<videovortex> after the convergence

[Andreas Treske]

Hi Geert, hey video vortex, 

Video Vortex was a very successful project from 2007 till 2015 - 8 years and 10 conferences, lots of articles, books, still things following up. Congratulations to everyone at the INC. 

But I am not sure if I should already pronounce my condolences to online video as a distinct object. (I am not sure if there was a single object or thing to be objectified.) Of course, I agree on the digital tv convergence issue. 

Even now, there are possibilities of online video forms emerging, or existing parallel as they already did, and do beyond all the GoPro and drone shots. More then ever the web is getting video-like. 

It is necessary for digital tv to adapt, so television has to become web-like and mobile. Can we imagine thousands of people in the metro of Seoul watching thousands of different video streams at the same time on their smart phones?  

For Vortex, I believe we still haven’t finished the discussion. For example, looking at online videos live character - we didn’t even touch the issue. 

[At the moment one of the most popular apps here is ‘periscope'. Lots of journalists stream live video with this app. Twitter followers are naturally there to have alternative news and views ...]

'New Media' became a kind of old shoe, and therefore ready to be digested by the "traditional authorities”. Old shoe in the sense of the attempt to declare ‘digital' as a distinctive category in the established film, tv, communication, art, media whatever faculties of academia, sequencing it in a linear follow up of existing forms and objects, still trying to connect online video etc. to physical objects and definable borders once developed through physical differences. It appears to setup and define a place at the haunted, and deserted crossroad of art, technology and the humanities. 'New Media' has already produced an archive of textual relevance and relations enabling ‘critical' literature reviews.

The issue, of course, is funding, right. This is following a tendency in cultural funding, which is observable already for a couple of years. It is just there and has to be faced. 

The INC was a great motor with its ability to find funds and so to support the Video Vortex activities. We took profit from it. 

May be, reading Geert’s mail accordingly, it is just about time to divers officially in various activities outside and independent from the INC without disconnecting. That could be a journal, that could be exhibitions, lots of things possible I guess, but funded through other sources. 

If somebody wants to take it on, there could be another try to fund networking between related institutions and affiliations (“traditional authorities” subverted) using ErasmusPlus or even Horizon 2020 in the next calls on digital live next year, etc. We had already ideas like that.

The Video Vortex mailing list might not appear very active, but it is a strong community. 

Personally, I felt sorry that VV11 in the UK didn’t work out, and we haven’t heard anything on the list from activities from Norway for VV. What made VV strong was meeting the people involved. Istanbul was very small, nevertheless it proofed that these kinds of meetings are still worth it. 

Thanks again to the INC!

Andreas




> On 24 Sep 2015, at 10:24, Geert Lovink <geert at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> 
> http://digiday.com/platforms/digital-tv-converging-5-charts/
> 
> Dear Video Vortex members,
> 
> there is a lot of ‘truth’ in stats like this. My question is: does that also mean the end of Video Vortex as a project and the separate treatment of online video as a distinct object of study, for researchers, artists and activists to work with in general?
> 
> Here at INC we can observe that ‘new media’ as a seperate discipline has grown to such an extend that it is now integrated in everything and everywhere, and thus disappears as an alien thing that arrives from the future. This also means that there is no need anymore to fund ‘seperate’ projects and that the digital can be handed over to the traditional authorities. Online video (whatever it is or was) is now firmly back into the hands of the old film and television industry—whether we like it or not. For us, the funding situation here at INC is desperate so please do not count on us in the near future. Google and Facebook and telecom industry do not change this overall picture. In practice this means that we can no longer find the funds to host events such as VV and publications like Video Vortex Reader etc. We have to be honest to all of you and will have to scale back Video Vortex. The mailinglist can continue for a while. Traffic here has been low anyway, recently.
> 
> Best, Geert
> -----
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