Workshop approach:
The workshop had an intense pressure-cooker style in which the participants got a view on current cultural and technical developments in digital media: from podcasting to streaming media, from participatory web 2.0 projects to the various uses of mobile phones. All participants designed their own projects, discussed it with peers and experienced trainers and built their own working prototype.
The workshop began with an opening symposium, where renowned makers delivered their views on workshop related topics and presented their projects. All following workshop sessions took place at the inspiring B3 premises. Workshop results were presented and discussed at another location.
Trainers/Assistants:
Jakob Schillinger, media artist, designer, an teacher at the University of the Arts, Berlin, and experienced coach in the Mediamatic databased film labs.
Klaas Kuitenbrouwer, workshop program manager and coach of Mediamatic's Designing Behaviour workshops. Klaas has coached numerous workshops on interactive media, and lectures on new media and interactive narration on art academies and universities.
Sascha Pohflepp (G) Media artist, contributor to we-make-money-not-art, currently studying at the RCA in London.
Andrew Wilson and Lisa Roberts from Blink Media
Workshop report
A Moving Image Lab - to understand the new screens and the new contexts where the moving image now exists - to see how filmmakers can work with those screens, and with their audiences... on Electric Avenue (yes the very same) in the heart of lively Brixton.
The sessions kicked off at sunday evening in a magnificent space in the ICA, where BlinkMedia's Andrew Wilson explored and explained how the mobile phone works as a media channel. He talked about BlinkMedia's social sms projects and discussed an intriguing project that used film as a social medium. The project consisted of two pieces of film that run on two separate mobile phones, that would always start simutaneously. One film contained one face and voice in a dialogue, and the other film contained the other half.
A mobile screen is too small to work immersively (like a cinema screen) - so one way to play it is to design content that takes its context into account...
Marc Boothe, director of B3Media, introduced the practice of B3Media, the creative workshops for new filmmakers, and the way B3 researches the creative possibilities of all audiovisual media channels for filmmakers - with a very high output of short films and other projects that do make it into cinema's and festivals, and into channel 4.
Klaas Kuitenbrouwer presented a small inventory of the qualities of the current media ecology - that scared some people - and then explored the role of filmmakers and storytellers in that media ecology - that reassured them again.
The day after we got down to Brixton, and went hands-on immediately in B3's terrific workshop space. Participants learned how to use anyMeta, the CMS, social networking environment and blogtool for community based projects, and Jakob Schillinger demonstrated the current possibilities of the Korsakow System for making interactive films that again proved to be highly seductive for the participating filmmakers.
Participants brainstormed on their project formats - everybody had brought footage - varying from uncut documentary footage shot in a hairdressers, to finished and highly polished small fiction films, to festival registrations, interviews, travelogues, family histories and more. And the format had to suit the content, of course, so Korsakow was certainly a candidate.
The next day we got new conceptual input as well as more detailed technical how-to's. Lisa Roberts of BlinkMedia introduced the participants to the do's and don't with mobile phones, in terms of interaction models, specific content formats, and in terms of technology. And Jakob disclosed some more advanced tips and tricks to make the Korsakow System do what you want.
Media artist Sasha Pohflepp showed his personal selection of interesting audio-visual mash-ups. Mash-ups are web applications that combine data from more than one source into a single integrated tool. Sasha researched mash-ups that include an important element of moving image - and came up with some fascinating and hilarious projects. Animated GPS drawings, for instance. And a NewYork activist that used the online Manhattan street map, mashed it up with data on the electricity network, then made little explanatory films on all locations where an electricity outlet was available in public space, and linked the clips to the map.
Some participants developed the scenario's for social networking around their material - inviting web users to contribute specified kinds of material to a collection on some event, or a social issue. All but one actually made working prototype in the Korsakow System.
Interactive political documentaries, an audiovisual oracle that the principles of the tarot, a personal religious diary, kaleidoscopic festival registrations, and many more.
This workshop was made possible with the support of the MEDIA PLUS PROGRAMME of the European Community en OCW.
