<videovortex> Video Vortex V in Brussels 20-21 Nov - program online!

Sabine Niederer sabine at networkcultures.org
Sun Oct 11 13:11:45 CEST 2009


Dear all,
below please find the program of Video Vortex V!
Video Vortex V is organized by Cimatics Festival and will take place  
on 20-21 November in the Atomium in Brussels.
All information is online at www.networkcultures.org/videovortex.
Don't forget to register by sending an email to  
videovortex at cimatics.com.
We hope to see you all in Brussels!
Best, Sabine


Video Vortex V: The Moving Image Online
International Conference
Location: Atomium, Brussels
20-21 November 2009

Video Vortex V is organized by Cimatics festival 2009 in cooperation  
with theInstitute of Network Cultures in Amsterdam and supported  
byKASK (Faculty of Fine Arts, University College Ghent) and theCenter  
Leo Apostel (CLEA).

On November 20-21 2009, Cimatics festival is hosting the 5th Video  
Vortex conference. Two years after its first edition, Video Vortex  
returns to Brussels, this time hosted in one of the great icons of mid  
20th century modern architecture: the Atomium.

The past two years, the conference series - which focuses on the  
status and potential of the moving image on the Internet - has visited  
Amsterdam, Ankara and Split, growing out into an organised network of  
organisations and individuals. Time for an interim report, perhaps. We  
asked some participants of the first Video Vortex editions and  
publication, as well as new ones, to reflect on recent developments in  
online video culture.

Over the past years the place of the moving image on the Internet has  
become increasingly prominent. With a wide range of technologies and  
web applications within anyone’s reach, the potential of video as a  
personal means of expression has reached a totally new dimension. How  
is this potential being used? How do artists and other political and  
social actors react to the popularity of YouTube and other ‘user- 
generated-content’ websites? What does YouTube tell us about the state  
of contemporary visual culture? And how can the participation culture  
of video-sharing and vlogging reach some degree of autonomy and  
diversity, escaping the laws of the mass media and the strong grip of  
media conglomerates?


CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

Video Vortex V: DAY I

13h30 Introduction by Geert Lovink

14h00 System flaws and tactics
Video channels, platforms and formats impose strict structures on how  
you can interact with it. This session is inspired by the inherent  
errors, disabilities and restrictions, often conducting our behaviour  
but in this case inspiring and exposing new insights.

Liesbeth Huybrechts/Rudi Knoops (BE) - ‘Play that video , All work and  
no play makes Jack a dull boy’
Both Huybrechts and Knoops teach at the Media & Design Academy in Genk.

Brian Willems (CR) - ‘Blindness: the inability of YouTube to read  
itself’
Brian Willems teaches literature and media culture at the University  
of Split.

Rosa Menkman (NL) - ‘Glitch: From Artifacts to filter. The Tipping  
point of failure’
Menkman is an artist and currently doing a PhD at the KHM on the  
subject of Artifacts.

Johan Grimonprez (BE) - ‘It’s a poor story if it only works backward’
Grimonprez is an internationally renowned artist best known for his  
seminal DIAL H-I-S-T-O-R-Y.

moderator: Andreas Treske

17h30 Q&A

20h30 Video Vortex evening programme at Les Brigittines
Film screenings, artist presentations and an audiovisual performance  
by Kurt D’haeseleer.
Venue info: http://www.brigittines.be/


Video Vortex V: DAY II

10h00 Online cinema
Similar to his essay ‘BMW Films and the Star Wars Kid: ‘Early Web  
Cinema’ and Technology’ in the recently published ‘Cinema and  
Technology’, Andrew Clay provides an in-depth approach of online cinema.

Andrew Clay (GB) - ‘Web cinema’
Andrew Clay is lecturing in Critical Technical Practices at De  
Montfort University, Leicester and programme leader of BSc (Hons)  
Media Technology in the Faculty of Computing Sciences and Engineering.

moderator: Andreas Treske

10h45 Categories of enactment / Strategies of resistance
Both lecturers have been contributing to the previous Video Vortex  
Reader. They are both artists and theoreticians and share a common  
attitude of resistance. In this session they will update and further  
expand their previous contributions to Video Vortex.

Keith Sanborn (US) - ‘beyond YouTube.world’
Sanborn is media artist and theoretician focusing on the investigation  
of public images and private perceptions with great attention to user  
generated content and web footage in general.

