[spectre] CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Video Vortex Amsterdam - March 11-12, 2011

[Geert Lovink]

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 PROPOSAL + 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

__________________________

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?

- From Dead Collection to 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?

______________________________

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 by RAAK-Public program and the  
Innovation Alliance Foundation.

More info: http://www.networkcultures.org/culturevortex/