Below is pdf of the slides I used today. Thanks for joining the experiment. Some bits worked, some bits missed, some bits should never have been attempted. C’est la vie, though more seriously, if teaching and learning is a designerly, experimental sort of practice in its own right then some sketches just won’t lead to anything. (Last week is always a time for what if’s.)
Tags: Adrian, lectures
Well, a few have availed themselves of meetings to get more feedback, which I think has helped things a lot. So, in the course of these conversations something that has not perhaps been emphasised enough. For this second assessment task what is being assessed is what has changed between the first manifesto and the second, via the works you have made. In other words you wrote a manifesto, you have tried to follow it through making and then reflecting on these works, and as a consequence of this reflection you will end up with a new or amended manifesto. What we want to know about and see is the ‘why’ of these changes. What has changed your thinking? Why? In other words what have you learnt between the first and second manifestos via making works? It is about the difference between manifesto one and two, a difference that is not a list (”the proposition said this, now it says this” or, “I added new menus”) but is a result of your critical and creative reflection and contextualising.
Two bonuses are available. They are elective - you can choose to opt in by doing these things (and be rewarded for doing so), or not worry about them. If you submit the work to get these bonuses then please be aware that for the manifesto the work will be archived via Mog (like previous years work), with your name attached to it.
For the constrained tasks these may be turned into an online archive of work. In all cases material will be licenced under a Creative Commons licence for non commercial reuse with attribution, and your name and a link to you will be included. If you do not want your work included in either of these projects then please do not submit hard copy!
The first one is for an additional 5% on whatever you receive for your final portfolio/manifesto. To get this you need to submit your work online in the usual way, but also:
- Provide your final eZedia project on CDROM, this is the .mov and .media file and the html page that eZedia creates. You do not need to include the eZedia project file.
The second 5% bonus will apply to your overall grade for Integrated Media and to receive this then you also need to submit, on CDROM (it can be the same CDROM, and yes, DVD is OK too), five of the constrained tasks. If you don’t have all five that’s ok, it is 1% per constrained task (and no, if you made ten and submit ten you don’t get 10%!). There must be:
- the video (properly compressed and the correct size of course)
- the poster image
- the url of the original blog post for that video
So, these are the original constrained tasks:
- first lumiere (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/03/make-a-lumiere/)
- circles are round (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/03/circles-are-round/)
- sampling (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/03/sampling-and-recording/)
- second lumiere (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/03/lumiere-again/)
- like water (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/03/water-2/)
- like air (http://media.rmit.edu.au/mog/2009/04/task-six-air/
UPDATE/MORE: The manifesto so far, now think of as a first draft. A rough cut. A sketch. Make work. Document this according to the assessment sheet (link below), but basically; how does the work reflect the manifesto? Is it successful? Then do you think there is anything in your manifesto that needs to change as a result of your making (as a result of actually following it). Finally, an overall consideration of what how you would apply what you’ve learnt from doing the manifesto and its associated work to your professional media practice. What are the implications of all this for you as someone who will be a professional within the media in some manner?
So, manifesto version one comes out of the reading and a smaller cycle of thinking/responding/remaking. We now make. We use the making to think about the manifesto and what changes are needed. Manifesto version two comes out of this critical and reflective making.
Yes. I am a broken record. Yes. I am a broken record. I am a broken record. Broken. Record. I am.
Portfolio description is patiently patienting on mog. There, no here. Notice the assessment criteria please. 50% made up of your work and its relation to networked practice. 50% on your ability to reflect on the outcomes, make changes, redevelop.
Quickly now. If you are not certain of all of your propositions so what? Make. Make work based on what you have. Then think about what other rules or propositions you needed to be able to make the work. What was missing? What other rules would you add so that when making the next one it was just a case of following the propositions? Perhaps you don’t need any more, but most likely by making something then thinking about what might have been missing from your description of how to do it. Well, the ‘what was missing’ will provide you with your extra propositions. Let the making inform the manifesto, and please don’t repeat the error of thinking you can’t proceed, you can’t make, because you haven’t finished writing!
