Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

90 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond YoutubeImages on the Move91that is generically popular with teenagers, such as mashups, absurd humour, flash- andextreme-loops, and ‘films-in-5-seconds’. With a huge pizza order, and group of teenagersvisiting from the youth centre in Tallinn, Estonia, the second ‘Katalyytti-clips’ event becamea cross-national exchange of appreciation, enthusiasm, and ‘one-up-manship’ as to theworst music video ever. 41The second workshop took place over a one week period, in Helsinki’s Kallio neighbourhoodbasedRefugee Reception centre, which mostly houses men in their twenties while theirFinnish asylum or refuge applications are processed. In Helsinki, a loose volunteer networkhas been facilitated via Facebook. Entitled the ‘Refugee Hospitality Club’, the network offersoccasional activities and goods to residents in the inner-city refugee reception centres. InOctober 2010, myself and friend Päivi Raivio, who are both members of the ‘club’ offered aClip Kino workshop and screening event as a social activity to the residents. We spent timewith the residents in the local library, searching for videos for an internal screening event, andfor a possible public event for other members following posts on the Refugee Hospitality Cluband Clip Kino webpages. We attended the library three times a week with 13 male residentsof the centre, from Kurdish Iraq and Iran, Afghanistan, Senegal, Gambia, Somalia, Russiaand Kosovo. Some of the men only turned up once, some came for more than one session.Over the sessions, the men shared with us and with each other, a varied selection of videos,including music (traditional, pop, ethnic and global), museum memories and postcardvideos from their homelands, funny sketches such as Laurel and Hardy, sleepy-but-fierce‘babushka’ and fighting stick men. 42 We had the impression that the group enjoyed the timespent watching and sharing videos, despite the communication limitations, and we managedto share laughs, and appreciation of the choices made.Throughout 2010, the Clip Kino project was sustained by the multicultural award. It allowedfor some remuneration for the time spent by myself and others organizing events, and offereda modest fee for ‘guest-host’ curators of Clip Kino events, and a small budget per eventto print flyers or posters. It supported the extra time necessary to work with groups of peoplewho were not part of my own social or professional networks, and facilitated the presentationof their selections from the audiovisual internet to a public of some sort. Social networkingsites including Facebook and Twitter have been used to accumulate a list of people who followthe events. However, although the ubiquitous usage of Facebook for organizing eventsin Finland is undoubted, its effectiveness for actually bringing people to events is still opento question.Nevertheless, the continuity of practice has successfully supported the negotiation of newvenue options in Helsinki. Sites presenting various presentation and performance eventsemerging later in the year were bar-club Cafe Mascot, which supports left-field live music,41. Petrus Ahola, Atte Collan, Karim Degheidy, Omar Fasolah, Mikko Pänkäläinen and AnttiRanta, ‘Katalyytti-clips presents.. Selections, reflections & projections’ Clip Kino event, NuortenToimintakeskus Happi, Helsinki, 07 July, 2010, http://clipkino.info/hosts/katalyytti-clips2.html.42. Refugee Hospitality Club, ‘Kallio Reception Centre Selections’ Clip Kino event, Kallio Library,Helsinki, 13 October, 2010, http://clipkino.info/hosts/refugee-hospitality-club.html.and second-hand bookshop Arkadia International. In the future, when Clip Kino events areplanned it will be possible to offer guest curators a variety of Clip Kino-friendly venues, whichhave different profiles of attendees, audiences and means of publicity. At the time of writing,there are ‘winter buds’ emerging in Turku (Åbo), current co-European capital of culture in2011, where a facilitator-producer other than myself aims to take up the project of organizinga new series of events. As the initiator of an organically developed, open and evolving project,I have been waiting and hoping for such ‘forking’ to happen.Clip Kino Guidelines for Organizing Screening EventsOver the years I have been organizing and facilitating Clip Kino events in Finland, the roles,relationships, responsibilities and expectations have evolved, but have also become clearerand more solid over time. To summarize some of the points made so far, there are four keyconstituents involved in the ‘single screening’ event process: the host venue; the organizer orfacilitator; the guest-host(s) or curator(s) of the screening; and the audience.The host venue is the physical location of the event. The venue may have the equipmentnecessary for a screening event, which includes a projector/LCD TV, laptop, adaptors, audiospeakers or sound system if necessary, and ideally an internet connection. In addition, thehost venue’s network for publicity can make a big difference to the outcome of the event, dependingon the match between the topic of the screening, and the members of this network.The Clip Kino organizer, producer or facilitator (a role I have largely taken, even when takingother roles as well) arranges and secures the host venue, and ensures that the necessaryequipment to make a screening event is available. Of course, this is achieved in negotiationand cooperation with the host venue. The organizer also manages general communicationsfor Clip Kino publicity, including sharing login details for the website archive and administrationor posting rights (for example, to Facebook) where appropriate. The organizer helps theguest-host or curator with skills and techniques for presenting, and raises the issue of thelegal ‘grey-zone’ that exists in relation to common video sharing platforms. Lastly, the organizermay introduce and contextualize the event itself, take responsibility for gathering the listof clips to be screened, and make this available on the relevant Clip Kino archive within aweek of the event.The Clip Kino guest-host(s) or curator(s) of an event is responsible for sourcing 40-60 minutesof video from the internet, based on a theme or subject of their choice. Based on thistheme, they then provide text and images to be used in publicity for the event one week inadvance of the event taking place. If the event is a workshop, however, this will probably bearranged by the event organizer or facilitator. However, in selecting the clips for screening,the guest-host/curator agrees that if the video clips used are not already online, they willupload them before the event takes place. They should agree not to show materials whichare illegal, such as racist images or hardcore pornography, or which violate human or animalrights. Thus far, due to the involvement of the facilitator with the guest-host as the event takesshape, it has not been necessary to make this requirement explicit. On some occasions,however, it has been useful to give advance warning if materials are unsuitable for underageaudiences, or if they may shock or disgust audience members. It is worth reminding the