AVit Retreat 2005

[vjpixylight]

Hello!
I just wanted to get the ball rolling on a different face of AVit NA, in the shape a week-long retreat/camp which more than likely will be at a huge privately own ranch in the Central Colorado Rockies..(although this has not yet been confirmed by the AVit NA core)

In laying down a theme for a retreat AV camp, maybe we should try to incorporate the idea's of sustainability, and alternatives, to the concrete jungle of clubs and promoters..

This recent project ozma thread:
http://www.vjforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=9434
has actually hit on the subject of how to make these great collaborative project, like ozma, sustainable?
This could be the focal point of this AVit Retreat, and what VJ's can do to start making a real buck with this craft...

Some idea's to break out of the promoter box might be:

1. Live streamed footage of VJ events and gigs that are always happening most every weekend around europe and the world..(maybe a dedicated server?) with either pay-per-view revenue, or membership fee based..

2. Exploring the ways how live VJ style motion graphic's can be integrated into the mainframe...that being how to break into commercial and live broadcast event visuals...

3. Using alternative power, wireless communication, and immerging technologies, to hook into the grant programs, and charitable trusts, as it relay's to the new age of media and media distribution...

This is just a couple of themes we could explore...
Please feel free to start adding on..:)

[LEVLHED]

those are pretty grand concepts..how about just "noise" ;)

I would love to spend a week in the CO mountains geeking out on vidiot shit.

[vjpixylight]

...sure, we'll give the birds and insect an earful:)

But we do need a theme, and colaborative workings..

Spacedub has good standing now with
the organizer's of the DVMF, and could get the schools involved in a weeklong media workshop possibly as well..(They have the funding!)

I'm surprised there isn't more interest in the AVit Retreat idea:confused:

Is AVit starting to become passe?

Is this something that we here on the VJF,
are burning out on?

[devonmiles]

Hi there,

I like the idea of a retreat too. I think its different enough to the regular avit events to gather a broad range of artists.
the main avits are intended to showcase state of the art vjing. a retreat could be something like a think tank to find ideas for the future of vjing.
alternative approaches beside the club way seem to be more and more relevant and developing concepts to get funded by educational, political or social institutions will multiply the possibilities for vjs.

for example educational funds, especially the ones dedicated to social disregarded children or minority groups, have a lot more money to spend than the art funds, which seem to exclusively support the established artists only.
there could be something like a colloqium where an overview to all that institutions and their conditions of funding is given. we could edit something like a handbook with adresses, hints how to deal with them, submission dates and terms and examples how vj related projects look that are possibly being funded.
best would be to invite some representative specialized in this topic to hold a lecture and discussion forum and artists who have worked such projects already, to share their expirience.

another theme for a workshop could be " working with bands".
whilst a/v artists seem to be established now, and more and more vjs collaborating with bands of all music styles but it seems they often where degradated to deliver just "video wallpaper" that doesnt disturbs the music performance too much.
though supporting established local bands (the big name bands already have their own vjs) can be the entry to earn a relatively good living from.
discussing examples of welldone vjing for bands can inspire suitable ways of incorporating live vjing in a live music performance and escaping from just throwing premade clips on the screen that have nothing to to with the meaning of the music.
due technical environment is quite different to the usual club setup, starting with light conditions, screen setup or remote live cam work, the tech spec side should be covered too.
maybe inviting a band or two to experiment with would be a nice
idea too.

where there are bands, there are music videos, promotional dvds, tv commercials, ring tones, clips to download on your cell phone.
its up to us to find ways to dig into this business. nobody is waiting for us, we need strategies to promote ourselves and what we are doing.
the great potentioal of vjing is that the same content can be used in a club, being featured in an art gallery, broadcasted on tv,
used for company promo, downloaded to whatever mobile device comes to your mind, and all that even simultaneously.
discussing ways to develope a platform for this can be topic of another workshop. (I think thats what pixy intended)

[vjpixylight]

yea, we will be working with some local
musician's called 'the Sons of Armegeddon'
who can cover a wide range of musical and improv material..
Of course, any cats that want to worj the audio end of this retreat will be most welcome, and Lev will be doing the Noisz part of the bill:)

[holly]

Great idea to have an avit that's for VJs instead of punters. E'schroeder has excellent ideas, too.

It'd be cool to create some sort of communal feedback loop "tree" that people can walk up to, plug in, and add/take from. Let it branch out and be ongoing like a drum circle.

More participating, less observing.:heart:

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by holly
Great idea to have an avit that's for VJs instead of punters. E'schroeder has excellent ideas, too.

It'd be cool to create some sort of communal feedback loop "tree" that people can walk up to, plug in, and add/take from. Let it branch out and be ongoing like a drum circle.

More participating, less observing.:heart:

For Sure!
A retreat to react and interact with our natural desires to communicate on a visual level...
What do you have in mind holly?

my more geekish nature wants to be mixing each other's vj stream's wirelessly??
maybe a way to rig wireless cams so that the feed can be mixed by the parcipants into footage that itself is streamed up to a server, and back down to another AVit Retreat in euro or aussieland??
just shooting from the hip here

[vjTranceKoder]

A time of bonding and vj fellowship!! Count me in.:yep:

[elbows]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
I'm surprised there isn't more interest in the AVit Retreat idea:confused:

Is AVit starting to become passe?

