New Media M.A. Research Blog | Media Studies, University of Amsterdam

Video Vortex: Alternative platforms and software

This session is the most concrete session of today. The focus is on practical views on online video from the perspective of speakers' practices. How do video artist, activists, programmers and curators deal with copyright issues, publishing and distributing...

By Esther Weltevrede on 01/19/08 4

Video Vortex: Online Video Aesthetics

To much disliking of my parents, as a kid I frequently would watch low budget television programs based on audience generated video fragments and unscripted pranks. These programs included the popular America’s Funniest Home Videos and candid camera shows...

By Roman Tol on 01/19/08 3

Video Vortex: opening session Friday January 18

Introduction Yesterday the workshop, this morning the start of the two-day “Video Vortex – responses to YouTube”, an international conference organized by the Institute of Network Cultures at PostCS11, Amsterdam. A good crowd fills the hall at the 11th...

By Jasper Moes on 01/19/08 8

Video Vortex Screening

Friday evening at Video Vortex in Brussels, Ana Kronschnabl and Tomas Rawlings showed “a selection of exceptional, witty and provoking Internet videos, compiled for the occassion by international and local guests”, which can be seen here. Most of us...

By Erik Borra on 10/08/07 2

The Artist Moving (through) the Web @ Video Vortex

German video maker Simon Ruschmeyer explores the borderline areas between traditional audiovisual narration and the new possibilities given by interactivity and networked communication. He explores this interface between classical moving media (film/video) and new interactive forms (web/media art) both...

By Esther Weltevrede on 10/07/07 2

Tomas Rawlings and Ana Kronschnabl @ Video Vortex

The main question that was posed in this lecture was ‘Why is this conferention about Youtube, and not one of the other websites that allow people to watch video’s online?’ Because Youtube isn’t the first website that offers people...

By Laura van der Vlies on 10/05/07 5

Deleuze vs. YouTube: Adrian Miles @ Video Vortex

The subtitle of this conference is Responses to YouTube, and at least one alternative to the world’s largest supplier of piano-playing-cat videos comes in the form of ‘soft video’, via Australian media scholar Adrian Miles. Some of the questions...

By Michael Stevenson on 10/05/07 6

Lev Manovich on User Generated Content @ Video Vortex

The following post is a combination of a transcription of Manovich’s keynote and my own notes and commentary. Introduction by Geert Lovink Online video is renegotiating its (problematic) relationship with cinema. It deals with cinematographic principles versus the principles...

By Anne Helmond on 10/05/07 4

YouTube: If you can’t beat them, join them!

While Viacom is sueing YouTube for $1 Billion for “massive intentional copyright infringement” the Dutch public broadcasting company VPRO is embracing YouTube. After entering the Digital TV market it now sees YouTube as a new distribution channel. The VPRO...

By Anne Helmond on 04/20/07 Comments Off

OffTopic: The Shining

I’ve seen Stanley Kubricks film adaptation of Stephen Kings thriller ‘The Shining’ many times… I even read the book when I was younger… which I didn’t like too much, however, as it turns out I really missed to grasp...

By Roman Tol on 03/22/07 1

Gambling in Call-Games??? I don’t think so….

Currently the Dutch television format Call-Games is under investigation with regards to fraudious practices, illegal gambling, and misleading of viewers. In Belgium the same program is used to interact with its public for the same fraudious and misleading reasons;...

By Roman Tol on 03/19/07 Comments Off

Molotov Alva

Dispatches from Second Life A series of minifilms entirely shot on location in Second Life. The series can be found at www.molotovalva.com. A preview is, of course, available at YouTube. The series is produced by the Dutch new media...

By Jan Simons on 03/17/07 Comments Off

Surveillance theory and ‘that video’

In Consumer Technology after Surveillance Theory, Richard Rogers and Sabine Niederer talk about how consumer technology unsettles old institutional power, possibly bringing a whole new set of problems along. There was the consumer-soldier, for example, who produced the Abu...

By Michael Stevenson on 01/03/07 5

Person of the Year 2006: You!

Person of the Year: You Yes, you. You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world. By Lev Grossman The “Great Man” theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that “the history...

By Jan Simons on 12/18/06 1

Avantgarde ‘YouTube’ (from Rhizome.Rare)

> ————————————————- > UbuWeb: The YouTube of the Avant-Garde > ————————————————- > UbuWeb has converted all of its rare and out-of-print film & video > holdings to on-demand streaming formats a la YouTube, which means that > you can...

By Jan Simons on 11/27/06 Comments Off

Daily Show: Social Networking

By Roman Tol on 11/01/06 1

YouTube and the preservation of artistic expression

Today various Japanese media companies forced YouTube to remove 29,549 videos from its archive because of its copyrighted disposition. Google, which recently attained YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars, will most certainly have to do this more frequently. In my...

By Roman Tol on 10/21/06 5

Internet killed the video star

As I was getting ready to turn off the computer, I decided to do some last minute browsing through YouTube. Wondering if there would be any drastic changes after its takeover by Google, I came across an intriguing title:...

By Roman Tol on 10/20/06 7