vog (a BETA videoblog)

Messy and complicated one, this one. These are works where I'm playing with the idea of the video as a screen and an interface. I literally film a sketch book and overlay things on that so yes, they are sketches, and no, a movie does not have to have video from edge to edge.

The footage was shot from Canberra's Black Mountain Tower over storms over the nearby mountains. There are multiple text commentaries that overlay each other, the video, and the image. These are controlled by sprites that respond to mouse enter and exits - mouse enter toggles it on, mouse out and enter again then it goes. This makes it relatively easy to control them. The work is a deliberate response to much online come new media work that was happening around 2002 that was clean, pixel neat and wanted all of your browser, time and attention. Fuck that. We graze and browse, online is not the space of immersive media (films, books, drama).

The original commentary on the blog page read:

rain approaching from the telco tower on black mountain in canberra. + text.

the first work in the canberra vog series. this is footage that is shot, handheld, from the top of the telecommunications tower of a shower storm that was approaching. the text pop ups were written later, and were written as improvisations around the memory and experience of the trip. they are supposed to be 'local' self contained almost post-it note type entries that taken together became a sort of history and memory of the trip (and when taken together - that is visible all at once, become a sort of word storm collage over the video).

this is also one of the first works where i've started exploring what constitutes the frame of the movie. so the frame is no longer the video or even the video + interactive button bits (which of cause as per the vog manifesto would mean it is not interactive video) but is part of the visual scape of the movie though not the video per se.