Is this something that we here on the VJF,
are burning out on?

Something has changed over the years. If I were able to put my finger on it properly then I would have waffled about it more by now.

Being inside avit uk I was mostly preoccupied with practical realities of problemsolving the usual hurdles that came up, and seeing how to balance an inner organisational core with the wider community. As Im sure you know its a big learning process, but along the way the community itself does seem to have changed a bit over the years.

I dont know if the novelty of the community wore off, or if its simply that a lot of energetic people are busy now with other things. Or if its a internet forum phenomenon. Or if it is a sign that avit-planning and community thoughts have become too seperated, or some other factors I dont understand.

Either way I certainly dont think its any specific persons fault, but Ive struggled to come up with things to try. I still get excited when I see where the various worldwide avits could go, but I am worried about the communities ability to deliver enough sustained energy to build on the events, creative-collaboration-wise as much as anything else, in the face of decreased text communication and commitment from people in the community.

In desperation at my lack of ideas as to how to solve this, I decided very recently to leave organising group of avit uk and see what else I could spend my energy on in terms of communtiy services. This is mostly why I have been waffling a lot recently about online internet video, I was hoping that in some idealistic way video might be the solution to the communities problems, considering thats what the communtiy is all about. War on text :)

[Lara]

Aww Holly, I don't know what miscommunications have been going on in the past. I'm sorry if you felt excluded. I'm not sure what the story was with outspokenness? was but that was maybe before I joined AVIT UK... I'm really sorry anyway :love:

Online communities are changing daily. And I think VJing is too. The range and diversity of projects I'm seeing people undertake is fantastic. I think that the festivals are changing in the same evolutionary way.

People want much more than to meet up and meet other VJs now- and I'm really pleased to say that all the festivals I know of are providing some reallt interesting and challenging programmes of all kinds of VJ related work, high quality peer to peer education, and some really excellent performance opportunities.

Maybe the community inputs into these festivals in a different way than before. Maybe it's about refined thought rather than raw energy? This year almost all of the AVIT UK events are proposals from the members of this and other VJ and live AV art communities. I feel like this festival is much more representative of what people actually want than before. And we are actually enabling work, which is wicked.

Our festival happens to be programmed by the community, which is great, but other festivals are great because they're curated by someone else. Look at the great work John Rixon's been doing with the Big Chill... Personally I think there's space for and time for all kinds of experimentation.

Maybe you guys should think of doing this open callout stuff, but also putting together a list of people to invite, and doing some outside research into local(ish) VJs you don't know... I think retreats are naturally more localised activities. Maybe it's a matter of just finding the right people for the right ideas. Maybe drawing conclusions about the community and AVIT as a whole isn't the right thing to do in this situation.

Lara x

[disassembler]

To many, to thin.

There is only one DEMF, MUTEK, SONAR, BIG CHILL, WEMF, and super bowl.

[holly]

Hey Lara! Long time no read!:D

They weren't "miscommunications" from AVit (uk). I saved the emails of course, and they are very clearly communicated. At the time I looked up who was on this commitee and you weren't named (assuming you would go by Lara something and not VJ ____). As for SF, well, it was my fault maybe for assuming that Pixy was on the commitee for that one and speaking in some sort of official capacity for AVit(sf).

Believe me, there are no hard feelings. Politics are politics, but I can only guess if I got this treatment, who else did also? It only made me realize that there was little benefit in helping produce an event so far away. At Eyewash we simply decided to focus more on promoting our local talent and giving travelers a place to play and meet local VJs, keeping our limited resources ($) closer to home. We do so many events in a short amount of time; It's worked out well for us that way. That's why I am excited about the Midwest VJs at Rodan (which is an AVit..., or is "sponsored by AVit"...?). The scene has already generated a few mega-AVits. Now maybe it is time for numorous smaller events to diversify and try new things. Push some local flavah.
:yep:

edited to add:
Dissasembler has a valid point.

[LEVLHED]

the thing at Rodan on Jan8th is "brought to you by AVIT, NA"...totally not a full-blown avit but we decided that the event was definately in the spirit of avit and since the chicago avit was literally around the corner from there it would be good to take advantage of/help bolster whatever "branding" avit has.

and as for the "feedback tree" you mentioned, thats actually just the project morph and I have proposed for AVIT,UK! "The Massive Video Hardware Feedback Experiment"!!
just bring your shit and some Y-cables and patch it in!

umm..so yeah...please make this retreat during proper summer break (I'm talking school system summer break)....I missed AVIT,SF because school wasn't out yet. If its during summer break I have all the time in the world to help out.

[disassembler]

Originally posted by LEVLHED
the thing at Rodan on Jan8th is "brought to you by AVIT, NA"...totally not a full-blown avit but we decided that the event was definately in the spirit of avit and since the chicago avit was literally around the corner from there it would be good to take advantage of/help bolster whatever "branding" avit has.

