<videovortex> Introduction / Clip Kino

[andrew paterson]

dear VV list members,
Geert suggested that I introduce myself here, as a first step towards  
getting more involved in VideoVortex community and events.
I have been subscribed since january 2008 but have been a lurker  
during all this time, so it is nice to step out a bit into the light.

I am a Scottish artist-organiser, cultural producer and doctoral  
research candidate at University of Art and Design Helsinki (TaiK).   
Since 2004 I have been contributing also the Pixelache Helsinki  
Festival, and last year joined the organisational board.  You can see  
more of the process I am/have been involved in below link (agryfp.info).

To the subject here,
 From the beginning time of VV, I have been involved in related  
activities and have been watching with interest the emerging  
discursive and symposia coming from your community.  On several  
occasions I have wished to be able to attend the events, or share  
what I had been doing in (mostly) Helsinki, Finland.  I hope to be  
able to do that in the future.

The emerging nature of my own process--which I introduce to you here  
as Clip Kino--didnt give me much chance to reflect, especially when  
it wasn't going as well as I imagined.  After about 20 months of  
promoting and facilitating public screening events based on internet  
video clips, I wish to share my experiences at a wider scale, to  
develop my references and understanding of the issues involved.

Below is a text I wrote adhoc for this email, but I am working on a  
longer text at present, so any feedback or references are welcome.  I  
can share this text at a later date, and it would be nice also to  
have an opportunity to present it in a future VV gathering.

My best regards,
andrew

.

Clip Kino: Helsinki and beyond

'Clip Kino' as a name for self-organised screening events based on  
internet-sourced clips emerged in my application to Eyebeam centre  
for Art and Technology residency in March 2007.  As part of planning  
a youth project there--facilitating a space for young people to show  
and celebrate what they are interested in watching online--this  
proposal was accepted and became the 'Seeders N Leechers R Us'  
project there in Jan-Feb 2008: http://seedersnleechers.info).  This  
interest reflected upon my previous activity in 2003-2005 organising  
workshops encouraging people to share media to a shared database,  
before mass uploading became common ('Aware' platform, now offline,  
presented first in E-culture Fair 2003).

However, it wasn't until teaching a 'Self-organising and Networking'  
course at a small art school in Helsinki that the concept became  
action, due to the student's assignment during Valon Voimat (Forces  
of Light) festival in November 2007, to make a zero-budget public  
cinema.  The Clip Karavaani website is mostly in Finnish (http:// 
clipkaravaani.info/).  If you are interested to learn more about  
this, I can post a section of the text I am writing in reflection.

Following lead from the Clip Karavaani facilitation, I decided to set  
regular screening events at a public library--Kirjasto 10-- in centre  
of Helsinki, one which focused on music and media, had AV  
presentation facilities and was experimenting with new library user  
event formats.  From February-June and October-December 2008, I  
facilitated and promoted screening events in the library under the  
name of 'Clip Kino Helsinki' (http://clipkino.info).

I invited contacts and colleagues, who I knew, to arrange a 40-60  
minutes worth of video clips, curated under a theme they wished  
themselves.  They arranged and presented the screening as volunteers,  
just as I (as a library user).  I also made a few events also when I  
didn't have someone to make the event, keeping up with the negotiated  
calendar of events with the library.  Inbetween clips, guest-hosts  
were expected to contextualise or explain a bit more their reason for  
selecting the clip.

   There was no budget for this activity. The events were promoted  
within a trusted network of contacts via email, and the library  
promoted them on their webpages.  Attendance was low (max 22  
persons).  Different themes were presented have been socio-cultural  
specific (Australia-NZ & New York, Eastern Europe); technical- 
specific (music representations, subtitled clips), genre-specific  
(youth, avant-guard art videos, animations, anarchist) clips.  In  
many cases, a different audience would have been attached to each  
theme.  In the longer term, I had hoped that the library would one  
day support this activity, and it would be possible to invite library  
users who I didn't know to be guest-host curators.  See archive:  
http://apaterso.info/projects/clipkino/archive.html

The library manager allowed the events to happen under the pretext  
that they were legal, and gave a contact to the library's legal  
advisor for advice.  I didn't take this advice, and went on  
regardless, convinced that there was no legal basis for the events,  
and it was better not to ask.  I certainly wished to challenge the  
terms and conditions of screening content in public from proprietary  
platforms (such as YouTube) with emphasis on private use.  I have  
looked on at the growth of other similar online/offline cinema  
platforms such as Upload Cinema in Amsterdam (http:// 
www.uploadcinema.nl) with curiosity, and how they manage legally (as  
a members-only club perhaps).

