if you watch nothing else, watch this

seriously.

kiwi!

vidding highlights

this morning began with a screening and genealogical tour of vidding. this screening was curated by laura shapiro, who is a vidder herself. from the media res website, here's a brief description: "Vidding is a form of grass-roots filmmaking in which footage, most frequently from television shows or movies, is edited to music."

and here's a video by the california crew, some of the earliest vidders, who offer a metaview of vidding in a vid.

"pressure" - a metavid by the california crew

the screening moved through approximately twenty or so vids, each reflecting a different moment in vidding history. moving from the use of two vcrs and stopwatches, as reflected in the "pressure" metavid, to vids that digitized material available on vhs tapes, to current practices of completely digitized processes. one of the products of the latter is the following vid, which brings together two of my favorite pieces of media: house and dps.

If We Shadows Have Offended...


enjoy!!!

currently, we're in a screening of AMVs...

youtube-isized

ok, first some catching up from the second part of day 1 (yesterday). i spent the afternoon in a screening of youtube clips curated by a youth media program, youthlab. below are a few that caught my attention and made guffaw and chortle and go hmmmm....

internet people:


someone did a version with the flash clips replaced by the original clips from whence they hail: Internet People! - Real Clips Version


chongalicious

done to the tune of fergie's fergilicious. also check them out on
wikipedia - at one point, they were the most requested tune on miami radio.

police brutality - go skateboarding day: cop vs skaters

this just left me speechless. see also angry teacher - the students got suspended and the teacher was encouraged to take an anger management class.

video.activism.learning.action

there's a session going on now called "state of the art" in which at least two of the last three speakers have engaged with the realm of activism and human rights in conjunction with video. thenmozhi soundarajan, of third world majority, shared video produced when twm first began seven years ago. and shared some insights from teaching youth and participants who were used to "not being seen, but still needing to be heard" - asking the question what does real media equity look like?

sam gregory, of the org witness, is talking now. the org partners with human rights orgs to help them create video in service of their campaigns. they've launched the hub, a video distribution site and, as gregory argues, an important alternative to the oft-used youtube. he asks the following questions about video, human rights, action (paraphrased):
- what are the expectations of privacy in a ‘facebook era’?
- while we continue to emphasize transparency and deemphasize privacy, who benefits? Who pays the price?
- informed consent?
- How does remix culture relate to human rights?
e.g., we laugh at W when he is remixed, but not at Burmese victim, sweatshop worker?
- how do we motivate action?

the hub is intended to take seriously the need to contextualize diy video and mobilize action in response. to which he notes: "it isn’t voice if nobody seems be listening"

hmmm....

BigChampagne

eric garland is talking now about diy video distribution. he defines diy video as video that is:
user created
user appropriated
user distributed

he is affiliated with bigchampagne, a media measurement company. as they write on their website: "In short, we collect information about how and where people enjoy popular music, movies and other stuff, and then we analyze the information to tell you what titles are most popular, who's interested, and why."

there's a chart online that talks about the 53% growth of computers with bittorrent client installed between 5/2005 and 9/2007. in a nutshell, people are downloading a crapload of episodes of 'lost' and 'grey's anatomy' - you know who you are, so 'fess up!

regular users of diy distribution networks - at least 1x weekly - is up to 60 million people, nationwide.

continuing on the thread of how (some) videos spread virally, garland references the widely circulated yes we can video, which apparently had no actual distribution strategy outside of will.i.am sending it out to "a few people." having received the video in my email last week, i can attest to its virality. this takes 'six degrees' to a whole new level...

michael wesch - getting viral

people watching one of wesch's videos

wesch, the creator of the viral web 2.0 video, is talking now about how the digital ethnography of youtube he is currently engaged in, got started.

how does one actually study/research something so fleeting, so expanding, so growing?

right now, we're watching this video. see it.

other concepts that get trippy on youtube:
community
audience
reading
writing
participation
learning
authenticity
themes
media
medium
modality
literacies
communication
participant observation
...

whilst david buckingham talks on the subject of video...

i'm sitting in the back row and have a lovely view of the backs of people's heads, and the faces of their laptop screens. just in front of me, a man is participating in the summit in second life while he physically sits in/at the summit in 'first' life. clikety clacks echo throughout the room, as buckingham is proffering an overview some key themes and perspectives related to video - which he suggests is a media form unlike any other, perhaps especially given it's amateurish potential? - and frames his current exploration of video camera usage.

db notes that he is moving "towards a social theory of technology, cultural practice – how do we understand the place of the amateur; creativity and learning – how technologies are used in social and historical settings." really: what’s happening here?

that's a curious question, but one that i like to go back to regardless of the topic. that is, quite simply, what's going on?

greetings from 24/7 diy video summit!

it's beautiful outside - a breezy 70 degrees. and i'm blogging from the 24/7 diy video summit at usc. lots of fun people here, including and beyond the invited speakers. michele knobel is sitting with me in the back row, and also in the room, korina jocson - one of our authors from the book (shameless plug), and stephanie schmier - a tc grad student whose dissertation is currently in progress and is going to be fabulous!

the first panel has just begun - i'll post more on that as the day progresses. in the meantime, here's some immediately relevant info for those who can't be here corporeally:

live streaming conference video: http://iml.usc.edu/diy/local

conference second life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IML/60/128/52