Last Friday Led It Up attended the Video Vortex #6 conference @ Trouw. The entire day was about different elements of the online video ‘vortex’ we live in these days. Various speakers showed examples of projects they were involved in and we learned a bit more about online video art, open source, platforms and aesthetics.

Havana, magazine fom the HvA, made a clip of the day. Led It Up moviestars Jorian and Daan can be seen in it. Check it out here, and click more for the rest of this post.

Maarten Brinkerink, from the Institute of Sound and Vision, was the moderator of the session that was of most interest to our project. There were a lot of speakers so we’ll focus on our favourites. First up: Ben Moskowitz from Mozilla. He really got us jumping in our seats. He spoke about the difference between online video and web video and convinced us that these are not 2 different words for the same thing. What we have now is web video, video as we know it and simply embedded on the webpage. Moskowitz argued that the potential for online video is much bigger than this. With the use of HTML5 posibilities are extreme. Check out an example here. Another interesting project he showed us was Mozilla’s popcorn. Here’s an explanation in their own words:

Video on the web has always been a bit disappointing. After all, it’s pretty much just like television, only smaller. And unlike the rest of the web, video is just as much a passive experience in your browser as it is anywhere else. Mozilla would like to change that. Developers at the browser maker’s Drumbeat project — an initiative that advocates new open web technologies — have created Popcorn, a tool intended to make web video every bit as interactive as the rest of the web. Popcorn is a very new effort and still a bit rough around the edges, but results are already impressive. Popcorn adds metadata to HTML5 native web video, annotating videos with information like location, details about the people and topics in the video, subtitles, and licensing details. The metadata can be used in real time to add to the experience. Source: Mozilla

Basically HTML5 will release online video from its adopted ‘old media’ constraints, arcording to Ben Moskowitz. Click here for a Popcorn demo. For us this presentation was mostly interesting because we might use HTML5 for our LED screen. It gave some interesting insights and broadened our knowledge of the possibilities.

Ben Moskowitz

Another cool project is Web X-ray Goggles, allowing everyone to instantly check out and change/remix the code and layout of their webbrowser. Very interesting for us to see this kind of remixing by the public.

Evan Roth served us some cool art projects in The ‘online video art’ session, following Ben Moskowitz. Roth had given the animated GIF mash up workshop the day before, attended by our very own Level Up. Among their work we saw some awesome projects done by Roth and F.A.T. Lab (Free Art and Technology).

Evan Roth

Click here to view the embedded video.

L.A.S.E.R. tag: an open source tool for writing graffiti on buildings with lasers.

Another nice project was shown by Dagan Cohen, alled “Upload Cinema”. In short, he shows us that the web is changing film. Thanks to “Upload Cinema”, Dagan gives an opportunity to present the best of the web in movie theatres. The audience submits videos and the best ones will be selected to be shown. Another interesting way of remixing content..  In sum; very inspiring day.

Dagan Cohen

Click here to view the embedded video.

Upload Cinema

Photos by Anne Helmond and Networkcultures

Last Thursday Led It Up participated in the Video Vortex #6 workshop: Remixing and Re-Use of Open Video Collections. Led by Maarten Brinkerink from Sound & Vision and artsists Emile Zile and José Miguel Biscaya, students and interested creatives used open source material from Open Images to create their own videos. Use of chronological narrative or just randomly mashed up symbolism, everything was possible. Especially interested in the remixing possibilities of the content we are going to use for our project, we got in touch with our creative artists within. Here’s the results:

Car Race Mashup – by Wilco

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tigerblood – by Lotte [ USE HEADPHONES FOR SOUND ]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Fashionable Soccer Animals – by Jorian and Daan

Click here to view the embedded video.

Men versus Women – by Helene

Click here to view the embedded video.

All material used under creative commons license

Throughout the day we got a better understanding of the Open Images database and the ways remixing is possible. A big thanks to NIMk, Maarten and the artists for the inspiring day!

We visited this event at the 8^th of March. A big happening on the terrain of the Westergasfrabriek. We were at the conference in the Westerunie. In parallel session there were developer bootcamps for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 7.

The first speaker was a programmer specialized in making apps through social media. He told us about “the web” and “the internet” that those are not the same.

But despites off the title I can’t say he was really talking about apps through social media he said something’s about twitter, facebook and other social media and in which layer such media should be divided. But the part about apps was non existing. His view on “the internet” was good and the difference with “the web” was made clear by him. I liked his way of thinking and he made clear how the internet will evolve.

