Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

124 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubecollection case studies125Microformats are slowly beginning to play a role here. 41 Linked Data, a lightweight alternativeto Semantic Web protocols proposed by Tim Berners-Lee in 2009, is also an interestingdevelopment to follow. 42Concluding RemarksAt this point in time, the principle conclusion I would like to draw is one mentioned previously:in a changing field of online video and the proliferation of user-generated content,art organizations and collections can act as a quality filter, a much-needed mediator, anda network hub. Although the current economic and political climate renders the positionof many cultural organizations precarious and transitional, at this moment we are the onlyagents who can guarantee that online cultural heritage, and especially media art and videoart, will remain accessible in a sustainable and beneficial manner. Commercial and/or semiillegalplatforms such as YouTube, Vimeo and Ubuweb, and the practices of file-sharing andpiracy are of course also prominent providers of such heritage. Yet, it is highly questionablewhether they are interested in the benefits for artists and society at large. Cultural institutionsare much better placed to balance the interests of all the stakeholders involved, and providea solid, long-term option.ReferencesKamp, Janneke and Lorena Zevedei. Culture Vortex Program Line Public 2.0, Amsterdam, 2010,http://networkcultures.org/culturevortex/2010/07/01/final-report/.Lopez, Sebastian. ‘Video Exposures: Between Television and the Exhibition Space’ in Sebastian Lopez(ed) A Short History of Dutch Video Art, Rotterdam: episode publishers, 2005.Perrée, Rob. ‘From Agora to Montevideo’, in Jeroen Boomgaard and Bart Rutten (eds) The MagneticEra, Rotterdam/Amsterdam: NAi Publishers and Netherlands Media Art Institute, 2003.Sherman, Tom. ‘Vernacular Video’, in Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds) Video Vortex Reader:Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam, Institute of Network Cultures, 2008, pp. 161-168.Right now, many art organizations are looking at the changing landscape of networked technologies,and identifying challenges and developing suitable strategies. So is NIMk. As anintermediary for media art, NIMk adopts a pragmatic attitude when dealing with tensionsbetween openness, publicness, ethical choices and accessibility. In our choices for technicalsolutions, we are pragmatic, without losing track of the ethically best solutions. In termsof content, we attempt to balance the interests of artists and the public. For makers, animportant question at this moment is how to generate a sustainable income when artistic production,promotion and distribution go digital. For the public, a healthy, rich and qualitativepublic domain is at stake; it is beneficial for society in general, for education and research,when as much as possible high-quality cultural content is easily findable and discoverable,and preferably even available for free re-use and re-appropriation. NIMk defends both interests,which it actively tries to balance and reconcile, with a strong and prominent missiontowards accessibility.41. See Microformats, http://microformats.org/. Some examples of microformats are hCard fordescribing people and their address information, and hCalendar to describe events.42. Linked Data was promoted by Tim Berners-Lee at TED 2009: TED.com, Tim Berners-Lee on theNext Web, http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html. See also LinkedData, http://linkeddata.org/.