In the spirit, take advantage.

Not a real ROLEX, but it says it on the watch.


If a event isn't a high caliber event and it has the branding of something that has a reputation of being high caliber, we all know what it does for the organizer but what does it do for the branding??????

[LEVLHED]

wait dis, are you trying to diss the thing at Rodan, AVIT and me? you really aren't doing a very good job of it.
I think maybe you've got some misconceptions on what avit is all about....avit was always about us (vjf) getting together to see each other, as well as show the general public what we are doing....if by "high caliber" you are referring to sponsers and booths and "headliners" and what not, those are merely the means to an end..we get them to help pay for our goals, which I just stated. This thing at Rodan happens to be entirely low-budget/volunteer...therefore there is no need for sponsers or educational bits to justify particular sources of funding.
What does it do for the branding? It can only enhance its effectiveness since whats happening on the 8th embodies what avit is about. Its a real-life meeting of the VJF community that is going to show the general public ALOT of video....too bad you can't make it too.

or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say.

[holly]

Oh, I wouldn't take it too negatively Levl. I think it's very cool that you are doing something to bring people in from all over. That IS what AVit is all about, right?

AVit is not a trademark. It just means a get-together that was generated here on VJf. Name or not, the more people who learn to produce and promote the better. If AVit becomes that (learning to produce and promote on more than a local level), it still serves a very important purpose for the community. It's obviously voluntary. No one has to pay to use the name. Think of it as Open Source.:)

I wonder if this is how religions start.

I could make AVit Battles after all. Bwa-ha-ha-ha.:P

[vjpixylight]

...what Holly said:cool:

I am hoping that this get together in chicago will also give us time
to discuss what AVit is about and if there is enuf interest in doing
an AVit retreat's that could be more collaborative in nature, and not so much individually performance driven..

[holly]

It might be interesting if a "retreat" involved a goal or an end result (DVD? website? interactive killer robot?). You know, something with a tree-hugging message or orphans-in-the-inner-city or something.... Or especially something relevant to the locale (history? scenery? politics -- altho as an arts non-profit FMT is forbidden from producing a political or religious message: something to think about before AVit or some parent org goes for non-profit status!).

Anyway, then everyone is leaving behind a part of the whole, even if it is just a webby with various clips + music to be downloaded and reassembled in a live setting.

[disassembler]

I mean no insult to you Lev.

Just having constructive thought about what a AVIT REALLY is, if its owned, and how today's AVITs impact what the future will be.

The whole AVIT thing is a mystery to me. Traditionally AVITS have been full blown international festivals/conventions "high caliber".

Do people have to ask anyones permission to give it the AVIT label? What constitutes an AVIT. Is it a loose term? Is it open source? How many VJ's does it take to be a AVIT?

[sleepytom]

avit doesn't exist :scared:
this is probably a problem
it probably won't be noticed as a problem untill it's too late
in the mean time tis a freeforall - grabit whilst you can
lets avit?

[elbows]

Well the way I see it avit is that the name is protected in so much as the whole point of avit is a community thing. If someone used avit name for something that went against lots of the community, community would get annoyed and I would hope this would make it more trouble than its worth for anybody to bother misuing the name. Detach the avit name from the community and I dont see its value, when it connects with the community it has value.

For sure this isnt as solid as any legal protection, but then all those systems cost a lot of money and I doubt legal threats carry much wieght without evidence that you have the financial muscle to enforce. Same story as with much of creative works rights/ownership/protection. Even if it were just about feasable to look into, the worldwide aspect sure complicates matters, doubt we could get worldwide protection in one process, and it will be hard to create a legal global avit entity to own the name globally.

So each country is bound to do things differently. The copyright messages ont he websites are just the usual formality to put people off nicking the site contents and design etc. They have no connection witht he legal ownership of avit etc.

Because inevitably the entire community doesnt do all the nitty gritty organising and stuff for avit events, it is a smaller subset of the communtiy who end up aking lots of decisions. If we could get a system where entire community joins in and can influence every single decision, no matter how small, without causing proceedings to grind to a complete halt, then that would be ideal. But I havent seen it work that way in real life yet, so to get things to happen people have gone off to plan things in the name of the community.

Now its impossible that everry avit is going to be the right thing for everybody, and people are going to disagree, as avit cant do everything decisions will be made sometimes that make people feel excluded. My hope would be that where one avit may not be able to deliver for you, a different one will. Strength, variety and fairness through diversity of organisers and locations and emphasis, scale and ethos of the events.

Now avit uk for example got to the point where it needed to be some kind of real entity from a legal point of view, so that it could interact in the commercial world, have a bank account, etc. Ive forgotten the proper legal terms for what avit uk is, but its basically a company which is not supposed to make a profit for individual humans, any monies go back into future avit events and the community (eg some of vjforums server costs or whatever).

From my experiences even when you take a discussion from a community of hundreds/thousands down to a group of around 10, theres still a lot of legitimate differences of opinion and many delays/efficiency lapses which are tollerated and accepted because people dont want a dictatorship.