My motivation in facilitating was--and still is--to drag normally  
'private' activity of viewing and sharing downloaded content on one's  
own computer, into public space for screening, appreciation, and  
potentially, for debate.  I have consequently framed this activity as  
pedagogical--'media environment-awareness' or 'direct action media  
literacy'--and have used the format in my own teaching: http:// 
mlab.taik.fi/~apaterso//projects/clipkino/pedagogical-statement.html

In the autumn period, still uncertain of legal basis, I invited  
persons to present activist films, in one case their own films,   
instead of general content from YouTube.  However, later in the year,  
when I was invited to make an event with teenagers as part of a well- 
publicised documentary film festival in January 2009 (see: http:// 
apaterso.info/projects/clipkino/hosts/suomi-post-mortem.html). This  
event was a public seminar and discussion event about young people's  
appreciation of what is online (what they find interesting), media  
literacy, and also in relation to the negative publicity attached to  
youth video sharing/uploading, following school shootings which  
featured warning videos online.

Inviting teenagers into the process, within the strict moving-image  
copyright context of Finland and a project exposed (and indirectly  
funded by) the pro-copyright movement, I decided to take the  
library's legal adviser's opinion.  He was very supportive of my  
efforts and ambitions, and discovered a support within a technical  
loophole, currently not tested in court, based on watching content  
from the browser.  That is not downloading a copy, but playing from  
the cache memory.  Although not necessarily 'safe' to do what one  
wants, it does give an argument in defence of public screenings,  
outside the use of academic citation.  A summary of what I found in  
the Finnish case can be read here in english:
http://mlab.taik.fi/~apaterso//projects/clipkino/extra/clipkino- 
helsinki-legal-navigations_english_111208.pdf

Although nothing has been raised so far on the legal issues, I am not  
actively raising my findings into public.  This year also, I have  
decided not to arrange further events at the library (more to do with  
volunteer time energy I have than lack of will), and take up  
invitations to present the Clip Kino format in other contexts.  The  
documentary film festival is already mentioned, but other events  
happened in an autonomous cultural centre, and soon this summer, an  
art museum, as a contribution to a group exhibition.

The most recent Clip Kino event took place within an academic media  
symposium--Emerging Media Practices and Environments--in my  
University, making the case for the event format as a research tool.   
In this case two fellow doctoral students, Sanna Marttila and Petri  
Kola, curated a screening event with the theme 'Open Video', as part  
of their research process (http://apaterso.info/projects/clipkino/ 
hosts/emerging_arki-taik.html).  They presented a thorough  
interpretation of the different facets of what might mean 'open  
video', using clips to illustrate their argument.  In reflection they  
emphasised the value of co-curating a screening to investigate the  
field of inquiry, and the dialogue involved in selecting and ordering  
argument 'illustrations'.

Both the pedagogical and research angles of Clip Kino so far have  
yielded potential and I am keen to find contexts to continue this  
work.  However, the most interesting feature which motivates me (in  
comparison to the crowdsourcing or remote/online curation of video  
clips, for example into lists or themes) is the factor of presence.   
It has been the most challenging aspect for both curator and audience  
I believe, according to the lack of participants involved so far.   
Being present, infront of one's own choices, in public takes some  
guts.  The challenge of standing up for one's choices can be as  
difficult sometimes as committing time to watching something selected  
by another one doesn't know.  Also watching with other people,  
watching someone else's choices, when the selecting person is also  
present, is revealing. Who finds what funny? Will anyone speak out

Face-to-face meetings of people, plus the screen, are an important  
feature of 'Clip Kino' events. In my opinion it is only a starting  
point for exploring grassroot and collective representational processes.

Clip Kino webpages: http://clipkino.info

(includes on front page: Archive link; some slides of Clip Karavaani  
& Clip Kino events; documentation of Seeders N Leechers screening  
event; Clip Source examples; Legal issues and other resources)

.

--------------------------------------
andrew gryf paterson
http://agryfp.info/
mobile [FI]: +358 50402 3828
agryfp at gmail.com | skype: agryfp
locale: Helsinki, FI
--------------------------------------