Following the success of the first Video Vortex reader (published late 2008, second edition, 4000 copies in total), recent Video Vortex conferences in Ankara (Oct. 2008), Split (May 2009) and Brussels (Nov. 2009) have sparked a number of new insights, debates and conversations regarding the politics, aesthetics, and artistic possibilities of online video. Since these issues develop with the rapidly changing landscape of online video and its use, we want to open up a space once again for interested people to contribute to this critical conversation in a second issue of the Video Vortex reader.

POSSIBLE TOPICS
Taking its lead from the first Video Vortex reader, and based on the issues raised at the latest three Video Vortex conferences as well as recent developments, possible topics include:

Theories of online video and Web cinema // Politics of online video // YouTube and the state of contemporary visual culture // Database aesthetics // Video art meets web aesthetics // Autonomous participatory culture for art and activism // Artist engagement with ‘user-generated-content’ sites: content and architecture // Changing modes of video distribution and what this means for artists and activists // Open-source and open-content initiatives // Alternatives to proprietary standards // Censorship and YouTube // The ethics and politics of indigenous knowledge and online video // The use of online video within government practices (election campaigning, censorship etc.) // Democracy, citizen journalism and online video // Social Cinema // Educational practices and online video in the classroom // New and changing economic models // Google, YouTube and the economics of online video // Commercial objectives imposed by mass media on user-generated and video-sharing databases // Effect of ubiquitous online video practice on cinema, television and video art.

WE INVITE
Internet, visual culture and media scholars, researchers, artists, curators, producers, lawyers, engineers, open-source and open-content advocates, activists, Video Vortex conference participants, and others to submit materials and proposals.

FORMATS

We welcome interviews, dialogues, essays and articles, images (b/w), email exchanges, manifestos, with a max of 8,000 words. For scope and style, take a look at the previous INC readers (Video Vortex Reader, Urban Screens, Incommunicado Reader, MyCreativity Reader) and the style guide at: http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/videovortex_styleguide.pdf

This publication is produced by the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and will be launched early 2011.

DEADLINE: May 10, 2010

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

MORE INFORMATION
Video Vortex: 
http://networkcultures.org/videovortex/
INC readers: http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/
Or email: rachel(at)networkcultures(dot)org

____________
ABOUT THE READER SERIES
The INC reader series are derived from conference contributions and produced by the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam. They are available (for free) in print and pdf form on http://networkcultures.org/publications/inc-readers/

Previously published in this series:

INC Reader #5: Scott McQuire, Meredith Martin, and Sabine Niederer (eds.), Urban Screens Reader, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2009. The Urban Screens Reader is the first book to focus entirely on the topic of urban screens. A collection of texts from leading theorists, and a series of case studies that deal with artists’ projects, and screen operators’ and curators’ experiences, offering a rich resource at the intersections between digital media, cultural practices and urban space.

INC Reader #4: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds.), Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2008.
The Video Vortex Reader is the first collection of critical texts to deal with the rapidly emerging world of online video – from its explosive rise in 2005 with YouTube, to its future as a significant form of personal media.

INC Reader #3: Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter (eds.), MyCreativity Reader: A Critique of Creative Industries, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2007.
The MyCreativity Reader is a collection of critical research into the creative industries. The material develops out of the MyCreativity Convention on International Creative Industries Research held in Amsterdam, November 2006 (no longer available in print; pdf online).

INC Reader #2: Katrien Jacobs, Marije Janssen and Matteo Pasquinelli (eds.), C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2007.
C’lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader is an anthology that collects the best material from two years of debate from The Art and Politics of Netporn 2005 conference to the 2007 C’Lick Me festival (no longer available in print; pdf online).

INC Reader #1: Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle (eds.), Incommunicado Reader, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, 2005.
The Incommunicado Reader brings together papers written for the June 2005 event, and includes a CD-ROM of interviews with speakers (no longer available in print; pdf online).

ABOUT VIDEO VORTEX EVENTS
Video Vortex V: Brussels, Belgium (November 20-21, 2009) was organized by Cimatics festival 2009 in cooperation with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and supported by KASK (Faculty of Fine Arts, University College Ghent) and the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA).