Another angle. Your propositions or manifesto can be thought of as describing a game. So the propositions are the rules of the game. This is how I play. So as rules they need to be constrained (you can only move your piece on the board the same number of spaces as is on the dice, you must take turns, you cannot jump other players, and so on) and prescriptive. This is what you can do. So if I follow these rules then work like ‘x’ will result. This is why propositions such as “be creative” or “be spontaneous” don’t work. You can have rules that create creativity, or spontaneity, but you can’t just say “be it”!
Similarly some propositions let me make anything I like, by saying things like “film what interests you”, “you can use colour or black and white”, “you can edit or use long takes”. If this were a game you couldn’t play because there don’t appear to be rules.
Now, here’s a checklist, if you do these things you should be fine for this, but they do need to be done.
- have some one else use your interactive work while you observe, do not say anything, just observe (can they find everything, can they work out how to use it)
- can you get to any other frame from any other frame?
- have you put some room around everything so it isn’t all cluttered (let it breathe)
- does your second project provide links to the individual works?
- are the individual works discussed in terms of your manifesto?
- have you made at least two works a week in response to the manifesto?
- the individual works should have some sense of consistency (for example all the round videos we made have something in common, as did the abstract ones)
- have you shown a reworked design for feedback in class?
If I (or you) made works according to your manifesto, and we collected them all together, how evident would be that they have something in common?
Now that manifestos have been done, and regardless of feedback, the task is to now translate your manifestos into action. To do this you need to follow your manifesto and make the works that it describes. This needs to be done from now, and not in a rush at the end, because the key task is to a) define a practice (the manifesto) which should be achievable and how the qualities of networked practice (small scale, informal, local, vernacular, bloggish if you like), and then b) experiment with it to see what sort of practice it actually turns out to be so that c) you can then change or rewrite your manifesto if required.
Realistically you should be making at least two works a week as a consequence of your manifesto, anything less and there will not be a body of work from which to think through what is going on. (As with the constrained tasks, your manifesto work will only gain substance by virtue of repetition. This is normal though we don’t normally think about it. A romantic drama gains sense precisely to the extent to which it participates with all the other romantic dramas we know, the art and pleasure is less in how much like the others it is, but in how it varies around this common idea or theme, that matters. So with your individual works. As individual works they are not much. But put them into a series and they become something.
The easiest way to achieve what is needed:
- start redesigning the manifesto (you can do this regardless of what changes might be made to content)
- make two works a week
- briefly write about each work in your blog: what is its title? how does it implement to the manifesto? Does it achieve this? (How?)
Then you have the material you need for the portfolio. You have ongoing commentary and reflection. Then you need a final bit of writing which identifies what you might change in your manifesto, since the manifesto is already redesigned you just need to ‘plug in’ the new or changed propositions, add a frame which provides links to the individual works (and perhaps their commentary?) and it is done.
However, if you try to leave this late, it will be a lot of work and you will run into technical problems, and so on (if only because as we get more stressed and closer to a deadline the more likely it is for things to become pear shaped, and for that to matter).
7. Meaningful video is created by the viewer’s contemplation
Video should be interpreted by the audience themselves, through their own contemplation and judgments. There can be thousands of different meanings to a video when there is opportunity available for the audience to understand the video by themselves.
Audience are generally asked to sit and understand the ideas and meanings that the directors and creators of the film produce, through the use of narration, sound, words, and edits within the video. This limits the potential readings that the video could produce. By letting the audience understand, decide, and create their own meanings for themselves, the then truly becomes meaningful to people.
[From Proposition 7]
Tags: manifesto in action
Out of the ashes of my portfolio of videos and subsequent discussion comes a new, or at least revised, set of propositions informed by practice…
Propositions for Knowledge-Sharing Video
- It will teach by showing; explaining, illustrating and above all educating; where text and image would not suffice. [old]
This remains, as it is still vitally important. Just reworded, removed the reference to encyclopedias. Its important that these videos are only used where text and image would not alone be enough to communicate the knowledge; hence the extra words. This is in response to issues I had making the videos.