In my eyes there was no fear that avit would become unrepresentative of the community, so long as the core groups of organisers did not become too small, or dominated by one or two people, and so long as the ommunity as a whole kept on talking here and asking the tough questions and expressing their wishes and giving encouragment and whoops of joy where due, and moaning appropriately where avit was seen as failing in some way.

There will always be more opinions than there are people to do the groundwork. Thats ok, because lots of people voicing opinions is part of the fuel for those who have time to do groundwork on avit. The right balance of good & bad feedback from people provides the energy to continue. If theres too much bad feedback and no good, then clearly things must be changed. But whats worse than bad feedback to me is no feedback, or vastly reduced feedback. Then theres no fuel for either positive or negative changes!

[elbows]

Or to conclude/summarize my thoughts:

Avits will (im my view quite rightly) continue to assmume they are doing things in the interests of the community, unless some reaonable chunk of the comunity indicates otherwise.

There are some complications, such as the fact that as soon as you start dealing with funding, sponsorship, brand image, press, artist liason, covering peoples costs etc, then a reputation exists on all sorts of levels, and in reality some subjects become very hard to discuss totally openly in public without avit & community shooting itself in the foot. Thats where the trickiest territory is as far as Im concerned, and I know no magic answers.

Wibble! :D

Personally one of the best parts of avit to me iss watching them spring up in different parts of the world, and so far they all seem quite definately different, both in terms of the events and how they are organised & funded, and by whom.

[disassembler]

Who were the organizers (members) who brought you AVIT UK?
Can you find their names and logos anywhere? Does anyone stand out as who is responsible for making AVIT UK happen?

AVIT UK doesn't seem to put anyone in the front. Seems like a faceless organization where everyone involved are equal no matter their contribution. Therefore staying in the spirit of the community. Look at the sponsors page and you'll see Vjcentral and Vjforums is credited (appropriately). Did Exhale give money to AVIT UK?

That makes one say " I'll help out because no one person or persons is going to benefit greater than one another ."

Did you know Exhales name doesn't appear anywhere on Vjcentral. I tip my hat to you for your selflessness and most important contribution to the community.

Thank you.

Who brought AVIT NA to you?

The danger in making a list of contributors is that you might leave people out.

[holly]

Originally posted by disassembler
Seems like a faceless organization where everyone involved are equal no matter their contribution. Therefore staying in the spirit of the community.

Who brought AVIT NA to you?
:confused: I've wondered this myself! And it sort of reminds me of the whole "mediocrity=normal" debate happening now in schools and movie reviews of THE INCREDIBLES....

Being anonymous might have it's merrits (to some) in the don't look at me, just look at my screens world of shy techgeeks, but it sure makes the whole thing opaque and confusing...
:lurker: :lurker2:
And just WHO ARE the people who VJed at AVit SF in gorilla masks and jumpsuits???

[elbows]

Actually on the website there is a list of the people who are filling the formal roles in avit uk, it is there for people who would find it useful to know who to speak to, and because an air of mystery and facelessness can foster as much suspicion as it does respect. As avit uk became a formal structure, its easier to do a list because it isnt supposed to be a definitive list of contributers, just mostly the people that fill year-round roles that fit into the organisational structure laid out in avit uks constitution. I for one hope that people who have contributed to avit in any way will take the communitiy and otehr avit organisers gratitude as a given. Personal thanks to specific people is usually done directly with the people, I certainly wouldnt like to be responsible for creating a definitive list, as you said theres always going to be someone forgotten when the list is written and thats not a nice feeling.

Anyway certainly the emphasis is totally on avit being its own reward, rather than being a vehicle that people could hijack for their own motives. People who have contributed to avit "behind the scenes" have about the same entitlement to mention avit and their involvement as do the artists and other participants who actually go to the avits. In other words I personally feel that theres a very broad range of acceptable and harmless amounts that people can talk about their avit involvement on their cv etc. Anybody who started going round thinking they were the man, the king, a cut above the rest due to their avit involvement is likely to be slapped down by other people in the same way that any showoff/superiority complex person would be if they came to the community with constant bragging about anything. In other words normal human personality traits make blowing your own trumpet too hard a counterproductive thing to do, whether its avit or anything else.

When I go on about this stuff, it is not supposed to be me saying that avit uk and otehr avits are all perfect the way they are, or that there are not likely some flaws somewhere. As I said earlier, I like talking about avit whether its good or bad, and I want others to talk about it as much as possible so everything can continue to grow and adapt.

As to whether Exhale gave money to avit, my memory of avit uk leeds (first avit) is fading but I believe its quite likely he did. Certainly there were some donations from various people in the community. By far the biggest donation from people has always been time, and time is money after all. Anyway we tried a raffle at last years avit so that we could make the cashflow go the other way and give money to exhale to help with forum & server costs. Avit uk & .info use exhales server resources so its only fair that we should give back, and really all these relationships between communities, people, events work best when we keep as many things flowing in all directions as possible, give and take as different realities take priority over time.

[holly]

You know, it would be cool if each AVit event had a "face person" to act as host/liason/ambasador. Even just to be a person who makes announcements as to current status (I'm sure I never heard from anybody at AVit that UK2 was delayed. It was a rumor, then... oh).