Video Vortex IV: Split, Croatia (May 22-23, 2009) was organized by The Department of Film and Video at the Academy of Arts University of Split and Platforma 9.81, in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam.

Video Vortex III: Ankara, Turkey (October 10-11, 2008) was organized by Bilkent University Department of Communication and Design, in cooperation with the Institute of Network Cultures.

Planned Events: Video Vortex Budapest (Oct. 2010), Leicester, Amsterdam (March 2011), Croatia (September 2011).

Cimatics festival was hosting the 5th Video Vortex conference. Two years after its first edition, Video Vortex returned to Brussels, this time hosted in one of the great icons of mid 20th century modern architecture: the Atomium.

The past two years, the conference series – which focuses on the status and potential of the moving image on the Internet – has visited Amsterdam, Ankara and Split, growing out into an organized network of organizations and individuals. Time for an interim report, perhaps. We asked some participants of the first Video Vortex editions and publication, as well as new ones, to reflect on recent developments in online video culture.

Over the past years the place of the moving image on the Internet has become increasingly prominent. With a wide range of technologies and web applications within anyone’s reach, the potential of video as a personal means of expression has reached a totally new dimension. How is this potential being used? How do artists and other political and social actors react to the popularity of YouTube and other ‘user-generated-content’ websites? What does YouTube tell us about the state of contemporary visual culture? And how can the participation culture of video-sharing and vlogging reach some degree of autonomy and diversity, escaping the laws of the mass media and the strong grip of media conglomerates?

Credits:
Video Vortex V is organized in cooperation with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and supported by KASK (Faculty of Fine Arts, University College Ghent) and the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA).

Video Vortex V is organized by Cimatics festival 2009 in cooperation with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and supported by KASK (Faculty of Fine Arts, University College Ghent) and the Center Leo Apostel (CLEA).

On November 20-21 2009, Cimatics festival is hosting the 5th Video Vortex conference. Two years after its first edition, Video Vortex returns to Brussels, this time hosted in one of the great icons of mid 20th century modern architecture: the Atomium.

The past two years, the conference series – which focuses on the status and potential of the moving image on the Internet – has visited Amsterdam, Ankara and Split, growing out into an organised network of organisations and individuals. Time for an interim report, perhaps. We asked some participants of the first Video Vortex editions and publication, as well as new ones, to reflect on recent developments in online video culture.

Over the past years the place of the moving image on the Internet has become increasingly prominent. With a wide range of technologies and web applications within anyone’s reach, the potential of video as a personal means of expression has reached a totally new dimension. How is this potential being used? How do artists and other political and social actors react to the popularity of YouTube and other ‘user-generated-content’ websites? What does YouTube tell us about the state of contemporary visual culture? And how can the participation culture of video-sharing and vlogging reach some degree of autonomy and diversity, escaping the laws of the mass media and the strong grip of media conglomerates?

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Video Vortex V: DAY I

13h30 Introduction
by Geert Lovink

14h00 System flaws and tactics
Video channels, platforms and formats impose strict structures on how you can interact with it. This session is inspired by the inherent errors, disabilities and restrictions, often conducting our behaviour but in this case inspiring and exposing new insights.

Liesbeth Huybrechts/Rudi Knoops (BE)
‘Play that video , All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’
Both Huybrechts and Knoops teach at the Media & Design Academy in Genk.

Brian Willems (CR)
‘Blindness: the inability of YouTube to read itself’
Brian Willems teaches literature and media culture at the University of Split.

Rosa Menkman (NL)
‘Glitch: From Artifacts to filter. The Tipping point of failure’
Menkman is an artist and currently doing a PhD at the KHM on the subject of Artifacts.

Johan Grimonprez (BE)
‘It’s a poor story if it only works backward’
Grimonprez is an internationally renowned artist best known for his seminal DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y.

moderator: Andreas Treske

17h30 Q&A

20h30 Video Vortex evening programme at Les Brigittines
Film screenings, artist presentations and an audiovisual performance by Kurt D’haeseleer.
Venue info: http://www.brigittines.be/

Video Vortex V: DAY II

10h00 Online cinema
Similar to his essay ‘BMW Films and the Star Wars Kid: ‘Early Web Cinema’ and Technology’ in the recently published ‘Cinema and Technology’, Andrew Clay provides an in-depth approach of online cinema.