- Anyone can make these videos, but they must be a content expert; the author must have extensive knowledge in the specific area the video pertains to. [old]
This one is still important, I removed the reference to ‘encyclopedic’ again; but the person making the video must be an expert, otherwise the ‘educational’ value is suspect.
- It must be specific, concise, and therefore short; no more then ninety seconds. [old]
I found being short, specific and concise worked best; when I went off topic, I tended to lose focus, and the detail suffered. For this reason, I’ve cut the time limit down to ninety seconds. None of my videos went over two minutes, and the ones that went over 90 seconds were vague and not ’specific’ enough.
- It can be shot and edited without professional equipment. No special effects, just knowledge, so that anyone can create and share. [old]
This can remain, though it shouldn’t be emphasised. Changed the word ‘will’ to ‘can’ for this reason.
- It will be discussed and dissected by other experts in the form of annotations, and video responses; to encourage multiple points of view. [old]
While I couldn’t really do this in my portfolio; because it relied on other people to make comments and responses. But in theory, this would only make the knowledge shared greater in volume and scale; more authors mean more knowledge, more points of view.
- It will include links within the video (related videos, relevant links, maps etc.) to take full advantage of the form [old]
This is probably the only one that worked really well. The links within the video were totally worthwhile, demonstrated by interlinking within my videos; making it interactive, allowing the knowledge-base to expand, depending on whether the person wanted to learn more (e.g. stretch film)
- It will be filmed in point of view perspective, and use voiceover diegetically to enhance the visuals; but not because the subject is more suited to text. [old]
Because the voiceover was a problem; I’ve had to reword this one, to emphasise that voiceover should not be used as a crutch; when text and images could suffice. Video and audio should work together; equally.
[From new revision of propositions]
Tags: manifesto in action
When I look back over at everything we’ve done in integrated media this year I think, ‘damn its been a long year’.
I don’t mean this in a bad way, not at all, but we just seemed to have covered so many different things ranging from lumieres to mash ups to experimenting in eZedia. Its been a packed twelve weeks or so. So now looking back over what i’ve created this semester, what I have to show for myself - what do I think?
When it comes to my videos i’m reasonably happy with the way they turned out. As i said in part one of The Ride when I began thinking of how to approach the videos for my manifesto I was pretty stumped there was simply so many ways I could possibly take it. This then could be seen as one of the problems with my manifesto which arose almost instantly, maybe it was too vague? The whole point of mine was too give people free reign over what they wanted to create but giving them light constraints to bounce their ideas off and work from, kind of like drawing an outline of an illustration for someone else to color in and if they choose to stay within the lines or get creative and break out of the box it is up to them. So for my own approach I just went back to basics and got at the heart of what vernacular video truly is for me, my own everyday life, and selected a few fragments of this which i thought would translate well and challenge me in portraying that through my constraints. I believe the videos I made reflect the propositions in my manifesto well as each conforms to a sense of video aesthetic design, using the principles and ideas brought to us by film and photography and applying them to a medium which normally wouldn’t bother with them. For my manifesto and thus for my videos it was not so much the importance of the content as such but the way it was being said. The emphasis as I wrote in the manifesto on directorial intent, which i think is something which comes across in the videos. The process of making these did change my mind slightly on a few aspects of my manifesto especially when it comes down to the medium of the camera and how we interact with our surroundings. Being forced to use a different camera than i originally planned made me rethink a lot of my preformed conceptions on how to shoot these kind of videos and what can be told in such a low quality medium which is something that didn’t come too easy for me as I’m used to having massive HD video canvases to work with. Scaling yourself down and learning to achieve the look your after, going from such high quality practice to super low end can be a challenge but is something i think was ultimately rewarding. Then just experimenting outside of the constraints of a tripod really allowed me so explore ways in which a camera can be used creatively. Initially i was skeptical about my “emancipate yourself from the tripod” proposition as so much of the aesthetic quality of what my manifesto was trying to emulate from film comes from the use of the tripod and to bolding suggest to throw it away was a risky step, but after making the videos it was definitely worth it and a necessary constraint. Working outside of the tripods creative box, being able to do things like tape the camera to a handlebar, or hold it with one hand inches from the floor while speeding down a backstreet, yes might have been slightly risky attempts themselves but created shots which if i had been limited to the steady, traditional limitations of a tripod would have never gotten. There isn’t really much i’d change on my manifesto now that i’ve gone through making my own videos, the few small changes i made were to do with the camera, but other than that i think the propositions in it stayed true and worked throughout my videos and were solid, for me this process has been more adapting myself and my own practices to the manifesto and reach out of my comfort zone than altering and modifying the manifesto to suite me - which i think is a good thing as its allowed me to grow as a media producer on a much greater level. This of course is what it comes down to at the end of the day, how the project relates back to our own professional media practice and the implications this has on how we approach our work.
