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/