Throughout our project, copyright and intellectual property law play an important role. These have been hot topics in the remix and participation culture we live in for quite some time now. Remix has been part of our society for centuries but has exploded ever since participation culture, and especially Web 2.0, gave rise to what others have called: the produser. New technologies have caused a blurring between professionals and amateurs and changed the audience from consumers into consumers that produce for themselves (produsers). Semi-professional cameras, high tech mobile phones, HD video cameras – technologies that were once rare and limited to professional use now shifted towards a more general public and became common. Through the Web 2.0 produsers were handed platforms to upload and broadcast their videos, journals, pictures, etc.

A basic principle of this culture is sharing, something that is also evident in remix culture. World’s offline cultures are now available for download online. Technological developments and the participation mindset of the time stimulated the explosion of remix culture. Mash ups and remixes can be made by the common former consumer and uploaded anywhere, anytime. This new way of producing culture collides with the old intellectual property laws we’ve been stuck with for the past decades. Remix advocates such as Lawrence Lessig support a new way of distributing cultural and creative works: through creative commons licensing. The videos we are using for our project (Open Images) are all licensed this way. We are not just trying to stimulate people to start remixing their cultural heritage, we support the idea of free culture and openness.

So what are the copyright implications for our use of old games? The top 3 we’ve chosen were born out of the famous Memory, Ezelen and Hangman. To be sure we won’t get sued after launching the installation at a festival, we contacted Bureau Kennistransfer of the University of Amsterdam. They agreed to help us out and here’s the first feedback:

• Our version of the memory game should at least be named differently. The game in itself is very old and can be traced back to Japan. Ravensburger however owns the brand name ‘memory’ and is involved in over 100 lawsuits per year to protect that brand. The extreme amount of online variations to the game – find the difference, what is missing, spot the difference – point to the fact that our version could probably be used safely.
• Ezelen seems to be a very old card game that has different variations in different countries. There is no commercial party ‘claiming’ the game as theirs, so it’s probably safe for us to use – even the name. Our version of the game also has a feeling of ‘kwartet‘ to it, which is a typical Dutch game according to Wikipedia. This game has been used by numerous businesses and game producers for decades. It is unlikely that they all bought a license for it so for now it seems we can use it safely.
• Hangman, or galgje in Dutch, is a very old game. It’s been mentioned as early as 1894 so this game too seems safe to use.

That’s it for today. Check these videos if you want to know more about creative commons or remix culture:

Mister CC himself:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Creative Commons:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The very interesting documentary ‘RIP: A Remix Manifesto’:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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!

After one and a half months participating in the MediaLab things are getting clearer. Our assignment is part of the Culture Vortex project. The aim for this big project is; to encourage public participation in online cultural (heritage) collection. There are different collections of public material but there are not so much ways of online distribution/participation in the Netherlands. A big part of the Dutch television broadcast material is being held in the archive of the Institute of Sound & Vision in Hilversum, one of our partners in the assignment. Their goal in this project is to creatively re-use audio/visual material and enrich their database with new material. Under the project Open Images (as part of Images for the Future), they release videos from their archive under creative commons license. Our challenge is to get more people working with these ‘open’ videos. The website will provide us with the content that we need in the assignment.

The other partner that we are working with is Dropstuff, a non-profit organization that is trying to create a museum without any walls in public space. They have all kinds of screens throughout the Netherlands and one big mobile screen, which they use at festivals. Their main goal for this project is to create a long term solution/application for the (mobile) screen(s). They want an interactive web/mobile application that can interact with the screens. So the experience of the digital art will be on a different level than in a traditional museum.

So, our goal for these upcoming 6 months is to create a web application, wherein the public can remix images from the database of Sound & Vision (Open Images). We hope to stimulate the public to re-use the archive material with the use of this application. The web app will be in direct contact with the screen that we are going to use, so the results of the remixing will be visible on the screen. This whole installation will be presented on a festival in the summer (June).

The past weeks we mainly focused on the research part of the assignment. We visited different conferences and presentations for inspiration. From this week on we will be in concept-phase, meaning we have to work out around 50 concepts in detail. Next to that we’re reaching out to festival organisations to get in with our interactive installation.

The team with Maarten (middle) @ Sound & Vision

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?

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!

Publiek 2.0: Onderzoek naar gebruikersculturen, nieuwe distributiemogelijkheden van audiovisueel materiaal en nieuwe verdienmodellen.

De programmalijn Publiek 2.0 heeft op volgende gebieden onderzoek gedaan:

a. Vooronderzoek bij gebruikersgroepen (3 maanden, feb-april), i.s.m. onderwijs en onderzoekers

-      professionele online collectiehouders en curatoren (m.m.v. de andere consortiumpartners die een collectie bezitten)

-      kunstenaars (uit netwerk NIMk en Video Vortex)

-      het brede publiek

b. Ontwikkeltraject van een nieuwe online catalogus (3 maanden)

c. Testfasen tijdens het ontwikkeltraject (usability testing i.s.m. MediaLAB en de gedefinieerde gebruikersgroepen)

Deliverables

- Eindrapport van vooronderzoek

- Rapportage van tussentijdse evaluaties en tests

(Waaronder usability tests, uit te voeren door MediaLAB)

- Follow up, research on curators

- Presentatie van het onderzoek als geheel

cv_nimk_research_20101123

nimk_cv_collectie_ontsluiting_20101123

As part of the programme line Public 2.0, in the past couple of months a follow-up research was conducted at NIMk. This research focused on media art curators. Here you can read a detailed report of the research.