[From Portfolio Reflection]
Tags: manifesto in action
- The videos used in this manifesto follow the rules of vernacular video. They are captured randomly and spontaneously. Some are taken when out with friends, some are taken on the way to school, while others are taken while waiting around willing time away. Hence, I would say that the videos are successful as my manifesto is about using vernacular videos to capture and retain memories from my everyday life.
- I am pretty satisfied with my manifesto considering the first one was a big mess and I had to re-do the entire manifesto. If there was one thing I could change about this manifesto, I would probably change the first frame. However, I did not want to use a background photo of a journal or diary as it has been used in previous student’s manifestos that I’ve gone through. Given more time however, I could have probably come up with a better background or concept for the design of this manifesto.
- For someone who does not plan on going into a professional media practice, I would say that this manifesto assignment has given me an understanding of vernacular video and has allowed me to critically appreciate the videos that are out there on the World Wide Web. Although I can safely say that I will never again create anymore interactive media works, I appreciate how this practice has given me more knowledge and understanding of a certain subject that is popular.
[From Manifesto Reflections]
Tags: manifesto in action
This was my first collage, and was done actually before I came up with the new propositions of how to make Video Collages. This experience shaped which propositions I chose.
At the time I had a good understanding of what I wanted to do from my last manifesto, to push the boundaries and make the most of softvideo but I had no solid idea of where to start. So I began shooting things that interested me and noticed they all had a theme of moving. Coincidentally I came across this website ‘truth movement Australia’ and I had come up with an idea for a work.
I knew it had to have multiple video and links, so I linked to this website. I made sure they looped to create a space, and used the background of an escalator in the background.
The other link I used was to a discussion of the effect of moving on kids. I thought this would be something interesting for the viewer to explore after viewing movements of our everyday lives which the work mainly consisted of.
This collage video was an integral part for me to form a more specific manifesto, one that I was quite capable of making content for seeing as I’m not that technically capable in making amazing boundary pushing softvideo works.
[From Collage #1: Moving]
Tags: manifesto in action
Outcome One: Reflection on the time based media that you have made that is a consequence of your manifesto. How do the works demonstrate or follow the manifesto? Are they successful? How?
My thoughts about the media I have made for my manifesto is pride. They have turned out so much better than I could have ever expected. I really enjoyed making them, and I think that is because of the way I reworked my manifesto. I turned it from something that was entirely conceptual into a practice that I really could see myself making outside of IM.
Although the manifesto has changed since I first sat down in class and brainstormed propositions, I think my films fit my new propositions well. I identified the problems with the manifesto, and solved them.
The most successful part of my manifesto was the inclusion of interaction between viewers and filmmaker. The comments that people made really spurred me on, and I think that the commenting is the easiest way to get feedback on films. And all the comments were good, people loved the films. And that’s the payback for the hard work put into them.
The Films
I would talk about the films separately, but they are so intricately linked that it is almost impossible to separate them.
The first film, while not my favourite, got the most comments from viewers. This is probably because most of the viewers were my friends who are also busy doing their manifestos, and didn’t have time for 8 films all at once. However, if I were making them as a time based media, people would be watching for the films as I made them, so instead of being hit with a hard slog of 8 films, they would get one a week (for example), in nice, clean episodic chunks.
The films work extremely well together because they linked by the running narrative, I’m looking for a vampire boyfriend. They have the same opening and closing credits, they are all edited well (I think), and use the same actor throughout. If, as intended, there had been other filmmakers involved in the TwiLove series, the looks would definitely have varied between films, but the narrative thread linking them all would still be the same.