But there was once when someone put an announcement from AVit on the forums and it was boring but in a good way. A very confidance inspiring way... ho-hum everything's normal. ...And it also let me know (as an artist) a single person who I can PM or email and get an answer or directed to the proper person....

Like with AVit Retreat it's obviously Pixy..., and that may be why you don't have a bunch of organizational support volunteers. Everyone may be assuming that you are in charge. Hmmm. Ok, I 'll write an open source proposal for the feedback tree.

[Lara]

Hello, I'm the 'face' person for the UK! Paul (Visualnaut) posted about the postponement here and on the VJCentral newswire. We've been hearing a lot of feedback about these posts being missed- perhaps we need to make them stickies in the relevant forum.

If anybody wants to ask questions, make comments, talk generally drop me a line at info@avit.org.uk. If anybody would like to get involved, email me at this address also.

We are listening and reading the posts here, and trying to improve AVIT UK all the time!

[murph]

Well I think an AVIT retreat in the mountains would be just dandy!

Apparently I can get pretty cheap airfare out that direction too! yay! (gawd mpls is usually so expensive to fly out from...)

[murph]

Also, isn't Niky sort of the 'face' of AVIT NA? (at least usually)

[holly]

yes, but I mean a pro-active "face" putting out updates and little reminders on a regular (and fairly quick) basis, you know. Just talking about it and being around.... Like Lara is doing now in this thread. People need to be reminded that something is "happening" all the time.... But yes, I am aware that having that one voice can threaten the commune-ness of it all.

Funny that all these VJ events have female "faces". Even my own damn party. Maybe we should be called spokesmodels. Har har har.

Pixy, we need a fotoshoot of you "retreating" and making it look very attractive for all the brochures! Yes, baby, yes. Nature loves you!

[many2]

maybe a drag queen pixy ?

[holly]

I was picturing more like an Earthmother Pixy.

[LEVLHED]

definately an earth mother pix in drag

sell it man! sell it!

[vjpixylight]

hey man I'm justapixy and onlyapixy and if it takes a dragpixy to be the face, I'm sure we could find one on Holly-wood BLVD..:P

but seriously, This AVit retreat could co-function simultaneously within the avit structure, (kinda like EarthDance), and maybe linked via a VPN connection during the retreat it's self..

But what of the retreat?
I have only been trying to get some disscusion on this now, so detail's have time to be worked out, and am no way the face or lead person within the AVit Retreat 2005..

The Retreat idea was actually proposed at AVit SF, as a different way of coming together as visual artists..
I just happened to be living on a piece of mountain property, that would work great for the retreat, and is, trying to establish it's own identity as a remote sustainable living model..(www.spihl.com which is just the outline of the site with no content yet)
So, that is my role in this..
having plenty of time to prepare the on-site infastructure(wireless web,{for wireless web cam's}), the alternative power arrangement's ect.)

I think having miss Nix as the AVit NA face is still the AVit NA plan:)

[vjnixmix]

Damn it - I thought I might get my life back sometime soon.

I don't mind being a 'face' person but it sure would be better if it was all nice n hunky dorey all the time. There is too much negativity and I'm expected to be perfect. People think I am out to further myself and be selfish, when it is everything but.

Yeah AVIT NA is my baby - but sometimes don't you want to just leave your baby on someone else's stoop?

Maybe I can go hide in the woods at the retreat.

[fALk]

I dont understand this discussion. Firstly I think the idea of the AVIT retreat is great! The OpenAirVIT idea we had last year was great - as a place for meeting talking hanging out working a little together showing work etc. We didn?t have the time resources or location to do it on our own so we went with the chaos computer club on this one. We had some frustrating moments leading up to the event with lots of people canceling their commitment a month before the event. That was partly because we had not communicated enough and not made clear that it was not a "show me yours I show your mine" party rather a collaborative sit in where you even had to pay to get in (imagine that). Anway in the end we where about 15 VJs who never meet before and had a very great time at the camp and I think we learned all a little from each other - even if it was just communication.

