Videodefunct

Videodefunct is an experimental research project that focuses on inventing a hybrid vlog. A number of work-in-progress prototypes are being developed in the open source blog publishing system WordPress. A key objective is to design an interactive interface that explores the presentation of online video from a poetic perspective. Videodefunct is being developed by the collective of Keith Deverell, Seth Keen and David Wolf in the School of Applied Communication at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.

info from the Videodefunct About page @ http://www.videodefunct.net/

Seth Keen from Videovortex explained the system on the videoblogging group mail list

Thanks Jay for the post on the videodefunct project.

The project certainly has been influenced by Adrian Miles work with vogs and his writing on softvideography http://vogmae.net.au/drupal/
thinking/softvideo03 and the VD collective are similarily interested in exploring video on the Internet moving beyond being single-channel and linear like a version of TV and Cinema on the web.

As you mention VD simply breaks down what would normally be a larger linear video into smaller granular clips, that are tagged and
categorised on posting into the vlog. The user then uses this metadata to reassemble these clips in a customised player attached to
the vlog as a page. In the end the vlog becomes a larger thematic video work made up of a bunch of smaller clips.

In Adrian's rhizomes http://vogmae.net.au/drupal/doing/rhizome I think a similar type of interactivity and granularity occurs where
Quicktime in this case is used as a container to bring in a number of varying content types in varying order. Rhizomes in a way are
configured in a variety of ways to display this content like the customized player page in VD. Both often explore video being displayed simultaneously in more than one frame. (multi-channel)

As you mention we are planning a release of VD as an application / platform after a bit more development and content testing. i.e We
will have it working cross-platform in IE soon. In the meantime we are very open to feedback and questions.

Some more links to follow up on the project:

PROTOTYPES – (Please note QuickTime 7.3.1, Firefox browser 2.0.0.9 or later required for viewing.)

http://www.videodefunct.net/banter/ The Banter prototype is an ongoing audiovisual report on the videodefunct project that provides critique and background details on the system. This example begins to show how interviews can be sliced up and re-assembled.

http://www.videodefunct.net/pedestrian/ Pedestrian (first prototype)
http://www.videodefunct.net/theInvertedPedestrian/ The Inverted Pedestrian
http://www.videodefunct.net/theDrunkenTruth/ The Drunken Truth

VD collective blogs:
Keith Deverell - http://greyspace.com.au/blog/
Seth Keen - http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/
David Wolf - http://dpwolf.net/blog/

David Wolf' s exegesis - Vidgets: The Development and Use of
Interactive, Network Based Video Works - http://dpwolf.net/blog/2007/12/ma-exegesis-now-online/

Blogged notes:

http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/2008/01/30/hammering-vlogs/ - on showinabox as part of the hammering vlog workshop in Amsterdam - differences to VD approach...

http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/2008/02/06/videodefunct-notes/ - videodefucnt notes - tagging

http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/2007/11/06/plain-vanilla/ plain vanilla post on pedestrian prototype
Presentation 1# post - http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/2007/06/01/videodefunct-presentation-1/