In a way, the manifesto and the films have both changed to suit each other, meeting in the middle you could say. And for this reason, I think my films successfully demonstrate my manifesto - because they were made together.
Jess
Oh, I’m also really stoked at how my manifesto looks. I kept the same ‘look’ but got rid of the chaotic videos and buttons and streamlined it. This made is much easier to make, and I’m sure much easier to navigate
[From Outcome One]
Tags: manifesto in action
“As the body can be seen as the receptacle of one’s conscious self, and one’s only means through which to experience the world, the placement of one’s body can be seen as important to notions of a discrete ’self’ that navigates through the planes of the spatial and temporal. As Death Drive Video is an attempt to eliminate the discrete ’self’ and return back to a continuous state free from symbolic distinctions and social constructions, it is necessary to disrupt the viewer’s sense of physical placement, effectively rendering them ‘disembodied’ for the duration of the video work. Through cutting between different areas and angles abruptly, without warning, the viewer will be robbed of their sense of placement within the constructed video realm, thus facilitating the process of ‘unselfing’.”
— DDV creators must abandon spatial continuity in favour of disjointed, spatially diffused ’snapshots’ of a single environment.
I thought of this manifesto principle when researching Elizabeth Grosz, while reading parts of “Volatile Bodies: toward a corporeal feminism“. The body as the means through which we see the world, rendering it neither subject nor object, have never occurred to me in this way.. and I thought I could apply it to my manifesto videos. Through disrupting space and time, I thought that perhaps the perceived relation between “body” and “world” could be disrupted. Still it must be noted that most of my Manifesto works exhibit this spatial displacement, even though I only came up with this new principle quite recently. So the rationalisation came after the initial execution…. still I think this is alright.
— I don’t remember this manifesto principle from last time. What did it replace?
[From DDV V2: Bodily Displacement]
Tags: manifesto in action
Although much of Freud’s dream logic refers to visual images, RE.M works will contain a soundtrack. The audio will be created by the same means as association as the visuals. Dreams themselves often contain audio, and however minor its part in the unconscious, audio will play a major role within the works of RE.M. It will create a sense of seamlessness, forming these many associations of the one subject into a whole. To belong on the network amongst vernacular video, RE.M works need these elements so that they can be easily and enjoyably viewed by the masses, whilst remaining elite with its elevated sense of creativity and sophistication. Dreams represent emotions more commonly via visual images; works of the RE.M will do so primarily with visual imagery, but will also always contain the element of audio.
[From RE.M 2: VI]
Tags: manifesto in action
8. There is no such thing as a meaningless video
Every video has or can have a story or meanings that can be mined out by the audience, no matter how feeble, short, poorly filmed the footage is. Although there are many cases where a filmmaker creates meanings that he or she weren’t aware of at the time of filming, it is up to the audience’s interpretation to decide wether or not the video has any meaning. In this sense, because it is up to the audience, there cannot be a meaningless video.
[From Proposition 8]
Tags: manifesto in action
After putting my manifesto into practice I am relatively pleased with what I have accomplished. I believe the propositions I originally created were a good representation of how sport and the network will soon be working together a great deal more in the future.
In critiquing what I have produced, I would say that I was not as regular at posting Tweets as I would have liked to be. In saying this I was following people like Lance Armstrong, who would tweet possibly 10 times a day. This is what makes him such a huge success on Twitter. If the manifesto were to be put into action by a real AFL footballer, I believe they would need to be tweeting off their phone, or their computer at least three times a day. This is what captures and hold your fans. This in turn would mean a direct amendment to proposition two. Further to amending and critiquing the production of proposition two, I believe I was slightly let down my video blog posts. As I was creating fictional stories, they were harder to write and produce more so than an actual footballer. They would be talking from direct experience rather then a falsified story. It would become easier for them to hence produce more then I did, when representing my manifesto. This portfolio, was however to demonstrate that it could be put into action. I firmly believe that I have demonstrated an ability to do this. It is definitely something that I feel strongly about, and I do believe that it could be a positive step forward in developing the profiles of sporting personalities.