Fast forward we have the next year and we decided to do the AVIT^C3 because of the feedback in the forums - which were not totally overwhelming but we got a few replies that made us go forward. Well we pretty much rounded up the organisational part and are pretty confident that this accounts to a "real" avit - with lectures, workshops and A LOT OF WORKTIME. The showcases are pretty short for the people coming and most show of stuff that was talked about during the day. around 20 VJs will hold talks and workshops and show their stuff.
The big thing we learned from the OpenAirVIT though was open collaborative working part. A lot of time at this year conference is dedicated to openly working on something - we have set two themes - but I am sure people will sit together and show stuff each other as has happened last year.
So I say go forward - don?t make it the "HUGE" event for the first time - you as organizer will be the most disappointed. Get your expectations low and scale with demand. The location you have sound perfect for such an endeavor and I would say its perfect for the name AVIT. A lot of times there was talk here on the forums for people to decide which conferences should bear the name "AVIT" and which should not. I still see AVIT in itself the little baby wanting to grow up. I always thought that there was sometimes overhype sourrounding the AVITs. So I would say whoever has the guts to organize an AVIT should be able to do so but we should develop some guidelines (nonprofit, community based, corporate sponsoring in the background (not a Motorola AVIT please)). its harder then most out there think. Most AVIT lack a source of funding and understanding in masses.
I think to really grow the baby that is AVIT we have to make as many diversified version as needed to see which ones work - which ones help the scene at most - for me that is public reception and the pushing of the general community feeling for some it might personal promotion for some it might be the organisation of the scene. All are valid points and should be taken into account when starting an AVIT threat. The problem for us all is that the whole "VJing" thing does not take off - and never really has - as some would like it. The reality is that we are still seen "as the people who light the club" it has gotten better but very slowly. With the - mostly self-imposed - hype that sourrounded the "VJ scene" in the last 5 years we have seen many VJs come (and a lot gone as well) the "maket" (if it ever really existed) is very crowded and starts to see sign of kapitalistik greed. All this is very counterproductive to the AVit spirit and the vj scene at large. I think future AVits should put general topics - the ones that help define a red thread throughout our doing - on the top of the agenda - things like community building through collaborative working on projects do help a good spirit a lot.
For that your ranch AVit project sounds very good. Lots a time no money pressure and good landscape to wander in thinking...


PS: One thing that comes up during thinking about all this is that I should mention that the AVIT(uk) brighton financing thing has set a problematic tone for all smaller avit. namely that all vjs who come want to be compensated somehow either want hotel or travel costs and can not imagine that we are already putting in our personal money and will not get back a single cent from this. Its about your passion damnit. The hackers can do it. They come from all over the world to sit together work and talk and even the speakers pay the entry fee because it helps the community. I understand that some people are on a lack of resources but that hits the hacker community as well and they still seem to be able to come from the most distant parts and be happy that someone took their spare time to organize such an event like the Chaos Congress.
We clearly try to communicate this and have some success. I think its great when you have funding for the lectures etc but it should not be mandatory for a community based event.

[vjnixmix]

I think the retreat is a great idea. Maybe for once we can get back to what its all about.

In order to throw a large scale event you need funding. For funding you need sponsors or grants, for sponsors you need a place for them to fit in - like a conference. Even though our community relies on the technology and the technology being at our fingertips is a smart thing. I mean us being connected to the people creating our technology is good, yet the community does not welcome corporate involvement. So where do you go from there? It's a dog eat dog situation.

My last post was mainly out of frustration. I feel like the community events aren't really by the community. That a few people end up footing all the work. Its a difficult task to coordinate people and even more difficult when they are all volunteering. Falk had some very important things to say in this regard - that everyone expects something - and if community events are to really be for the community this is the first thing that needs to stop. Too often I see people sit back and watch things happen, instead of doing it, then they have things to say about what was wrong.

The retreat ideally in my opinion should be cell-based with groups of people working on sections. I think performance and education are important at the retreat. Its important to meet people - its important to be inspired and get down to the nitty gritty again. It's important we take back our art and leave behind the superficial BS we are all tired of.

[vjpixylight]

so why don't we focus on a narrative/live collaborative webcam mixing over IP of simultanious AVit Retreats...???:))

Surely there are some out there that could organize the open air type AVit Retreats that falk has mentioned here..

the Ranch here will be on WiFi for a good portion of the area that the retreat will be staged around..(and working on the wireless cams!)

but anyhow I have the time to develope this all better, if we can come up with some sort of connected retreat's..(i'm also looking into getting a better bandwidth setup specifically for this event)

So thank's for the info Falk:yep: :jump2:

[holly]

Originally posted by vjnixmix
People think I am out to further myself and be selfish, when it is everything but.
Ironic: here I am trying to further myself and be selfish, when all I ever do is promote other VJs at eyewash.
:P
vMaybe for once we can get back to what its all about.
:confused:
Uh..., that would be video mixing, right?

[elbows]

Well Id say Avit UKs scale was largely as a result of trying to please as many different ideas about what avit should be as possible. Obviously its impossible to suceed at every aspect, it makes a lot of sense for different avits to try different things. I agree that diversity is best, wouldnt dream of trying to dictate a single thing about another avit other than that avit means community in some way.

The other factor behind the size and budget distribution is that because the community is international, it didnt feel right for uk avit to be biased against those who happen to be a log way away.

I wish it were as simple that Avit Brighton UK set an unhelpful financial situation for other avits. The problem wasnt created by us, its part of the chicken and egg situation that the VJing community finds itself in when it comes to certain financial areas. Like I said we didnt want to exclude people from other parts of the world, andtravel & accomodation costs money. We responded to real issues that those who wanted to go to avit raised, in line with the community-focussed nature of the event.

Anyway there is no answer to the financial stuff, money is a curse that isnt of avits creating, if avit uk never existed any avit will still face exactly the same issues of artists wanting help with resources at an avit, whether it be technology or a bed to sleep in.

