Not dead!

Well, I seem to have fallen off the blogging map for a while there, for which I am sorry. I had disappeared into writing farr, as I had a deadline for a completed chapter in November, and then got eaten by the (Australian) summer holidays. But I have survived my first Christmas away from home, and I now have two completed (ish) chapters for my diss, which is always a nice feeling. But now, no more slacking, gotta get back into it.

I'm hoping to post more in the upcoming weeks, but two quick things now:

I requested and received permission to change how I get consent to use vids in my research. Basically, many people verbally agreed to allow me to include a vid they had made, but we all have busy lives and lots of things on our plates, and it was extremely difficult to get signed copies of the consent forms returned. If you've already given me written consent to include a vid, that's still fine. However, from now on I am able to receive verbal consent (either over the phone or via email) to include vids, rather than needing a signature. Hopefully this will make things much smoother from here on in.

The second (and infinitely more exciting) thing is this:

Boppy and I in the planning stages to host some sort of vidding convention in Australia, broadly conceived. This means we are hoping to include more than just (mostly) Livejournal-based live-action vidding - AMVs, mashups, trailers, machinima, and any other sort of remix/appropriated video are all welcome, in addition to vids.

In addition, I have been in talks with one of the research groups here at the University of Wollongong (specifically, the inter-faculty Innovations in Cultural Research group) to pair up a fan-run convention with an academic conference on the topic. I have several colleagues here who study different types of appropriated, grassroots media (DJ culture, machinima, yaoi/boy's love fandom, that sort of thing), and we are hoping have a call for papers on "remix", broadly conceived, for this event. We're also hoping to make it a little different from other academic conferences: creators will be invited to speak and showcase their work, in addition to academics, and digital media students from the uni's Faculty of Creative Arts will also create an exhibition on the theme of "remix".

Tentatively scheduled for the end of 2010 (Nov-Dec), I think of it going something like this:

Thursday & Friday: Academic conference at the University of Wollongong
Saturday & Sunday: Fan-run convention (possibly also in Wollongong?)

Having the events next to each other in this way will allow the fans and academics to mingle and attend each other's events if they like.

Of course, this is all still in the very rough planning stages. Everything is subject to change, and we're looking for feedback on pretty much everything - planning, hosting, programming, tech, premieres, all of that!

If you are interested in attending either event, pretty please let me or Boppy know!

More posts on this upcoming in the near future, so stay tuned.

History of Vidding: The Struggle

Struggling to write my chapter relating to the history of vidding... It's probably because my supervisors are pushing me for another chapter before I go back to Canada, and I really haven't done enough research on this yet to write about it with any confidence. I've watched Francesca Coppa's great documentary on the genealogy of vidding from the DIY conference, checked out the Fanlore articles... But it's really scattered and I'm finding it difficult to piece together. I really do need to wait until I get back from Vividcon and manage to meet some VCR vidders and such there to get a more complete picture before I write any more. If anyone wants to help me out, let me know!

In other news... my ambitious side wants to plan a small vidding convention here in Australia somewhere. How sweet would that be?