by Carlos García Moreno-Torres

Since its birth in the early 20th century, cinema has probably caused a more visibly active reaction from audiences than any other form of art (fan conventions, discussions, reviews, seminars, remakes, parodies…). This bounty of responses is most likely due to cinema’s proximity to popular culture (its far-reaching stretch across a vast and diverse public), and its socializing character. Like many other media, participation in the creation, or more accurately re-creation, of content has increased drastically in the last few years; growth doubtlessly due to the omnipresent Web 2.0, cloud culture, internet society, or any other aspect of the phenomenon infiltrating the developed world today with smartphones, laptops, tablets and millions of users attached to them 24/7 creating and uploading content, often in collaborative or crowd-sourced ways.

If we look at fan films, a practice consisting of shooting your own version of a movie, TV show, or book etc., (with different productions having varying grades of fidelity in comparison to the original), we realize that they have in fact existed for many years. The first fan film, according to Wikipedia, dates back to 1926, even when recording technologies were far from accessible to the public at large. That being said, it seems natural that in this current moment, when internet trends continuously tell us that we’re somehow back in the era of craftsmanship, when everybody can be a photographer, a writer or a cinematographer, we are taking this trend seriously, and remaking and versioning the most significant pieces of modern culture in very personal ways.

Fan film initiatives illustrate the creative power of the millions of users connected to the internet every minute of every day, with the good news being that crowd-sourcing initiatives are growing up, maturing, and getting ready to leave the nest of the minority of intensive users to reach a larger public. There are more and more examples that prove that collaborative practices are not just an idea born as a logical consequence of this technological and cultural momentum, but a reality that is already making an impact in popular culture.

It’s significant that two really closed environments like TV and the Hollywood industries are now recognizing the value and interest of these initiatives. By the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences awarding a crowd-sourced and code-directed Star Wars fan film mash up project with an Emmy, and LucasArts (the copyright holders to Star Wars) supportively getting in contact with the “Star Wars Uncut” initiators, shows that these kinds of practices are here to stay. Interestingly, similar to cinema, there are both different genres, styles and breeds of crowd-sourced fan film video projects, as we find projects like the mentioned award winning “Star Wars Uncut” which draws from popular culture, but also others related to a more classical cinema sphere, like Perry Bard’s “Man with a Movie Camera”, a global remake of Vertov’s 1929 film.

Read the original article from the New York Times about the Emmy winning project to learn more about this Star Wars based project that opened industry doors to this new collaborative practices: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/arts/television/28uncut.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=an%20emmy%20for%20rebuilding%20a%20galaxy&st=cse

CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Video Vortex Amsterdam - March 11-12, 2011.

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

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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?

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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/.

by Carlos García Moreno-Torres

In a time when access to information, and more specifically video, is constant and immediate, and when the new content that becomes available daily easily tops the time users could spend in a month with their sight focused on a screen, content providers have started a war for that precious treasure: the attention and time of users.

It is in this state of affairs that we see the all-mighty Apple renewing a forgotten product like AppleTV, and rumours revealing that the giant Google (also owner of YouTube, and still trying to make it a lucrative business) will release its contender for the big pie of living room online video with GoogleTV being developed together with Sony. On this battlefield it seems like there are no small players in this war…but is this true?

Other smaller companies who were creative enough to carve out some space for themselves in the market, like Boxee (soon to release Boxee Box) or Netflix, are trying to find their own ways to move their services from Mobile phones and laptops to both the big screens, and other domestic screens, that everybody has been buying and vying for.

Below, an interesting article about this subject, regarding YouTube’s quest for screen superiority:
Written by Maggie Shiels, Technology reporter for BBC News (Original article here)

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YouTube Bids for screen dominance

Can YouTube make the jump to rule the roost in the living room?
The world’s biggest video site wants to dominate every screen where
content can be viewed and created.

YouTube is already a leader online and in mobile and has firmly set
its sights on the living room.

The company charted its course during the launch of a new product
called Leanback, described by some as web video for couch potatoes.

It also unveiled upgrades for its mobile site which has over 100
million playbacks a day.

“You can start to break down the mental picture of ‘these are the
videos I watch on my computer, on my tv or on my phone,’” Hunter Walk,
director of product management told BBC News.