The second speaker of the day: Walter aan de Wiel. Told us about “Our Mobile Generation”. He told us facts like the moderate lifecycle of a mobile phone is about 18 months and 140 million of them end up in landfills every year..

Besides the facts on mobile phones his lecture wasn’t valuable to our project but he gave a nice speech about Enviu and what they are working about.

Next up is PayPal. Deborah Lynch gave us a promotion tour on PayPal. This was a complete waste of time cause in our project we won’t use PayPal and using PayPal is not my favorite because it’s necessary to book money to your PayPal account first, before you can use it. And therefore I think iDeal is way more convenient to use. Anyway it was more of a promotional talk for PayPal, so not that interesting.

Martijn Jansen the public speaker for ebuddy gave us some nice insights into the mobile messaging. About the amount of users and the fact that it is sort of the red line through mobile development, it has always been there. Most of his speech was not really applicable to our project but the research they are doing at ebuddy is interesting to follow.

Ebuddy is known as a web based msn and other messaging channels. You can talk to your friends on msn by a web browser.

With the application Steape made you can easily create apps for the android market, app store and other application stores. And you don’t even need to be a programmer.  You tell the framework how you want your app to work and it will generate the native code for all the supported operating systems. Pretty awesome if I may say so.

The last presentation of the day was about a game called Chalk Ball. You can either buy the full version or a Lite version. I downloaded the Free Version. I even played it a bit in the beginning it’s quite addictive. You need to hold your ball above the ground by painting lines where it can bounce off. In the screen are other balls which you can hit for more painting chalk.

In the main area are some stands where people show off their products. One of them is BuitenBeter. It is created for Dutch people so they can inform their city about things that need to be repaired, improved or cleaned. (like garbage on the street, broken lanterns and many more) The application keeps you informed about the status of your problem/comment.

Last Wednesday team Led It Up attended the BeamLab #22 conference. There were some inspiring presentations about media art and the use new innovative interactive devices.

Justus Tomlow was the kick off presenter he showed us idea’s for KiKa (Child Cancer Foundation) in how they can get more money from donators. His students learned a new way to make concepts, this is the main part of his course. The idea is, to find out all the different kinds of interactions that happen when a person is handling an object, by relating it to the stories of fairy tales. Some off the ideas the students made are now for review by KiKa. There was an idea about a tree in the hospital where you could pick an apple (when you donate a certain amount). When a person picked an apple there would go a light to a child which was ill. The idea was quite simple but i wonder if it’s an idea what could be useful. There where a lot of questions out of the audience about the quality and time spend about the ideas. So probably the ideas should be improved before the can be used. All by all it’s was an insight in the work of Justin Tomlow and how he stimulates his students.

Rogier van der Zwaag presented the stop motion video clip he made for the audiovisual formation “Nobody Beats the Drum”. The video lets you experience the Music through colored blocks moving by means of stop motion. Also we were promised the premiere of his newest creation. Again a stop motion clip not with blocks this time but with actual trees. But it was not quite the premiere we were hoping for. Mainly because the clip is not finished. So he showed us some previews and even though these were only previews, it was pretty ff’ing awesome. We can’t wait to see the finished result.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Marije Meerman from VPRO BackLight presented the worlds first TouchDoc. A documentary that can be viewed on an Ipad with all kinds of interactive layers on it. The new idea of this product is watching the documentary non-linear and with extra information and visualization of the presented content. This means that the whole experience of watching a documentary is changed. At first they showed a short introduction of the documentary ‘Money & Speed: Inside the Black Box’ about how companies are conquering Wallstreet with the use of algorithms. The presentation was interesting because they showed the Ipad application and its possibilities. The public was very enthusiastic about this new concept. There were a lot of questions about how the VPRO is going to market this new product and if the source code is open for use. They said it will be open but we will know it in the future.

Time for a little break.

Alright so the break was over and Bruno Jordaan, of RANJ, came to tell us about a serious game they created for the lawfirm Houthoff Buruma. This game was to serve as an aide for recruiting young lawyers, it was to test some skills such as teamwork, problem solving and more. The story Bruno told was somewhat vague and it didn’t really become clear how this game was played and what it looked like. This might have something to do with the fact that he couldn’t show everything about the game because it is still in use by the lawfirm.

Next up was Arne Boom, and let me tell you, this guy was really awesome. He presented some very cool and interactive projects he made. I especially liked the project Bandjesland. The idea here was to remix sound clips by means of physical tapes. The sound clips were linked through RFID chips in the tapes. By placing the tapes on different points you could play the different tracks that were linked to the tapes, by doing so you were mixing your own music. Maybe this is a new way for us to look at the Open Images Database in terms of remixing, we’ll have to find out some more about this.

