ABOUT: Videodefunct is an experimental research project that focuses on inventing a hybrid vlog. A number of work-in-progress prototypes are being developed in the open source blog publishing system WordPress. A key objective is to design an interactive interface that explores the presentation of online video from a poetic perspective. Videodefunct is being developed by the collective of Keith Deverell, Seth Keen and David Wolf in the School of Applied Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
NEWS
Videodefunct and Showinabox: Hitting vlogging with a hammer
date: Thursday Jan 17 from 13.00 – 17.00
place: Workspace in the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Keizersgracht 264 Amsterdam
A workshop presented in two parts that looks at knocking vlogging into shape and bashing it into oblivion. The videodefunct collective focus on poetic approaches towards the way video is presented and curated by inverting the blog interface. Showinthebox aim to improve vlogging accessibility and aesthetic control with a user-friendly toolkit. Both projects use the open source blogging application WordPress and question whether vlogs need to move beyond the constraints of blogs.
JavaMuseum - Forum for Internet Technology in Contemporary Art videodefunct prototype pedestrian was selected into the art + blog = blogart net-art exhibition.
PROTOTYPES Using an iterative process of design each prototype has been developed in the following order. (QuickTime 7.3.1, Firefox browser 2.0.0.9 or later required for viewing.)
Pedestrian http://www.videodefunct.net/pedestrian/
The Inverted Pedestrian http://www.videodefunct.net/theInvertedPedestrian/
The Drunken Truth http://www.videodefunct.net/theDrunkenTruth/
Banter http://www.videodefunct.net/banter/ The Banter prototype is an audiovisual report on the videodefunct project that provides critique and background details on the system.
REPORTS
plain vanilla: pedestrian prototype report
Presentation 1# report.
Keith Deverell and I received a small RMIT research grant (2007) to develop a video blog project.
NOTES The practitioners involved (including David Wolf as programmer) are all interested in locating a hybrid form that reflects our own interests in terms of how we want to begin engaging with a blog that is used primarily as a platform for publishing video content. The videodefunct blog as an artistic form aims to explore new spaces that emphasise potentialities in terms of ‘poetics’ rather than the pragmatics of interaction design. Which means in this project our key interest is to focus on aesthetic control.
The prototype Pedestrian is currently in development, merging the database back end and user interface of WordPress with customised presentation methods utilising JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). The aim is to provide the user with a number of alternatives in terms of the playback of the video clips. These video clips will include single-channel linear clips as well as interactive clips. They may be viewed in clusters in a random fashion as well as in more structured ways that are influenced by the choices the user makes. Pedestrian follows the theme of day-to-day travel, emulating the diary like nature of blogging as a collection of fragmentary short experiences.