“Now you just say ‘these are the videos I watch and I watch them
wherever I happen to be, or whoever I happen to be with’. We are going
to have a world where people increasingly expect their content to be
available to them on anything with a screen, whether that be a
computer, a phone or a tv. That is the vision,” said Mr Walk.

‘Opportunity’

With 24 hours of video uploaded to the site every minute, YouTube is
already the world’s biggest video website.

And with Leanback, YouTube is now vying for the attention of the user
in the living room.

People watch 2 billion videos a day on YouTube
“This really is where the opportunity is biggest for YouTube right
now,” said Kuan Yong, senior product manager for Leanback.

“We are looking at five hours of tv that users are watching every day
in the US versus 15 minutes of YouTube video, so there is a huge
opportunity for us to bring YouTube into the living room and at the
same time bring some of the tv experience to YouTube.”

The technology picks out high-definition clips and automatically
serves up a constant stream of one video after another. As it learns
more about the viewers’ likes and dislikes, this diet of video becomes
more personalised.

The aim is to ensure users do not have to think about what they want
to see next or click on the website every few minutes.

“We want to remove the ‘What next?’ question for viewers,” said Mr Yong.

‘Channel of you’

Mr Walk said Leanback marked the emergence of a single channel world.

“This is about the ‘Channel of You’. You become the programmer of the
content you want to see as opposed to someone sitting in the corner of
a room that doesn’t know you. This is about knowing about your
interests to pull content to you.

Leanback is in beta and expected to launch in the autumn
“And the challenge is all about making it effortless for you to get a
stream of constant videos that are going to be interesting and
relevant and targeted at you based on what your interests are and what
your friends are watching,” said Mr Walk.

Leanback is seen as part of the company’s effort to grow from a
website into a “video operating system” that is as ubiquitous and easy
to use as television.

It is also regarded as a product that will dovetail seamlessly with
Google’s tv ambitions, which aim to change the way consumers watch
television. Back in May, the search giant announced its plans for an
internet-focused tv in partnership with Sony, Intel, Dish Network and
Logitech.

The Sony made sets are due to go on sale in the autumn.

“Whenever you think of video, YouTube wants you to think of them,” Ben
Parr, co-editor of news website Mashable.com told the BBC.

“By making video available from the smallest screen to the biggest no
matter where you are, they can succeed in that goal. Whether they can
win in the living room is the billion dollar question. It is just
unclear if people want to watch YouTube video after YouTube video
versus professionally made shows on the networks,” he said.

Mobile changes

YouTube also upgraded its mobile website to make watching video on the
move more convenient and quality driven at a time when more and more
consumers reach the internet over smartphones.

The mobile update comes amid an explosion of smartphone sales
“YouTube consumption on mobile devices has grown considerably,” said
Andrey Doronichev, mobile product manager.

“Playbacks were up 160% in 2009 over the previous year. The world is
heading mobile and we want to move with it.”

The updated site promises faster speeds along with the ability to
create playlists, designate favourite videos and receive search query
suggestions.

And with the upgrade, YouTube appeared to be aiming to steer iPhone
users away from the application that comes preinstalled on the Apple
smartphone.

In a blog post, the company said “As we make improvements to
Youtube.com, you’ll see them quickly follow on our mobile site, unlike
native apps which are not updated as frequently.”

By Cecilia Guida

Constant Dullaart (the Netherlands, 1979) is a visual artist who ironically explores new modes of imagining and using the internet as a medium. His research is focused on the contemporary language of images and re-contextualizing material found on the Web. For him, the Web is a space, a landscape, a world to investigate in all its various parts, from the ‘default’ style of the platform, to its contents, and its popularity and widespread use. His works are widely discussed online and have been shown internationally. Having participated in 2009 at Video Vortex #5 in Brussels where he presented on his artistic practice that uses online video, this interview connects the ideas presented there through focusing particularly on his series ‘YouTube as a Subject’. Taking his work on the image of the YouTube play button as a point of departure, the conversation reflects on the social theories of Marshall McLuhan, perceptions of artwork on the YouTube platform, questions regarding the position of the artist, the relationship between online and physical spaces, and the interaction of the audience in the era of the ‘participatory culture’ of the Net.

