Video Vortex #8 will be held May 17th-19th, 2012 in the The Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb, Croatia

Call for contributions

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 moving image and the Internet are still defining the parameters of their mutual relationship. The conference will focus on issues concerning changes in contemporary art and cinema as well as broader cultural, social and technological issues.

Video Vortex 8 will consist of a conference, an exhibition, screenings and performances. This call pertains to the conference. Artists who will present work at the conference will also be included in the accompanying exhibition. If you have an idea for an alternative way to present your work on one of the themes below please let us know. For all themes we expect up to a 500-word abstract while for artist presentations we would like also to receive documentation via URL.

1. Contemporary art and online video

Museums which follow and present ontemporary Art as well as Centres for Art, Media and Technology have specific contexts in which they present and preserve the moving image in the 21st century. Spatial issues and exclusivity are put in relation to the constant virtual presence of artwork. Fast changing technologies are undermining the very sense of the preservation of the moving image in an online
context.

2. Theoretical discourses and online video.

Concepts related to the aesthetics and structure of the moving image. Including, but not limited to, online-only production, torrent-based original programming, YouTube-centered narrative and artwork, community-funded cinema and scholarship in an online environment.

3. Social networks and online video in the region.

Reports on new the discourses of online video in Middle and Southeast Europe.

4. Techno-colonialism, surveillance and control of the distribution of
the moving image.

Shutting down or channelling online video. The possibility of stealing the online-originating revolutions in North Africa. The technological dominance and control of worldviews and basic human value systems. The
speed of communication and what is left to those isolated from it.

5. The perspective of online cinema.

The relationship between film and the Internet. What is happening to independent cinema due to technical accessibility and online quality in the making, producing and distribution of films? Do we see specific
new film forms in the online environment? The end of 35mm film. How does digital cinema distribution work, from DCP (Digital Cinema Package) passwords to open online video/film collections or cinematic databases?

6. Artists talk about their own work and research in online video.

Presentations of artistic practices related to the Internet from artists participating in the exhibition which runs concurrently with the conference. These practices include working on the web and using the web as a medium and using the Internet as found footage; in other words, it is channeling the art process through Internet-based communication. Other topics could include the Internet as a public presentation venue for artists and discussions about curating online.

7. Technological aspects of new developments in participatory video.

The moving image on the Internet has opened itself to tagging, telepresence and social communication. Can it still open itself further through visual browsers and HTML5? With HTML5 authors can script their own user interface, but there is also a way to trigger a user interface provided by the user agent – is this a seed for a new manner of online video communication? Does it indicate developments of open personalization and/or the further fragmentation of users? Other issues could include technologies of the private and the public spheres.

The deadline of submission of proposals and abstracts is 20th January, 2012.
Proposals and questions should be addressed to Brian Willems:brianwillems@gmail.com.

The conference itself is free and if possible the presenters or institutions to which they are attached should take care of the travel and accommodation expenses.

VV summer school is organized by Dan Oki and Dalibor Martinis.

Split, 07.07.2011

We would like to invite you and your students to participate in the Video Vortex summer school Vis, 2011. This is the first year that school is being organized as part of the international Video Vortex network. The aim of the project is to establish a European summer school and future joint study programs in the fields of film, media arts, performance and cultural theory.

As a bit of background, the island of Vis and the town of Komiza have a very particular location within both the Croatian geographical and historical context and within the wider Mediterranean cultural-historical environment. Vis and Komiza have witnessed prehistoric times, the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, the 19th century struggles of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy and England for the domination of the Adriatic, the wave of emigration from the island to America at the beginning of the 20th century, a free territory with Tito’s cave of 1944, and they have become an internationally renowned contemporary tourist destination. All the while, Vis and Komiza have been both the periphery and the center of Mediterranean and Croatian culture. Despite having a small number of inhabitants, a small surface area and being geographically isolated, Komiza is an urbanized place featuring a pronounced linguistic, cultural, economic and social identity. Based on these traits of Komiza and Vis, it is possible to develop a new symbolic value. The constant simultaneity of local and global can be found in new media practices as they establish new simultaneities (inside/outside, aesthetic/ethic, body/virtual…), and a paradigm of the net-work and/or the archipelago annuls the dichotomy between center and periphery. Summer school will rely on the already articulated inter-island cultural practices which have been, in this part of the Adriatic, developed by local cultural activists under the name of Moj otoče (My Island). The marine area surrounding Vis is many times greater than the area of the island and thus the sea (as a space which both isolates and at the same time connects, as a mythical place, as an economic resource and as a point of disappearing on one side and a life-sustaining medium on the other) can be seen as a parallel space of media research.