Open source is ever growing and in the minds of the youth, copyright is a word that belongs to the stuffy past. Part of our research process is to find (new) ways of creative and artistical ways of remixing old video to produce something new and add an extra layer of value to it. We came across 2 initiatives that are so cool we need to share. These are example of brilliant creative re-use of already existing media.

First, there’s Kutiman. He produces psychedelic funk music. His abilities to mix and mash online videoclips is through the roof! For his project Thru You he searched Youtube for unrelated videos of people singing and/or using various instruments. Throw all those clips together and you get a huge mess – well, we would anyway. Kutiman manages to create some slick tracks out of these mash ups. Check it out! Also visit his Youtube channel for some inspiring sounds & visuals.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Next up is the vibrant group called Eclectic Method. Here’s what Wired had to say about them:

Eclectic Method’s kinetic live shows splice music, film, TV and videogames into a body-rocking audiovisual concoction that gets clubbers hopping and synapses popping. “We are constantly in the process of remixing media and researching new forms of narrative that multiscreen stimulus brings,” said the trio’s Jonny Wilson in an e-mail to Wired.com. “We also rock a sick party with clips you saw on TV just yesterday, mashed up with a million memories from the collective media history we all share.”The group has also managed to turn remixing, an art form that has earned its practitioners no small amount of legal trouble over the years, into a lucrative business. Ever since Eclectic Method emerged in 2002 remixing videos for U2 and Beastie Boys, Wilson and his partners Ian Edgar and Geoff Gamlen — who work remotely from Los Angeles and London, respectively — have been scratching DVDs live like skilled DJs and doing remixes for major tech companies and media outlets.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is this the future of live dj performance? Will clubbing become a mash up trip of sounds & visuals remixed into one big psychedelic experience?

Last Thursday the team attended Wireless Stories. It was an interesting conference about new media in public space that mainly served us as inspiration source. Nearly all speakers showed examples of projects they were involved with so there was loads of eyecandy for all attendees.

The conference is an initiative by the Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam in collaboration with the Mediafonds, and is the start of the masterclass programme also organised by the two. They provide creatives with a platform to discuss and explore all forms of new media in the public space and the possibilities and restraints paired with the debate surrounding physical and virtual space. The rise of locative media and mediated localities marks an important shift in our understanding of digital boundaries and the world we perceive as ‘real’ – surrounding us.

The day itself was devided into 3 parts: The Public, Audiences and Interaction and Storytelling. For us the second part was most interesting, as we are still thinking of different ways to have our audience interact with our mobile screen from Dropstuff and the content provided by Sound & Vision. Here’s some of the stuff we’ve seen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This project was realised by DUL (Center for Digital Urban Living) in Denmark. People were  able to interact with the projection by creating sentences out of words. The goal was to raise awareness and have people share their thoughts on environmental issues. This goals wasn’t exactly realised as people were merely ‘playing’ with the projection.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This Moodwall, designed by Illuminate Outdoor Media, was presented to us by Matthijs ten Berge. The project was realised in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost, where it was well received by the public. The wall interacts with passersby using colourschemes that follow them around. In 2009 the Moodwall earned Matthijs the prestigious Dutch Design award. Illuminate Outdoor Media is now working on a 70 meter long interactive screen for Amsterdam Zuid-Oost. Check it out here!

Team Led It Up will be attending the BeamLab night at Wednesday  23rd of February!

The honeymoon is over! After spending a week getting to know each other, doing some cool workshops and experiencing the relaxed and creative MediaLab vibe, it is time to get busy. This week is all about setting up the team as a solid base for some extreme creativity. Led It Up will work together with Dropstuff and Sound & Vision to produce an interactive experience on a huge mobile screen @ an event or festival. Using mobile phones as intermediaries, we want our public to be able to interact with the remixed images we use from the gigantic (700.000 hrs of visuals and sounds!!) database provided by S&V. Needless to say our inspiration is flowing like madness.  Check out this cool video by MegaPhone Labs to get a feel for the possibilities we are faced with:

Click here to view the embedded video.

What’s next this week? Tomorrow (Thursday) we will be at the Wireless Stories conference in the Stadsschouwburg of Amsterdam. There we will learn more about the role of new media in public space. Later on you’ll find a post about our findings and our thoughts on how to implement what we’ve learned into our own project. On Friday we will meet up with S&V to get to know each other and start conceptualizing.

Keep you posted!