Abstract:

Performative media--including video jamming, live and networked creative collaboration, and mobile-device based performance--is reaching a critical mass in digital culture. In Experimental Media Horizons, we will examine a number of outlying practices where the fragments of digital media are beginning to coalesce into new expressive forms by placing contemporary activity into a broader historical and aesthetic context. Included is an overview of tech requirements and performance suggestions for developing your own program in explorative, speculative media.

First, we locate experimental media within a larger sweep of history and critical inquiry. Beginning with Dada, we follow the strands of pre-digital culture which have prefigured our current romance with interaction, subversion, and play: the Lettrism movement, the contributors to Tel Quel, the Situationists, Fluxus, etc. We propose syncretism as a central guiding principle behind many of these movements.

We next fast-forward to the present day digital media landscape, to examine the forms emerging between the vernacular, ruled by the absolute inertia of pop and consumer culture, and the very exclusive, vetted, and insular strands of traditional media: experimental film and video; avant garde electronic and acoustic music; performative installation and interventionist art; software art.

And finally, we will outline a course of interdisciplinary study with the creation of a structured improvisatory ensemble as a core, unifying experience. Open-source, Creative Commons, wiki, and DIY solutions are suggested.

Keywords:

innovation, technology, video jamming, vj culture, video, audio, experimental media.