When reflecting upon amendments that needed to be made to the original manifesto and its propositions, I believe this would only really be relevant to proposition one and five. Proposition one would not need to be altered in terms of the actual proposition, however the description that follows would need amending. Based on the feedback received, I understand that although there is some element of on-site personalised journalism, the traditional forms of scripted journalism would not be replaced. In making alterations, I believe that the proposition should stand as follows:
Sporting personalities will self manage their brand and media image -
Media as an informed practice is changing in deep fundamental ways. The logic that we know as governing media as an informed practice is changing from industrial to post industrial. Video as a practice is becoming the people’s medium. It is becoming the common way in which we communicate. Video is becoming everybody’s point of view, placing individuals at events as they happen. Point of view video is opening up the narrowed perspective that television broadcasting and journalism have created. Real time video will act alongside scripted journalism. Video podcasting will hence fuel the future of vernacular video.
In response to the comments received from my original manifesto, I was instructed to re-write the description of proposition four so the source was clear. I was a little unsure of what was meant by these comments, as when I referenced the source, it directly followed the specific phrase. It was only the two points that I referenced the source, one being media do’s and don’ts’, and the other focusing on Michael Phelps’ indiscretions. I was also, simply using an example of when an athlete had faltered. That being Phelps being caught drink driving, then continuing on to win seven gold medals in Beijing. I do understand that he faltered once again after the 2008 Olympics, however this is not what I was using as my example.
Proposition five also appeared to need re-working. This was unable to be discusses properly, however I have attempted to rewrite it based on the comments. Proposition Five:
The sporting identity will manage the information and flow of stories, responding and commenting on news and events, before and after they are exposed in the media -
We are currently seeing a direct change in the sports-media relationship. One strong indicator of this, is the amount of fan driven content on the internet. Vernacular video although fast becoming the people’s medium, must not loose the sophistication involved in the style and content of video art. We must therefore adapt our use of online video so that we can capture and hold our audience through strong aesthetic values. When reporting to fans, information flow must be as authentic and true to the sporting personality as possible. It is this private aspect of an individuals life, that the media are unable to report on. Media journalism however is for the most-part correct information. Fans appreciate the truth, even if it involves restoring one’s image in the meantime.Overall this manifesto is an idea, based on thorough research, that could be a positive step in the future direction of sport and the network. It is definitely based on propositions that are able to be followed regularly as a way of enhancing a profile. However in making the manifesto more relevant to the future of the network and soft and vernacular video, more personalised video posts would need to be included to truly represent the benefits associated.
[From Changes to the Manifesto]
Tags: manifesto in action
The eZedia component of my manifesto & portfolio can be found here.
[From Alternate Memory Video]
Tags: manifesto, manifesto in action
I enjoyed making this work, and focused on a more abstract piece.
Finding the creative commons licenced picture of the scary house helped a lot in my forming of the collage video, as I decided to stretch and resize the videos and images so they would fit in the windows and holes of the house. I think this collage video is my most successful because it really captures a space where a word, in this case ’scary’, is explored. It’s all about the house and what odd things might happen in there, because of my resizing of the footage it made it more creepy as people don’t quite know what they are looking at - this is probably most evident in the bottom one.
The footage was mainly of me capturing bizaare and creepy scenes over a couple of weeks, two of them being constructed and the other two observational. The result was the feeling of some creepy sect living in the house, to me anyway, (funnily enough the top video was just some girls setting up a tent but because of the bad quality it looks like a group of people holding weapons)
I used the device of links to encourage viewers to explore what makes us scared and why, I found an interesting article on this while surfing the net one day.
I also used a creative commons track as an overlying sound to accompany the work.
[From Collage #2: Scary]
Tags: manifesto in action
Here it is, the final version (at least for now) of my manifesto. Note the title change! Because the manifesto contains videos which may take a while to load, it may need to be downloaded as a zip file and extracted to your computer. Click “ks.mov” once extracted to play. If the videos do not appear to load when viewed in the webpage; please download it.
Tags: manifesto