The website of Constant Dullaart: http://www.constantdullaart.com/

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Cecilia Guida: In your series of short videos titled ‘YouTube as a Subject’ (2008) no people are visible in the work. On a black background the familiar image of the YouTube play button falls off the screen, bounces as a ball, grows out of focus or changes colour by the sound of techno music. The button is at the same time the starting point and subject of the work. Through a simple and smart gesture you reflect upon the digitalization of our contemporary visual culture, and call the spectators’ attention to meditate upon the relationship between the user interface and the moving image in logical and semiotic terms. For you, where did the idea for ‘YouTube as a Subject’ emerge?

Constant Dullaart: First of all I have to say that I disliked the YouTube design and video quality in 2005 when it started to come out—the chaotic site structure, the badly designed layout, and the obnoxious play button. After a few years it was clear that YouTube had won the battle of online video hosting companies, and it started to function as an archive (practical contemporary rights issues that avoid it from functioning in this way, and the 10 minute time limit aside), not only as a medium that was breaking with the authority of the expensive craft of the moving image professional. This caused me to wonder why the obnoxious play button had not been used as a subject since it was the first image people would see before watching all these important reference videos, art, wedding, news, etc. The play button is the starting point regardless of whether it’s a meme video, a Joseph Beuys performance, a Warhol screen test, or an instructional video. Every single one starts with the same image.

CG: In the Sixties early video art united negative and positive criticism about the technology, and offered alternatives for a traditional approach to the medium. Fluxus artists were pioneers in these investigations. Among them, Wolf Vostell and Nam June Paik used techniques such as détournement, manipulation, repetition, slowing down and speeding up images, etc. in order to explore the technical limits and possibilities of the medium. In particular, Paik incorporated the ideas of Marshall McLuhan in his work, specifically exploring video as a form of social experiment to bring people closer together and a suitable medium for audience participation. Do you relate to these strategies of technical investigation, and to video as a form of social practice, in your work?

CD: Comparisons between media are often made around a whole range of issues, from the anxieties and fears during their establishment in society (such as the predominantly negative influence on children of video games, television, graphic novels or even books),  to the celebration of a medium’s influence on a better future, to the announcements of their so called deaths or exits from daily use in society.

To apply this comparison to an artist’s research of a medium is a simple step.

For this artist’s research, first, the technical possibilities of the medium are often explored, and art is made to exhibit these capabilities. These works tend to catch the attention of the general public more often in the beginning establishment of a medium. Why this works in this way exactly I have never understood. It seems like the medium is still suffering from a lack of original medium specific content, and needs to attract attention by showcasing its capabilities. These conclusions are difficult to draw between the internet as a medium and older media such as painting. But the comparisons can be made between the birth of the film camera, the influence of photography on contemporary western image language, and very recently,
video art. But then the internet contains several developing social media, like mail and text driven media, so it is hard to compare it to a single older medium, especially since it is so dynamic.

The second step would be to find the boundaries of the technical capabilities, whether it’s human / user related or medium related.

The third step of this medium research would be to view the young medium on a metaphysical level: not only what is the use of the medium, but also how is it being used, and what is the meaning of this usage? After this, the medium’s content could escape the process as described above and it should be able to be used with more authentic or medium specific content. An example to understand it would be the filmmaker Andrej Tarkowski. As the formal and technical possibilities of the cinema movie had been researched in the 20’s, he found an ‘adult’ medium to work with knowing a lot of the medium implications and playing with it in more detail. He used the medium specific qualities to enhance the content and tell an authentic story disconnected from the medium itself. Let’s say that for now in relation to internet: the medium is more interesting than most of its content.

My ‘YouTube as a Subject’ work can be seen as a reference to Marshall McLuhan’s ‘the Medium is the message’, although I thought of the work more as purely formal in the sense that the form was the content. You could say that if the form is the medium, then form became the message. But, I think this series of my work was not about the implications of the social web or of mass social online video hosting, it was not dealing with the hotness or the coldness of the medium as McLuhan would describe it. It was more about the specificity of one corporation existing within the medium. YouTube itself is not a medium. To have the work exist outside of YouTube was important to me. To collect my videos and contextualize them outside of YouTube (on an html page with embedded videos) meant it was about the player, and not so much about the social part of the website, to separate it more from ‘the Medium is the Message’ idea.

*** Interview to be continued in the second Video Vortex Reader, currently in production at the INC***