Andrew Clay (GB) – ‘Web cinema’
Andrew Clay is lecturing in Critical Technical Practices at De Montfort University, Leicester and programme leader of BSc (Hons) Media Technology in the Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering.

moderator: Andreas Treske

10h45 Categories of enactment / Strategies of resistance
Both lecturers have been contributing to the previous Video Vortex Reader. They are both artists and theoreticians and share a common attitude of resistance. In this session they will update and further expand their previous contributions to Video Vortex.

Keith Sanborn (US) – ‘beyond YouTube.world’
Sanborn is media artist and theoretician focusing on the investigation of public images and private perceptions with great attention to user generated content and web footage in general.

Stefaan Decostere (BE) – ‘Impact, complicity, fascination’
Decostere is a Belgian artist, has been producing documentaries for tv since 1979. In ‘99 he founded CARGO, a foundation for creation and development with media.

12h00 LUNCH BREAK

13h30 Artist practices: (sub)versioning
(Sub)versioning – the contraction of the Situationist ’subversion’ and the common IT practice of ‘versioning’ might best describe the practice of the artists in this session. They approach online video as a means for a subtle restructuring of existing popular media and a basis for investigating new modes of constructing and relating meaning brought about by the Internet

Oliver Laric (TR) & Aleksandra Domanovic (RS)
Berlin based artists Laric and Domanovic two of the co-founders of the platform VVORK. Their work has been the subject of numerous presentations at previous Video Vortex conferences.

Constant Dullaart (NL)
Dullaart is an artist and teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld academy, and curates several events in Amsterdam such as the Lost and Found evenings.

moderator: Vera Tollmann

15h00 Politics of online video
In a dispersed society, with a seemingly vanishing of mass culture, online video is challenging traditional channels of public communication, oppositional media. A session providing us with some remarkable case-studies and research-projects about participatory communication, the White House and citizen journalism.

Simon Yuill (GB) – ‘Citizen Journalism vs Oppositional Media’
Simon Yuill is an artist based in Glasgow, was involved in hacklabs and Free Media Labs and has written on aspects of Free Software and cultural praxis.

Elizabeth Losh (US) – ‘The White House’s use of YouTube and the reactions of privacy advocates’
Losh is Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at the University of California and recently published ‘Virtualpolitik’.

Stephen Crocker (CA) – ‘Filmmaking and the politics of remoteness’
Crocker is an associate professor of sociology and assistent director of the Humanities Program at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He writes about media, social theory, philosophy and the sociology of the image.

moderator: Sabine Niederer

17h00 Closing Q&A

Extra: You’re invited at the opening night of Cimatics festival 2009 at Beursschouwburg with audiovisual concerts by AGF (DE) and TVestroy (CA).

PRACTICAL INFO

Where:
- Atomium (Ilya Prigogine sphere), Brussels
http://www.atomium.be

Time:
Friday Nov 20 13h30-18h00
Saturday Nov 21 10h00-18h00

Entrance Fee:
normal: 15 €
students: 10 €
(prices for 2 days, food and drinks included)
(registration beforehand is required)
day I: 7,50 € (evening programme included, registration required)
day II: 7,50 €

Tickets:
Tickets will be sold at the entrance only, but registration is required.
Register by sending an email to videovortex@cimatics.com with your Full Name and the days you will be attending (Friday 20 / Saturday 21) + Reserve your seat for the evening programme on Friday 20.

How to get there:
Direct: Metro 6 to Heysel/Heizel.
BY BUS: Take the bus 84 or 88 and stop to Heysel/Heizel
BY METRO: Take the metro 6 and stop at Heysel/Heizel
BY TRAM: Take the tram 23 or 51 and stop Heysel/Heizel
BY TRAIN: Stop to Gare du Midi/Zuidstation, then take the metro 6 direction Roi Baudoin/Koning Boudewijn and stop at Heysel/Heizel

About Video Vortex:
Video Vortex is an interdisciplinary platform dealing with the moving image on the Web. It brings together a range of perspectives, such as arts, aesthetics, research, practice, reflection, exploration, collecting, experimenting, etc.

