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Video Vortex 5 Brussels
Location: Atomium, Brussels
20-21 November 2009
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.
Watch videos of the symposium here.
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?
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.