[-empyre-] Interactive Video for the Web - questions about relationships to local scenes

[Barbara Lattanzi <threads@wildernesspuppets.net>]

Hello all.

In response to Jim's preliminary list of Interactive Videos on the Web, I 
propose expanding the list with other lists relevant to this area of 
experimentation but not necessarily video or web-based.  That will be in 
another posting...

But first I have some questions to ask others who may be also working in 
the area of web-based interactive video, because I am struggling to 
understand it as a cultural category, even though the technology makes the 
category seems straightforward enough.

First, is the web a supplement to your work?  That is, is the web meant 
simply to be a means for staging/distributing interactive video? or is the 
web an integral part of the work?  If so, what makes the web integral?

Are those of us who are plugging away in the area of web-based video 
interactivity, connected to other groups in our particular geographical 
location?  Is the web-based activity connected to some media "scene" that 
is local?

What are the social relationships that underpin the ideas of the work?  In 
other words, how does dialog within a group of peers focus and propel the 
developement of interactive videos?  (I am not referring to groups like 
empyre or other online discussions.  I am referring to interactions that 
are embedded in your everyday meet-space)

I am asking about the context in which the projects are developed because, 
in my own case, I find that I bring a particular history to my work.  This 
history will be more or less opaque to others - my early experiments in 
small-guage filmmaking, my activist video work, etc.  But all of the 
various past projects were elaborations of my participation in active 
conversations with others who were involved in similar experimentations - 
not at a distance, but up close, maybe next door or across the street, or 
down the alley,etc.

With interactive video, such as my work with c-span.org videos, I find 
myself "believing in" the idea that somewhere, at a distance, others are 
experimenting in similar territory.  There is no scene to connect to, such 
as the "demo scene" of the 1980s and early 90s, where making media was one 
form of partying (in the same room).

Barbara

-----------------------------------
Barbara Lattanzi
www.wildernesspuppets.net