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

But what are the sources? Where can you get your free and perfectly legit audio and video material to use and share as you wish?

In the workshop we basically used four sources for our material (all free and open source of course).
-Open Images Project – this is an initiative of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision in collaboration with Knowledgeland. It is based mainly on material from the the Netherlands public broadcasting archive but users are invited to add their own material to the collection and so it keeps on growing. Furthermore, Open Images also provides an API, making it easy to develop mashups.
-Archive.org - both audio and video material. It has the advantage of storing all sorts of materials (film, music, books) currently in the public good. This means that your remixed video could easily include bits and pieces of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps, George A. Romero’s Night of The Living Dead or Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
-Freesound.org - there’s a great variety of sounds and special effects available here (from conversation sin bar, to a surprised American from the Midwest). Furthermore the active community means that you can make requests of sounds you need. In order to download from here you need to be a registered user.
-Jamendo.com – specially oriented towards music, it has all kinds of genre from electro to classical.

In terms of editing software people used a diversity of programs from iMovie to Adobe Premiere Elements to Final Cut Pro. Some also took advantage of MPEG Streamclip (free) to convert their Open Images videos from .mpg to a better format.

This workshop has taken place in collaboration with MediaLAB Amsterdam.

Maarten Brinkerink, organizer of the "Remixing and Re-Use of Open Video Collections" Workshop. Photo by Anne Helmond.

Just a day before the much awaited sixth edition of Video Vortex, students, media producers, video amateurs and overall new media enthusiasts are gathering in the Netherlands Media Art Institute to indulge their geeky tendencies in some open video remixing and experimenting.

In the context of the Open Images project, participants of this workshop will get creative with material from the Netherlands’ public broadcasting archive, to make their own short videos. We’ve now just started and this is the goal of the day: each and everyone of the participants needs to make a short (1 minute) movie by the end of the day.

But first things first. Who is responsible for all this?

The workshop is organized by Maarten Brinkerink project manager of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and it is lead by mixed media artists and Emile Zile and José Miguel Biscaya.

And so, amidst the tangle of ethernet cables providing the much needed internet connection, the workshop begins.

As we present each other it becomes clears that a lot of participants have some experience with video editing but no experience whatsoever with open source video. To which Emile clarifies that there’s quite a difference between video editing experience and experience working with samples and remixing.

José describes what we’ll do today as making a college, something that most likely everyone is familiar with even if only from his/her kindergarden days. He explains that sampling is  about taking something out of its context and doing something else with it, more than experience what you really need is intuition. So its not about building tight narratives but rather interesting mash-ups. Keeping this in mind Emil and José gave a series of tips that I summarize here.

1. Think about audio, it can really change the meaning and add a new layer to your remixed video – As an example Emile mentions the Gendered Advertiser Remixer a tool where one finds two columns, one with video material and one with audio material from commercial ads and can then combine then. Consequently, one comes up with very uncanny ads where Barbie is showing off her silky smooth blond locks to a narrator with a deep bass voice more apt for a G.I.Joe add. This kind of wacky gender bias experimentation works because the duration of both audio and video material is the same, both sample banks are 30 seconds long. Furthermore, they both have quick video editing and quick paced dialogue. So these unexpected collisions between different media end up producing a “third meaning.”
2. Get a broad range of samples to work with – that is, even if you have an idea in mind, say kittens for a new addition to the ever growing LOLcats collection, don’t stick to samples only from that area. When you are doing your search look for material in other topics like say, religion, you never know what you made find.
3. Chance is on your side – Think about chance collisions. This is one area where randomness can be a good thing.
4. Forget the Timeline – “Timelining” or making a structure doesn’t really work for this kind of endeavor. It is more about seeing what collisions and connections work.
5. Get rhythm – You don’t need to make a film that looks like a film with a beginning an end, you can go by rhythm. For example cut a series of left to right motions and mash them together.

I’ll be tuning in again later to let you know all about the specific sources to find material and resources to edit them in order to create your own video stories with found material, as promised by the Video Vortex organizers.

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.

WE INVITE
Internet, visual culture and media scholars, researchers, artists, curators, producers, lawyers, engineers, open-source and open-content advocates, activists, and others to submit abstracts, preferably within the themes listed below.

SUBMIT ABSTRACT + BIO
Please send an abstract of a maximum 500 words outlining your proposed talk, and a short biography of a maximum 200 words.

