[-empyre-] March: Interactive Video for the Web: Barbara Lattanzi & Nicolas Clauss

["Jim Andrews" <jim@vispo.com>]

EMPYRE IN MARCH: INTERACTIVE VIDEO FOR THE WEB
FEATURING: BARBARA LATTANZI (March 1-14); NICOLAS CLAUSS (March 15-28)

Many thanks to the February guests for the discussion on
archiving/preservation. May saints preserve us all.

We introduce now March's topic, interactive video for the Web, and the first
of two featured guests this month: Barbara Lattanzi. Interactive video for
the Web is usually delivered either through the browser and plugin
technologies such as Shockwave, Flash or Quicktime, or via a non-browser
application--often made by the artist--that is downloaded and installed
prior to viewing the interactive video. The interactivity is written,
typically, via scripting in a language such as Lingo (Director),
Actionscript (Flash), or Apple Script (Quicktime). Also, since interactive
programming often operates more easily or conveniently on images rather than
videos, interactive video is often, underneath the hood, accomplished via
relatively short sequences of bitmaps rather than using video files. Though
there are now tools for Web developers that allow more or less a full range
of interactive operations 'frame-by-frame' on video, thereby rendering
possible a larger time-scale, if desired. The shorter time-scale of the
bitmap sequence has tended to operate on gesture, for instance, or a
relatively brief sequence of actions/motions better suited to the
concentratedly poetical rather than the extended narrative. The constraint
of bandwidth has had its influence on the form of expression in interactive
video for the Web, and this seems to have been something of a useful
influence in that what we see is by no means typical cinema. It is as
closely related to non-cinematic net.art as it is to cinema.

Interactive video for the Web poses possibilities that have not been fully
explored. But much of the work of this month's featured guests--Barbara
Lattanzi and Nicolas Clauss--is toward just that. And also toward exploring
what can happen when programming in a networked environment meets video.

In their work, the experience of watching video is altered. Not simply that
the video itself is altered, but that the experience of watching it is
altered. The viewer becomes also an interactor or annotator or works with
downloadable software to
chop/dice/sample/filter/reframe/juxtapose/relayer/recast/redirect/datify/pro
cess/synthesize/alter the video, etc. Barbara and Nicolas will discuss their
own work and also point out other interactive video work of interest. Toward
our being able to get a sense of the current state of interactive and
networked video for the Web and, possibly, where it's going.

Our first guest, Barbara Lattanzi, publishes much of her work on her site
http://wildernesspuppets.net . Be sure to check out the "idiomorphic
software" section which contains a rich collection of interactive video
together with downloadable software Barbara has written that operates on
video, as well as documentation of offline video/software projects.

The software that Barbara creates ranges from scripts that operate on
particular videos in particular ways--particular interactive video works of
art--to downloadable software that will operate on any video you choose, in
particular ways, to her newest work, which reads from C-SPAN a list of
streamable news videos available over the net, and allows the viewditor to
intervene in intriguing ways. We have, for instance, "C-SPAN Karaoke". We
read that it is "Free software for collaborative and convivial video viewing
of public policy-making. CSPAN KARAOKE displays videos that stream from
public archives on the Internet to the accompaniment of karaoke tunes."

I note that both of our featured guests, coincidentally, have the word
'puppet' in their domain name. Thinking of their work, it may be that the
strings are, in this case, primarily ASCII coded in the scripts of their
programmed/interactive video works. Clauss's are flying in Nicolas's intense
skys; Lattanzi's are in their/our wilderness.

It's a pleasure to welcome Barbara Lattanzi as a featured guest on -empyre-.

ja
http://subtle.net/empyre


BIO: BARBARA LATTANZI
http://wildernesspuppets.net
Barbara Lattanzi is a media artist whose current projects involve the
construction of software for video improvisation as well as other works of
interactive media. Her work has been presented at such venues as the 2003
Ann Arbor Film Festival, the 2002 European Media Art Festival, and Robert
Beck Memorial Cinema in New York. Her experimental software, "C-SPAN
Karaoke", received an "Honorary Mention" in 2005 at Transmediale, the
Berlin-based international media art festival. Her interactive media works
have been exhibited at the 2003 Version>03 Digital Arts Convergence -
Chicago, the 9th New York Digital Salon, Electronics Alive II Invitational,
the 4th Seoul Net and Film Festival, and Turbulence. In 2005 she contributed
a gatepage to the Artport website of the Whitney Museum of American Art. The
production of her multimedia applets and software has been stimulated in
part by the open structures of net-based cooperative venues such as Moscow
on-line software art archive, "Runme.org" and Rhizome "Artbase", where her
work is included. An essay about Lattanzi's software in relation to 1970s
experimental film appears in Millenium Film Journal Nos.39/40. She currently
teaches at Smith College in Massachusetts.

NICOLAS CLAUSS
http://www.flyingpuppet.com
Flyingpuppet.com is the work in progress of Nicolas Clauss, a Paris based
painter who stopped "traditional" painting to use the Internet as a canvas.
Nicolas's site is a place of experimentation offering pieces where
interactivity and play are essential. Much of Nicolas's work is done in
collaboration with a range of artists including Jean-Jacques Birgé, François
Baxas, Frédéric Durieu, Thomas Le Saulnier, Antoine Schmitt, Bernard Vitet,
Denis Colin, Patricia Dallio, Hervé Zenouda, and Stéphane Copin.