 19th of May 2012 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. More information to come…

I have been searching around looking more broadly at the notion of online video aesthetics for the prod studio I teach in 2nd semester. Video Vortex 6 had a panel which focused on aesthetics. I found Florian Schneider’s talk on Open Source Documentary useful. His comment about how annotation sounds a death knell for documentary is a useful against argument for the types of works that I have been making. From a review of the presentation by Catalina Iorga.

He then expressed a series of concerns about how film is made in the networked environment. In this context, there is a tension between legible and illegible, with a strong tendency for making things readable and decipherable in order to be searched, found, categorised, indexed tagged and subjected to an algorithmic process. Schneider controversially claims that text-to-image hybrids (i.e. subtitles), which can be indexed, represent death to film since they make everything calculable. This anti-computationalist perspective continues with his recommendation of an algorithm that produces difference rather than sameness, multiplicity instead of identity, since online aesthetics are all about weaving items into a mesh of similarities instead of discontinuities.

Video Vortex 7 Yogyakarta From the Video Vortex website:

Indonesia has seen an explosion of video practices and organizations since the arrival of affordable platforms for production and distribution. To date, much vital work has been done – in ground-up networks devoted to art and digital culture, social activism and participatory media – to survey this diverse activity, its growing purchase on the public sphere, and the challenges faced. But as DV is absorbed into the mainstream media-scape, what are the crucial technical, social and aesthetic strategies for a politics of video going forward? Which are the exemplary videos, video-makers, and organizations, and why? And what histories have shaped the medium, that have yet to be written into the discussion? This event gathers key thinkers from video’s diverse constituencies in Indonesia, and innovative practitioners from abroad, for exchange and focused discussion that will take the discourse on video in Indonesia beyond overviews.

Video Vortex 6# is covering a session on online video aesthetics:

In response to the ubiquitous presence of video on an array of websites and platforms, this session seeks to explore the development of the diverse and distinctive aesthetics of online video. Tackling the tenuous relationship between amateur and professional video production, particularly with respect to the question of ‘quality’, have amateur and professional video grown closer further erasing the ability to distinguish between distinct visual tropes and operating within similar economic arenas, or are they still in competition? Furthermore, how do mechanisms of monetization on many video platforms effect the collision between professional and amateur content and its creation? What techniques aesthetics, genres, structures and practices exist in the realms of amateur and professional online video creation, and where through the maze of the internet are unique forms and practices emerging?

Video Vortex 6 – program

One of the sessions which is of particular interest:

It’s Not a Dead Collection, it’s a Dynamic Database Now that museums, distributors and TV channels have put their collections online, what is the next phase for these digitalized archives? How can ‘the audience’ be involved in order to avoid a dead online collection with zero comments? Moreover, what forms of social dynamism can be critically forged in the default rush towards greater participation? How to jump through the hoops of copyright legislation, format compatibility and the spatial culture of consumption and production? Who controls the database, and what are the different ethics involved in putting up content from artist collections to indigenous material? Once collaboration comes into play, what impact do conflicting skill sets, different modes of knowledge production and varying social desires have?

Video Vortex is coming back to Amsterdam! Having contributed to the dialogue about the ever increasing potential or online video through five international events since 2007, the publication of the Video Vortex Reader and the current production of a second one, the Institute of Network Cultures will host Video Vortex #6 on March 11-12, 2011. Video Vortex #6 will include a conference, artist presentations (talks/performances/exhibition) and hands-on workshops.

This video not only provides a critique on this social media service it also gives an insight into a style of approach towards making videos on social media experiences.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Video Vortex Reader II

Following the success of the first Video Vortex reader (published late 2008, second edition, 4000 copies in total), recent Video Vortex conferences in Ankara (Oct. 2008), Split (May 2009) and Brussels (Nov. 2009) have sparked a number of new insights, debates and conversations regarding the politics, aesthetics, and artistic possibilities of online video. Since these issues develop with the rapidly changing landscape of online video and its use, we want to open up a space once again for interested people to contribute to this critical conversation in a second issue of the Video Vortex reader.