About Cimatics:
This 7th edition of the Cimatics festival again goes at full throttle with todays image culture. As an audiovisual festival it puts the focus both on art, media, design and music in a mix of concerts, film-screenings, exhibitions, workshops, conferences, public interventions and parties.

Cimatics is spread out all over the city of Brussels. For 10 days and nights it will be hosted by numerous venues, both underground and above. It intends to be a citywide international festival for advanced creativity, a node where grass-roots, underground and pop or art become mixed in an exciting cultural mash-up.

Partners:
http://www.cimatics.com
http://www.kask.be
http://www.vub.be/clea
http://www.networkcultures.org

Previously Video Vortex conferences were held in Brussels, Amsterdam, Ankara and Split. With this second Brussels meeting the goal is also to set up Video Vortex as an organised network, making it more sustainable.

Let this be a first general open call for participation. But keep an eye on the list for a more detailed call soon, with deadlines and specific themes. Submissions can be sent to the email adress below or uploaded through the online submission form at cimatics.com/entries (category: ‘Video Vortex’)

For any further questions, recommendations or remarks you can contact me at bram.crevits@cimatics.com or just reply to the vv list.

Video Vortex 4 includes contributions by: Perry Bard, Natalie Bookchin, Maarten Brinkerink, Vito Campanelli, David Clark, Dagan Cohen, Cym and the Aethernauts, Alejandro Duque, Albert Figurt, Stefan Heidenreich, Jasmina Kallay, Sarah Késsene, Lev Manovich, Dalibor Martinis, Gabriel Menotti, Ana Peraica, Valentina Rao, Shelly Silver, Jan Simons, Amir Soltani, Antanas Stancius, Evelin Stermitz, David Teh, Vera Tollmann, Andreas Treske, Saša Vojković, Nenad Vukušić Sebastijan, Linda Wallace, Paul Wiersbinski, Kuros Yalpani, Emile Zile

Organized by the Department of Film and Video at the Academy of Arts University of Split and Platforma 9.81, in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam.

VIDEO VORTEX 4 IN SPLIT,
SCHEDULE 21 – 23 May 2009

///DAY ZERO: THURSDAY 21 MAY 2009

17:00 Screenings 1
Location: Kinoteka Zlatna Vrata
Trip – Natalie Bookchin (63 min.)
Q&A – Natalie Bookchin (Los Angeles), (20 min.)

19:00 Opening evening
Location: Multimedia Cultural Center
19:00 Word of Welcome by Geert Lovink, Miranda Veljačić and Dan Oki
19:10 Introduction speech by Lev Manovich (San Diego)
20:00 Exhibition opening with food/buffet
21:00 Emile Zile – Post-It Kino Performance
21: 45 Nenad Vukušić Sebastijan – VJ Performance

///DAY ONE: FRIDAY 22 MAY

Video Vortex Conference
Location: Multimedia Cultural Center

9:45 – 11:30 Tele-Image Research Strategies (Moderator Sabine Niederer)
- Andreas Treske (Ankara)
- Nathalie Bookchin (Los Angeles)
- Dalibor Martinis (Zagreb)
Discussion

COFFEE

11:45 – 13:45 The Database (Moderator Tomislav Medak)
- Maarten Brinkerink (Amsterdam)
- Kuros Yalpani (Munich)
- Albert Figurt (Rome)
- Alejandro Duque (Zurich)
Discussion

LUNCH

14:30 – 16:30 Video Art meets Web Aesthetics (Moderator Leila Topić)
- Vera Tollmann (Berlin)
- Vito Campanelli (Napoli)
- Sarah Késsene (Gent)
- Linda Wallace (Sydney/Amsterdam)
Discussion

BREAK

17:30 – 18:45 Screenings 2
Location: Kinoteka Zlatna Vrata
Shelly Silver – In complete world (53 min.)
Q&A – Shelly Silver (New York), (20 min.)