Stefaan Decostere (BE) - ‘Impact, complicity, fascination’
Decostere is a Belgian artist, has been producing documentaries for tv  
since 1979. In ‘99 he founded CARGO, a foundation for creation and  
development with media.

12h00 LUNCH BREAK

13h30 Artist practices: (sub)versioning
(Sub)versioning - the contraction of the Situationist ’subversion’ and  
the common IT practice of ‘versioning’ might best describe the  
practice of the artists in this session. They approach online video as  
a means for a subtle restructuring of existing popular media and a  
basis for investigating new modes of constructing and relating meaning  
brought about by the Internet

Oliver Laric (TR) & Aleksandra Domanovic (RS)
Berlin based artists Laric and Domanovic two of the co-founders of the  
platform VVORK. Their work has been the subject of numerous  
presentations at previous Video Vortex conferences.

Constant Dullaart (NL)
Dullaart is an artist and teaches at the Gerrit Rietveld academy, and  
curates several events in Amsterdam such as the Lost and Found evenings.

moderator: Vera Tollmann

15h00 Politics of online video
In a dispersed society, with a seemingly vanishing of mass culture,  
online video is challenging traditional channels of public  
communication, oppositional media. A session providing us with some  
remarkable case-studies and research-projects about participatory  
communication, the White House and citizen journalism.

Simon Yuill (GB) - ‘Citizen Journalism vs Oppositional Media’
Simon Yuill is an artist based in Glasgow, was involved in hacklabs  
and Free Media Labs and has written on aspects of Free Software and  
cultural praxis.

Elizabeth Losh (US) - ‘The White House’s use of YouTube and the  
reactions of privacy advocates’
Losh is Writing Director of the Humanities Core Course at the  
University of California and recently published ‘Virtualpolitik’.

Stephen Crocker (CA) - ‘Filmmaking and the politics of remoteness’
Crocker is an associate professor of sociology and assistent director  
of the Humanities Program at Memorial University of Newfoundland. He  
writes about media, social theory, philosophy and the sociology of the  
image.

moderator: Sabine Niederer

17h00 Closing Q&A

Extra: You’re invited at the opening night of Cimatics festival 2009  
at Beursschowurg with audiovisual concerts by AGF (DE) and TVestroy  
(CA).


PRACTICAL INFO

Where:
- Atomium (Ilya Prigogine sphere), Brussels
http://www.atomium.be

Time:
Friday Nov 20 13h30-18h00
Saturday Nov 21 10h00-18h00

Entrance Fee:
normal: 15 €
students: 10 €
(prices for 2 days, food and drinks included)
(registration beforehand is required)
day I: 7,50 € (evening programme included, registration required)
day II: 7,50 €

Tickets:
Tickets will be sold at the entrance only, but registration is required.
Register by sending an email to videovortex at cimatics.com with your  
Full Name and the days you will be attending (Friday 20 / Saturday 21)  
+ Reserve your seat for the evening programme on Friday 20.

How to get there:
Direct: Metro 6 to Heysel/Heizel.
BY BUS: Take the bus 84 or 88 and stop to Heysel/Heizel
BY METRO: Take the metro 6 and stop at Heysel/Heizel
BY TRAM: Take the tram 23 or 51 and stop Heysel/Heizel
BY TRAIN: Stop to Gare du Midi/Zuidstation, then take the metro 6  
direction Roi Baudoin/Koning Boudewijn and stop at Heysel/Heizel


ABOUT

About Video Vortex:
Video Vortex is an interdisciplinary platform dealing with the moving  
image on the Web. It brings together a range of perspectives, such as  
arts, aesthetics, research, practice, reflection, exploration,  
collecting, experimenting, etc.

About Cimatics:
This 7th edition of the Cimatics festival again goes at full throttle  
with todays image culture. As an audiovisual festival it puts the  
focus both on art, media, design and music in a mix of concerts, film- 
screenings, exhibitions, workshops, conferences, public interventions  
and parties.

Cimatics is spread out all over the city of Brussels. For 10 days and  
nights it will be hosted by numerous venues, both underground and  
above. It intends to be a citywide international festival for advanced  
creativity, a node where grass-roots, underground and pop or art  
become mixed in an exciting cultural mash-up.

Partners:
http://www.cimatics.com
http://www.kask.be
http://www.vub.be/clea
http://www.networkcultures.org



More information about the videovortex mailing list