12 Second TV
12seconds.tv, as the domain name suggests, allows the posting of 12 second grabs. This is the video answer to twitter, where posts are video, and are limited to a maximum of 12 seconds. I like, and of course are sympathetic, to the idea. However, a brief look at the content and the paucity is depressing. Talking heads, pets. Of course I probably would have said that about twitter once too, but I think the point needs more discussion than just a sort of brushing aside.
Most of us are text literate. For example, it’s hard to get through high school without having to write at least one haiku, and so we learn something about writing and constraint. In fact, in our education, nearly all our writing is under constraint. We write to word lengths all the time, but also topic, theme, structure. Write a story, a poem, an essay, a report. So when we come to twitter – and of course we also have SMS (and even text blogging) – we are pretty good at saying a lot with little. We don’t have this literacy and understanding with video. Ozu and Bresson do, but let’s face it, not many of us get to make things like this as a part of our secondary education.
So, the problem with something like 12 second TV is simply how visually and televisually illiterate most of us are, so while the 12 seconds is a nicely compelling constraint, it is not sufficient of itself. For example an interesting exercise would be 12 seconds at the same time, from the same time, every day. After all it’s easy to write reasonably well in Twitter, but to do the same in video, with the same economy of production, is much more difficult.