19:00 CONFERENCE DINNER

21:00 – 22:30 SCREENING 3 (presented by Dagan Cohen)
Location: Kinoteka Zlatna Vrata
Upload Cinema, http://www.uploadcinema.nl, March 2009 Edition ‘Engineering the Body,’ (90 min.).

///DAY TWO: SATURDAY 23 MAY 2009
(First bus to the Conference: 8:45, Second bus to the Conference: 9:00)

Video Vortex Conference
Location: Multimedia Cultural Center

09:45 – 11:45 Online Video Theories (Moderator Geert Lovink)
- Jan Simons (Amsterdam)
- Gabriel Menotti (London)
- Amir Soltani (Manchester)
- Stefan Heidenreich (Berlin)
Discussion

COFFEE

12:00 – 14:00 Online Video Narratives (Moderator Brian Willems)
- Jasmina Kallay (Dublin)
- David Clark (Halifax)
- Valentina Rao (Pisa)
- Paul Wiersbinski (Frankfurt)
Discussion

LUNCH

14:45 – 16:45 Politics of the Moving Image (Moderator Petar Milat)
- Saša Vojković (Zagreb)
- David Teh (Bangkok)
- Ana Peraica (Split)
- Antanas Stancius (Vilnius)
Discussion

COFFEE

17:00 – 18:30 Social Cinema (Moderator Dan Oki)
- Perry Bard (New York)
- Evelin Stermitz (Villach/Ljubljana)
- Dagan Cohen (Amsterdam)
Discussion

19:00 PERFORMANCE
Location: Multimedia Cultural Center
- ‘Cym and the Aethernauts’ (Walkersdorf / All over the world) (performance 30 min.)

20:00 CONFERENCE DINNER

22:00 CONFERENCE PARTY
Location: KOCKA CLUB

We invite contributions for the following themes:

Telepresence and Web Aesthetics
Video meets Web aesthetics: how is the phenomenon of ‘telepresence’ incorporated in various art forms, such as music, theater, visual arts, literature and cinema? What are underlying aesthetics and what are the specific interface contexts?

Social Cinema
Has cinema found its way onto the Web? Did it change the essential features of cinema? What are the new possibilities of collaborative production? Does the future of film museums and cinematheques lie in online cinematic databases?

Architecture and Moving Image
Online video offers an immense database of moving images, which could be displayed in urban public space. What are the existing cinematographic visions of the future of the moving image in public space? (In films such as Blade Runner, Minority Report, Children of Men, etc.) Which visions can be directly implemented, and which will remain film scenography?

Video Sharing
What are the standards and alternatives for sharing, licensing and hosting moving images on the Web? This theme explores issues around the distribution, licensing, collaborative production, and video hosting.

Technology and politics of the moving image
What is the future of visual browsers? How does moving image production relate to cultural, technological and political dominance? Open standards and codex politics. Surveillance issues.

Literature and video online narrative
Narrative strategies on the Web. From screenplay writing with hypertext, the broadcasted self and narrative avatars to collective narrative processes leading to Web literature, tag based video narrativity, public journalism and performative real-time literature.

Please send in a 500-word abstract and a short bio to Dan Oki (danoki [at] xs4all.nl) before February 5, 2009.

During the Video Vortex in Split we will present five cinema events:
1) upload cinema 2) mobile phone cinema 3) social cinema 4) cinematic data base 5) performative cinema

///
Please check out the Video Vortex reader: Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds.), Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures,
2008. ISBN: 978-90-78146-05-6.
Available as a pdf here.

The deadline for submissions is June 15 2008, please find the call for participation here.

Video Vortex has been blogged extensively by the tireless Masters of Media bloggers: http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/

Pictures taken at the event can be found on Flickr, feel free to join the photo pool and upload your own Video Vortex photographs: http://www.flickr.com/groups/videovortex/pool/

Audio and video documentation will become available shortly, please keep an eye on the conference website or join the Video Vortex discussion list, which will be continued after this conference:
http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/videovortex_listcultures.org.

We hope to see you all at future events,
INC and Video Vortex team