Video Vortex International Conference, January 2008

Institute of Network Cultures
Video Vortex International Conference, January 18-19 2008
Location: PostCS11, Amsterdam

Quick registration: http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/?page_id=12
Full conference program:
http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex/?page_id=18

Confirmed speakers: Nora Barry, Tilman Baumgartel, Geoffrey Bowker,
Dominick Chen, Sarah Cook, Stefaan Decostere, Thomas Elsaesser, Pavlos
Hatzopoulos, Marscha Kinder, Patrick Lichty, Matthew Mitchem, Dan Oki, Ana
Peraica, Emma Quinn, Florian Schneider, Tom Sherman, Jan Simons, Valentin
Spirik, Tal Sterngast, Thomas Thiel and Andreas Treske.

Themes: Online Video Aesthetics, Cinema and Narrativity, Participatory
Culture, Alternative Platforms and Software, Curating Online Video and
Video Slamming (evening program).

Introduction

In response to the increasing potential for video to become a significant
form of personal media on the Internet, this conference examines the key
issues that are emerging around the independent production and
distribution of online video content. What are artists and activists
responses to the popularity of ‘user-generated content’ websites? Is
corporate backlash imminent?

After years of talk about digital conversions and crossmedia platforms we
are now witnessing the merger of the Internet and television at a pace
that no one predicted. For the baby boom generation, that currently forms
the film and television establishment, the media organisations and
conglomerates, this unfolds as a complete nightmare. Not only because of
copyright issues but increasingly due to the shift of audience to vlogging
and video-sharing websites as part of the development of a broader
participatory culture.

The Video Vortex conference aims to contextualize these latest
developments through presenting continuities and discontinuities in the
artistic, activist and mainstream perspective of the last few decades.
Unlike the way online video presents itself as the latest and greatest,
there are long threads to be woven into the history of visual art, cinema
and documentary production. The rise of the database as the dominant form
of storing and accessing cultural artifacts has a rich tradition that
still needs to be explored. The conference aims to raise the following
questions:

- How are people utilising the potential to independently produce and
distribute independent video content on the Internet?
- What are the alternatives to the proprietary standards currently being
developed?
- What are the commercial objectives that mass media is imposing on
user-generated content and video-sharing databases?
- What is the underlying economics of online video in the age of unlimited
uploads?
- How autonomous are vloggers within the broader domain of mass media? How
are cinema, television and video art being affected by the development of
a ubiquitous online video practice?
- What type of aesthetic and narrative issues does the database pose for
online video practice?

The closing night will feature live acts, performances and lectures under
the banner of video slamming. We will trace the history from short film to
one-minute videos to the first experiments with streaming media and online
video, along with exploring the way VJs and media artists are accessing
and using online archives.

Video Vortex is a collaboration of the Institute of Network Cultures with
Argos Brussels and the Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam,
featuring a series of international events.

See http://www.networkcultures.org/videovortex for more information, or
contact conference producer Shirley Niemans,
shirley(at)networkcultures.org.

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Institute of Network Cultures
www.networkcultures.org
info@networkcultures.org