We will have the following teachers from six respected universities at this first Video Vortex summer school which will happen on the island of Vis in the town of Komiza between the 22nd and the 31st of August, 2011.

Sarah Kesenne – Sint Lucas Art Academy of Gent, Belgium

Kobe Vermeere – Sint Lucas Art Academy of Gent, Belgium

Merry Krell – Sussex University of Brighton, School of Media, Film and Music, UK

Adrian Goycoolea – Sussex University of Brighton, School of Media, Film and Music, UK

Peter Purg – University of Nova Gorica, School of Arts, Slovenia

Davor Svaic – University of Zagreb, Academy of Dramatic Arts, Croatia

Dalibor Martinis – University of Rijeka, Academy of Aplied Arts, Croatia

Sandra Sterle – University of Split, Academy of Arts, Croatia

Dan Oki – University of Split, Academy of Arts,  Croatia

Dinko Bozanic – University of Split, Academy of Arts, Croatia

Brian Willems – University of Split, Faculty of Philosophy, Croatia

Besides university teachers we will have also two other teaching participants:

Srećko Horvat – theoretician

Vjeran Šalamon – music composer and sound designer

We expect to have 2-4 students from each university. All together, around 20 students and 10 teachers are expected. The invited teachers should select some of their students to participate in the workshop. Structure of the workshop is that students work in couple of groups. For example, one group will be working in the field as a mobile film-media crew and another group will be assembling and editing materials and/or putting it online. Other groups or individuals can develop their own work methods or they can work exclusively with online moving image. There will also be a small film set and the production of a couple of scenes for a feature film will be taking place. We will have underwater cameras and motion capture control, lighting and sound equipment. For students who want to work on themes related to the island of Vis, here are a couple of possible themes:

- The Island of Vis and its Marine Area – Tradition

- My Island

- Global/Local – History

- Tito’s Cave – Vis 1944

Each day there will be a conceptual round table centered on planning the next day of production. Each evening we will also have one presentation or lecture by one of the teachers.

At the end of the workshop we will have presentations in the local cinema and on about 10 plasma televisions placed around the town of Komiza.

We will cover accommodation, breakfast and dinner for you as a teacher. The accommodation is in a two-star hotel, but on such a remote island it counts for four stars in the summer. The name of the hotel is called Bisevo, in the town of Komiza, the island of Vis. Please check it out on the web.

For students we have discount rates at the hotel. They have to pay 200 kunas per day, which includes accommodation, breakfast and dinner. It is, with taxes, around 30 Euros per day. The idea is to have workshops for 10 days and 9 nights. So for each student it comes to around 270 Euros, or 2,800.00 kunas.

In order to have a balance between students and teachers, the teachers do not get a teaching fee but have their accommodation and food covered, while the students do not pay a workshop fee but they have to pay for a discounted accommodation. Both students and teachers have to ask their respected Universities to pay for their travel expenses.

Besides the actual workshop, we will discuss plans for future joint study programs on the European level. Next year we expect more institutions to join us: the Academy of Fine Arts Budapest – Hungary, the Institute of Network Cultures from Amsterdam – the Netherlands and the Academy of Fine Arts from Bruinschweig – Germany, and other interested parties. A new edition of the Video Vortex conference will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb in may 2012. It will be a next meeting point for further development of the projects.

Sincerely yours,

Professors Dan Oki and Dalibor Martinis