I wish every scene were like eg Hacker scene where the people overcome the obstacles, but the fact remains if you force people to do it all themselves then a proportion of the community is left out. The same is true for how commercial, marketing, sponsorship to go, so hard to get everyone to agree!

Now I personally happen to agree with you about hype, and about scale. If I suddenly became a human in another part of the world who wanted to start an avit, I would start small and diversify slowly with different events, experiment, see what happens. But any community will have diverse thoughts about what avit should be helping to do. You describe the lack of "take off" in the VJ scene, and its obviously a major frustration to many people. Well naturally when people talked about avit near the beginning, they wanted it to help with all that stuff.

Oh Ive waffled too much but the bottom line is that Ive enjoyed the description of every different kind of avit immensely so far. Ive not been to the North American ones or the Latin American ones or your CCC stuff, but I love the sound of them all and I am hugely glad they are all different. Personally I like the sound of the retreat the best so far, but my desire to travel internationally seems to have been broken for a few years.

Originally posted by fALk
PS: One thing that comes up during thinking about all this is that I should mention that the AVIT(uk) brighton financing thing has set a problematic tone for all smaller avit. namely that all vjs who come want to be compensated somehow either want hotel or travel costs and can not imagine that we are already putting in our personal money and will not get back a single cent from this. Its about your passion damnit. The hackers can do it. They come from all over the world to sit together work and talk and even the speakers pay the entry fee because it helps the community.

[fALk]

Now I personally happen to agree with you about hype, and about scale. If I suddenly became a human in another part of the world who wanted to start an avit, I would start small and diversify slowly with different events, experiment, see what happens.

thinking long and loud:

This is where the problem lies .... even if you try to make it small it will eventually come big since you are advertising on international ground (internet, this forum etc) there will likely be a lot of VJs who are in for it for the international experience factor. if you read the first threat of the CCC Avit it was called AVIT mini - that is what I personally wanted it to be - something that builds on top of the very tiny OpenAirVIT. But we found out that there is was intermediate step. It went like "call of papers" then we already had 10 people interested then it was like 30 actively engaged VJs and that is not mini anymore. All of the sudden you have to care about so many stuff take care who comes when and how and what workshops to include then come the decissions who is playing and who not etc. and on top you have everyone coming asking us to get in for free or even get travel refunds or even money for their performance. I do not say that its all Brightons financing fault. I personally think it was a right step but it adds a layer of confidence where there is none in the bigger picture. People behave like we are accepted all have money and are numerous that is indeed not the case. We have now the experiences of two AVITs in and around Berlin we have gone from totally unorganized to a decent structure and size. I am afraid that we can not grow much more over here - even in Brighton I knew every VJs face after the first day. That means there were about max. 100-150 people in total attending - that is not nearly enough to get something started that is recognized by bigger press. So personally I fail to see how we can grow with such a small community that has so many different interests, playing field, experience ideas directions.

So I would say the Retreat is a very fine idea. Its small doesn?t cost much you have lots of time to talk and work /produce. Its one more little small AVIT piece - maybe we have to let go of the idea that AVIT is there to push us forward - maybe AVIT is our way to connect get down to the roots of human relationship and not so much about market. The trouble that I have with that is that other people will step in and sell the scene out. The nice thing about AVIT is that it somehow always was true to the scene - true to where most of us come from. Even so it was tried it never succeded in selling the VJs out to the big corpos. If we take AVIT and make it almost a private club kind of thing without the reach to the mass population then some other event will come with a corpo sponsor backing and take it all down the capitalistic route. That will backlash and in turn kill all community related events (think of the greed and the pure evil that would get injected if a big corporation picks the best VJs)
So AVIT for me is also a way for us all to stay true to our scene finding the balance between all of that is one of the hardest thing. I do think that since there are so many AVITs springing up all over the place helps a lot to even the field and to take out the heat of the "big AVIT(s)". AVIT retreat fits - like the OpenAirVIT - nicely into this as a way to see what we are - picture nerds - addicted to the drum that flashes our eyes. Without big publicity and boohoo people just get together and make it happen on the spot. If in turn there are 2-3 bigger AVITs that will culminate the knowledge and experience and present it to the public this might be not such a bad strategy. I see this eventually get into AVIT darwinism when there are too much the weaker ones will likely see not much attendance and the bigger once or those with a genuine concept will prevail. This is healthy in my opinion. We should all try out as much ideas as possible. For us here in Berlin the connection with the CCC has worked extremely well. We could outsource so much coordination and production stuff to the CCC (like the venue handling, getting the infrastucture to work etc) that I would suggest that indeed attaching us to other bigger conferences that are remotely connected to our cause might not be such a bad idea. This is how the "machinima" movement got some track and is now part of sundance. Maybe for the bigger AVITs to attach to certain events in the beginning to make (wo)manpower free to actually care about the conference program. And then have the standalone versions like " The Retreat" that are much smaller planed. I do believe that this could be a way to growth for AVIT without having the problem of a failed converence taking down everything else. There are lot of Festivals and the like who got big in the shadow of a host Festival.
Generally I think we are on a good track and having again seen the friendliness, helpfullness and openess of the VJ scene in Berlin last week I think we are all on the right track :) Giving the numerous new smaller AVITs in 2005 this will all work out nicely.
What I do think is mandatory somehow is that the head crew organizers for all the little AVITs or selected speakers for those events should meet at least ones a year. I think we all can learn from each others mistakes and positiv things but I do think a personal meeting between those would pose really helpfull. Mayby for Birmingham have an "AVIT Orga meeting / discussion round" and for those wanting to do an AVIT have a "How to do an AVIT" lecture.

