Video Vortex #9 – Re:assemblies of Video
Video Vortex #9, Re:assemblies of Video, is conceived and hosted by the Moving Image Lab and Post-Media Lab of the Innovation Incubator at Leuphana University Lüneburg, Germany. The conference will be held from February 28 until March 2, 2013. The call for contribution is open until 31 August 2012.
Online video vortices such as Youtube, are assemblages of assemblages: its infrastructure and spheres of use and production again consist of assemblages. The video sphere today is a mesh of different types of elements; we have databases, screens, interfaces, protocols and server farms. Comments, tags, lists and channels, cameras, producers, frames, users and audiences. Last, but not least, money flows, broadcasters, advertisers, property rights, eyeballs and statistics, all add to, and operate in multiple assemblages.
Currently we see new configurations of components in video culture, interacting in new ways and with loose forms of influence. VideoVortex #9 proposes that now is a time to re-engage with a structural and contextual analysis of online video culture.
We encourage critics, theorists, artists, programmers and video makers to look at:
1.)… assemblages of different videos, graphics and texts, be it in material or with a view to new environments of authoring or curation. Such an approach re-poses the question of interactive multi- and hypermedia in the age of html-5, Popcorn, Apps and the likes.
2.)… assemblages of content, interfaces and infrastructures, as found in platforms, with their changing forms and logics of circulation, and to scrutinize media-‘flows’, ‘liveness’, ‘channels’, ‘archives’, ‘lists’, and producing ‘dissolving originals’ and new forms of mash-ups.
3.)… socio-cultural assemblages of producers, owners, curators and perceptive ‘audiences’. The conditions and social realities of video- and TV-production, issues of copyright and re-organization of ‘imaginary’ capital evoke questions as to what extent technology, standards and protocols – and their symbolisms – are taking over the role of what before has been ascribed to ‘culture’.
4.)… assemblages contributing to ruptures and revolts: Indeed „the whole world is watching“ different real or so-called ‘revolutions’: social upheavals are transmitted via video. What does it mean to be an ‘observer’ (individually, socially or scientifically), a ‘participant’ or a ‘witness’? Questions of relevance, media positioning and ‘real virtuality’ are are gaining new urgency.
We particularly welcome talks, presentations and workshops, which cross and combine the levels outlined above – as their separation is itself owed to a heuristic assemblage.
The call is open until 31 August 2012
Please send us your proposals. Besides abstracts (max. 500 words) we encourage video teasers (max. 5 mins) and any form of short outline. You can send it to: vera.tollmann[@]leuphana.de
The Video Vortex #9 team.
More information:
- Post Media Lab
- videovortex9.net (online in June)
Video Vortex is a travelling conference series concerned with online video. Established in 2007 by Amsterdam based Institute for Network Cultures, the conference since then took place in Brussels, Amsterdam, Ankara, Split and Yogyakarta. The next edition, Video Vortex 9, is conceived by the Moving Image Lab at Leuphana University Lüneburg.