Stefan Heidenreich

23.05. Split: Videovortex 4
When the Lumière brothers invented cinema, they were in hurry. Not only because so many others were about to come up with the same idea. But because they were convinced it would only work for a short time span. Soon people’s attention would turn to other spectacles, they thought. Things turned out differently, as is well known. Early youtube resembles early cinema in many aspects, especially in its open and unforeseeable future.
Modes of production of moving images usually change with different media settings. As the so called architecture of participation shapes immaterial labour, it also affects the production and distribution of video. A matrix of possible visual forms, Including youtube as one of them, can be devised along the parameters of the author’s function and the time-vectors of production and distribution.
The function of the author can either be off or active as single or distributed. The time-vector of production is live or with a time lag. The time-vector of distribution may be a discrete event or sequence as in a programme, channel or a serial, or a continuous and maybe even distributed flow.
To situate some examples within this matrix:
movie: single author time lag single event
football game: no author live single event
The early cinema has seen other forms, comparable to our current situation, which opens the field for many new variations.
video-wiki: distributed authors time lag sequence
role-playing game:no author live flow
VJ: author live single event
The parameters of this matrix are still in an experimental stage. But they allow for imagining some cross-combinations as possibilities. Why shouldn’t a VJ once guide through the unfolding of a rpg-quest seen from various perspectives?Against the background of this matrix youtube and its remix-culture creates only one of many possible visual environments, and a rather restricted one.