So much my most recent thoughts on the issue. We have to keep talking about this stuff....

[fALk]

Something more related to the topic:

If we are thinking about doing a multi Retreat on different locations which are small I would like to add one from my personal hometurf. Its a suburb of Berlin where I live and the house and ground is in the middle of the woods. there is lots of place for camping and there is a decent internet line. So if you do the Retreat and plan to do a life feed maybe we will just join in from over here (but our part will be really small -> mostly 15 people) and it has to be in the summer (to cold over here to camp). Interesting idea we should think about the technicalities more. How it should look etc.
If its really just "us VJs" watching I might even have a capable internet provider company that could act as relay host for the media streams - they have offered me to use their system but I have not touched this offer yet.

[vjpixylight]

Originally posted by fALk
Something more related to the topic:

If we are thinking about doing a multi Retreat on different locations which are small I would like to add one from my personal hometurf. Its a suburb of Berlin where I live and the house and ground is in the middle of the woods. there is lots of place for camping and there is a decent internet line. So if you do the Retreat and plan to do a life feed maybe we will just join in from over here (but our part will be really small -> mostly 15 people) and it has to be in the summer (to cold over here to camp). Interesting idea we should think about the technicalities more. How it should look etc.
If its really just "us VJs" watching I might even have a capable internet provider company that could act as relay host for the media streams - they have offered me to use their system but I have not touched this offer yet.

That would be really cool fALK:yep:
We(AVitNA) are definately going to be doing this, to one degree or another, with the weekdays of it being devoted to the experienced VJ's that are in attendence training the intern's thru the week.(which is the route we are trying to get some fun-ding, IE the educational route)

I really think we could get a multi AVit Retreat thing going this June, and have some pretty interesting web discussions, and visual mixing results!
(We are planing the week of June 13-17** with the weekend being the big hoopla..)**it could be a week later if this date presents problems..
I am going to try to get wireless access points spread out to the lower half of the ranch here(where most all of the AVit retreat here will take place), and hopefully will be able to get some of the better pan/tilt/zooming wireless webcams to use on this end of the hook-in...

[vjpixylight]

I've gotten the AVit Retreat 2005 update(but still a work in progress)
http://www.avit.us/2005

I am very interested in seeing how many of you would be interested in doing a sychronized Retreat event..
It can just be a small group retreat like Falk is planning, or
as big as you want to make it..
The main thing to think about is what we could do for activites which we could interact between retreats??

Thoughts??

[vjpixylight]

Hi all,
well the retreat A/V surround project is up and running, and a yahoo group surrounding this effort has been made...

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/avitretreat2005/

With the idea of AVit Retreats becoming modular, the theme for the Colorado retreat is "hexagonalism", or the plugin of the number "6"
The idea is to create hexagoanal masked visuals, to be used in a A/V surround inviroment, (a geodesic dome), which can bee plug'd in to the matrix of the surround nature of a geodesic dome, by those wanting to contribute/collaborate on certain sub-themes..

If you want to take part in this all, you can!
You can become active in the yahoo group disscussions, download a number of Hex-masked filters, flash fx masks, and various examples of what we are doing with this project!
Upon becoming a member, you will be linked to a set of specially designed hex-mask flash movies that will fit into the screen arrangement of the AVit Retreat project, which will move forward after the event with a DVD, and various filmfest appearences..

Hope too see more of your smiley faces who are already members of the group as well, as we have less than a month until the retreat kicks off!!

Cheers, and have a blessed day!

[vjTranceKoder]

faLk wrote
"Its about your passion damnit."
among the many other ideas you have expressed in this thread, I just want you to know I feel the same way about nearly everything you've wrote. Very insightful and with deep passion and conviction. More can always be said, but I'll leave it at that.:yep:

[WordVirus23]

there are train tickets that say I'm CO bound! I'll be around from June 14th through the 28th... PREPARE!!!!
..james...

[LEVLHED]

:)

[WordVirus23]

should I bring some bent toys to add to the cachaphony?
:robot:
..j...

[LEVLHED]

I hadn't thought of bringing my bentSK1..do you really want to see it? I can I guess..otherwise, I think there could be some fun had just running yours thru my NoiseGauntlet (http://www.levlhed.com/images/NoiseGauntlet.JPG)

[vjTranceKoder]

Alright James!!! I am so happy you found a way!!

[vjpixylight]

lets tear it up with noize mates!

and also, I just upgraded the software for my Scope/Pulsar soundcard to 4.0 and it is running sweet!!!
I will mapout abunch of noize synths to be triggered by your bent stuff!!

Also Lev??
Do we want to do somekind of A/V feedback experiment??