SEND TO: rachel(at)networkcultures(dot)org

DEADLINE: Monday, October 11, 2010.

MORE INFORMATION
Video Vortex: http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/
Institute of Network Cultures: http://www.networkcultures.org
Sign up for Video Vortex Discussion list here: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/discussion-list
Or email: rachel(at)networkcultures(dot)org

_____________________________

VIDEO VORTEX #6 THEMES

- Open Everything and the Challenge of Cash
What is the ultimate open video? What are the new ways to produce and distribute online video as open? And what are the limits of openness online? Why would you share your content or code, what’s in it for you? What are the key economic questions for video start-ups? How can they combine a culture of openness and sharing, while attending to the need to generate income in order to keep producing and pay the rent? What are some of the examples of best practice: what are they, who are they, where are they? Does government policy have a role, or should it be left up to the uneven geography of informational peers to generate new protocols for content distribution?

- 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 public 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? Who controls the database, and is there a role for designers in developing database aesthetics? How to jump through the hoops of copyright legislation, format compatibility and the spatial culture of consumption and production? Once collaboration comes into play, what impact do conflicting skill sets, different modes of knowledge production and varying social desires have?

- Attack Amateur Aesthetics!
This theme seeks to tackle the tenuous relationship between amateur and professional video production, particularly with respect to the question of ‘quality’. Have amateur and professional video grown closer or are they still in competition? Given Andrew Keen’s and Jaron Lanier’s critiques of amateur content, is it possible for the quality of video to be improved? How can cultural value or worth be understood in this expansive realm of video? What aesthetics, techniques, genres, structures, and so on, exist in the professional realm of online video, compared to the amateur? Now that professional advertising campaigns seek that ‘raw’ amateur look, and the amateur experimentation tries to produce high quality produced work, what should professional education in this field be aimed at?

- Art and Activism
What are the political and artistic strategies of online video? Are there powerful platforms available for videos in the realm of art and activism? How do artists and activists deal with and reflect on the nature of online video, with its guerrilla, amateur, viral, remix and lo-fi characteristics? How is online video being used as a (grassroots) political tool, and conversely the ways in which authoritative powers understand and use video against activist actions? What are the new ways of launching political content effectively when everything aims to be viral? And where is the radical and artistic answer to TED Talks?

- Big Players and the Politics of Appropriation
Who are the big players in the world of online video? How are corporations and governments using online video? What kind of guerrilla marketing strategies are companies adopting, appropriating amateur aesthetics and making use of the possibilities of online video for its easily viral nature? How are cinema and television companies dealing with the large-scale use of online and mobile video? And how to respond to the rise of ’national webs’ and the new enclosures of the cable/telecom packages and TV set-top boxes?

- Platforms, Standards and the Trouble with Translation
This theme seeks to draw forth experts who will offer strong interventions regarding various platforms and channels proliferating on the internet that contribute to the ecology and culture of online video. These include, but are not limited to: Skype, streaming video technologies, Foursquare, Seesmic, Qik video, Netflix, immediate news channels online etc. The theme focuses on the problem of the translations across platforms that arise to due to conflicts in standards. The geo-cultural, and often the national, limits to open sharing of online content are also significant. How do users and producers get around the limits of these borders? How do they work under the radar or tunnel through the firewall in the face of censorship and content control? Or do people simply submit to the powers that be?

______________________________

Video Vortex #6 is organized as part of Culture Vortex, a research and innovation program on public participation in online cultural collections, organized by the INC and partners MediaLAB Amsterdam, Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Virtual Platform, and VPRO, and five participating cultural organizations. Culture Vortex is funded as a RAAK-Public program by the Innovation Alliance Foundation.
More info: http://www.networkcultures.org/culturevortex/.

Videodefunct and Showinabox: Hitting vlogging with a hammer
date: Thursday Jan 17 from 12.00 – 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.

1200 – 1400 Videodefunct (Seth Keen and Keith Deverell)
1400 – 1600 Showinabox (Jay Dedman and Ryanne Hodson)
1600 – 1700 Vlogging panel discussion

more information:

http://www.montevideo.nl

http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/

http://greyspace.com.au/blog/

http://www.videodefunct.net/

http://jaydedman.com

http://ryanedit.blogspot.com

http://ryanishungry.com

http://showinabox.tv/

Please note: Register for the workshop by contacting malka@nimk.nl!