video

Video: Civic Media Session, "Civic Disobedience"

Submitted by Andrew on May 18, 2011 - 3:00pm

(For great detail about the "Civic Disobedience" session, check out moderator Ethan Zuckerman's write-up.)

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MIT Tech TV

About "Civic Disobedience"

Video: "Steve Kurtz: Cultural Resistance"

Submitted by Andrew on April 25, 2011 - 2:30pm

A Civic Media Session about models and techniques for public interventions and soft subversions aimed at undermining authoritarian tendencies in a time of neo-liberal domination.

Known for his work in Electronic Civil Disobedience and BioArt, Steve Kurtz is a founding member of the Critical Art Ensemble, a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance.

Formed in 1987, Critical Art Ensemble’s focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism.

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Maine Congresswoman requires earmarks to be submitted by video

Submitted by Andrew on March 31, 2010 - 10:00am

One of my favorite dorky words is "affordances". As in, what are the affordances of, say, a push-bar across a fire-exit door: pushing, even when the user is panicked, and definitely does not afford for pulling.

Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine is using affordances brilliantly by requiring people to ask for earmarks via video submission. Video's affordances are that it's easily viewed, easily shareable, easily archiveable, easily citeable--and thus doesn't afford for less ethical requests:

As your Member of Congress, I am committed to doing everything I can to support the economic and community development important to the people of the First District---that means fighting for sound federal investments in our community that can grow our economy and create jobs.

Future of News & Civic Media: The Motion Picture

Unpublished
Submitted by csik on August 31, 2009 - 2:32pm

Last June we held our Future of News & Future Civic Media conference, here at MIT, with many recipients of the Knight News Challenge meeting, speaking, and demoing their work. We chose to use the "barcamp" un-conference technique for most of the sessions, where all participants to the conference were able to host a session. This flat, democratic style turned out to be perfect for a group of citizen journalists, social software hackers, information activists, and researchers.

Here is a brief video (by film makers Paula Aguilera and Jonathan Williams) that gives a sense of the flavor of FNFCM09.

The magic, terror and potential of world webcams

Submitted by audubon on November 5, 2008 - 11:16am

I have recently become obsessed with Google's world webcam widget, which I have embedded on my iGoogle page. There's also a main page, hosted by a partnered for-profit company (Catfood Software) where you can check out some of the 800+ webcams set up around the world.

What's cool/horrifying about this is that it doesn't just show you a webcam; it lets you control the camera. You can zoom in and out, up and down. You can jump to a drop-down menu of locations (city center, famous church, boardwalk) set up by the camera owner. You can follow people as they walk down the street, and even take a still photo. This is equal parts terrifying and amazing. How can we reappropriate this surveillance for artistic, political or civic purposes? Wouldn't it be more powerful if people knew of the existence of said webcams and were willing and engaged participants in the virtual interaction between a stranger's computer screen and their beamed image?