Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

260 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetechnological approaches261In 1997, a net.radio workshop lead by E-Lab, nowadays RIXC, 14 took place during a meetingcalled Polar Circuit (Tornio/Finland). The workshop introduced a commercial software calledReal Producer, for which no Free/Libre alternative was available at the time. Anyhow, at thevery least, the software allowed audio to be sent across the network. It was simple to operate,requiring only 56kbps of bandwidth to activate an ‘on air’ signal, and share a sound eventover the internet in real-time, between one or two listeners. You might call it intimate media,but this approach proved that the positions of sender and receiver were interchangeable,breaking apart all established communication or media production models. The software wasused by people from Riga to trace transcultural and artistic links with colleagues in Austria,the U.K, and New Zealand, among others.At the end of 2004 and during 2005, the usual hackitectura suspects co-organized madiaq 22and fadaiat. Following both events from a remote location was easy, as it was with a fewhack-meetings that took place in Italy and Spain. All this led us to take steps towards buildinga similar infrastructure enabling the development of hacklabs, social centres, independentnetworks and open source software. This was to be done for, and from, the hemisphericalsouth from the hand of the already present LUG (Linux User Groups) across the continent.In 1999, Orang, or the Open Radio Network Group, hosted live streaming from Paradiso(Amsterdam/NL) during the N5M3, 15 (Next Five Minutes 3), a conference on the TacticalUse of Media. This was not just a spontaneous action, it was the beginning of an ambitiouseffort to build a worldwide archive of Sound Art and other related files. The database grewexponentially, but later disappeared – the server was reported to have been ‘hacked’, and itsinformation rendered unrecoverable. Among the many tactical media oriented people thattook part in the above-mentioned meeting was Raul Marroquin, a key operator who still workson the project DeHoeksteen.live 16 through Salto, a digital television station in Amsterdam.Elsewhere on the internet, he is cutting across a variety of protocols, from http, SecondLifeand Skype to Twitter, quik and IRC. His feverish rush for making live programs has dwelt incables and improvised studios for decades.In 2003, Okupa Futura (Asturias/Spain) received first-hand exposure to open source codefor streaming media. An event organized by Hackitectura 17 used a ‘squatted’ architecture, aswe were hosted by the multiple potentialities of a distributed T.A.Z, 18 crossing networks, andheading from immediatism 19 to immediacy. 20 The Placard 21 festival operates in a similar veinand spirit. Back in 2004 (Mulhouse/France) sound streams met video flows. This was the firsttime we had a stable feed using a GNU/Linux laptop running Gentoo, plus the well-knownunstable software Pd (a.k.a PureData), which had just recently integrated video modules toencode video/audio packets. It took a good while to compile and install such objects, but wesucceeded on both the tech and party fronts. The core infrastructure was ready.14. http://rixc.lv/; http://rixc.lv/net.art.lv/index.php?obj_id=1029&kat_id=215 =.15. http://www.n5m.org/n5m3/.16. http://dehoeksteen.live.nu/.17. http://mcs.hackitectura.net/tiki-index.php.18. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone.19. ‘Immediatism is a political philosophy embracing the virtues of immediate social interactions withpeople as a means of countering the antisocial consequences of consumerist capitalism’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediatism.20. ‘Immediacy is a philosophical concept related to time and temporal perspectives, both visual,cognitive. Considerations of immediacy reflect on how we experience the world and what realityis’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immediacy_(philosophy).21. http://leplacard.org/.Screenshot of FLISOL.tv freej stream test.In 2006, we organized a variant of the Festival Internacional de Installacion de Software Libre.This effort was named FLISOL.tv, 23 and was documented via wikis. We also provided IRC(Internet Relay Chat) support to encourage everyone involved with the Latin American InstallFest to adopt and use software called freej. 24 This was provided by the hackers at dyne.org,who were always ready to implement new features. One such feature allowed the selectionof frame-rate so as to economize on bandwidth, which is crucial when one is behind a verylimited data transfer link. 25 Thanks to another netizen known as Chaser we were able to run22. http://mcs.hackitectura.net/tiki-index.php?page=MAPA:+cartografiando+el+territorio+madiaq.23. http://www.flisol.info/FlisolTv.24. http://freej.org/, this was the one line command to stream:freej /dev/video0 -s 320x240 -T 6 -V -1 -i.25. IRC chat with one of freej’s developers:[00:16] try latest svn for fps[00:16] freej -f ...[00:16] jaja! perfect![00:16] :)[00:16] but it doesn’t work with video[00:17] test it because I havn’t tested it yet :)[00:17] wait I have to commit[00:17] ahh its fine, we need just streams no video :)[00:17] no rush[00:17] im here helping a kid in colombia with his freej install[00:18] great :)[00:18] yeap, you will see, it will be a mad event..march 24