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A Big Screen for Digital Content
Optronica festival links Web content and IMAX

William Pollard (will789)	Email Article Print Article

	Published 2005-06-22 16:05 (KST)

Next month in London, the music and visual festival Optronica will show on large screens the kind of content previously seen only on computers. DJ Spooky's "Rebirth of a Nation" will be shown on an IMAX screen -- the biggest in Britain.

The film is a multimedia remix of DW Griffith's 1915 chronicle, "Birth of a Nation," described on the official Optronica Web site as "cinematically sophisticated but ideologically flawed." Optronica will include lectures and workshops as well as showings, mostly in film format. There will be some VJs from Japan, introduced by Ken-S, creative director of TomoGrapher.

On DJ Spooky's Web site there are two samples that show what might be expected. There is video of a live performance with Amiri Baraka that might have been captured from a live stream. There is also "Peace in Zaire," which has more design and could be seen as a form of animation. These seem to be the main forms that appear on the web-streaming video from live events, and files that can be downloaded to mix graphics and sound.

The download site I have been most aware of is Scene.org. They have an archive of "demos," implying that nothing is ever a finished product. However they have now had two awards ceremonies and the production levels are impressive.

The Web site started when bandwidth was limited, so one aim was for small programs. The target was 64K. The approach works by writing code directly for graphics chips. They still aim to make the best possible use of recent developments. New files sometimes fail to work on old equipment. You often have to unzip a download and then install files in different directories. This has limited the audience to those who are comfortable with this level of technology.

However, recently there have been transfers to AVI and Quicktime. There is also some promotion to a wider audience. For example, Digitalekultur from Cologne, Germany, had a stand at the IT trade show CeBIT this year with a printed explanation and some examples on a plasma screen. At gatherings there can be projections on a large scale but there is never any transfer to film.

Streaming media are intended to be sent over the Web, so they are often fairly low bandwidth. One example is Radio Vague, which started as a project by Psand.net to demonstrate satellite Web access in country locations away from fixed telephone lines. After two events as part of the troupe Lost Vagueness at Glastonbury there is now enough confidence in the Web technology to concentrate more on sound and video editing. Radio Vague is only online occasionally but is an effective demonstration of what is possible. Last year there was an exchange from many sites through Share in New York. Links may still be available.

Both approaches have an emphasis on music. There is almost always a soundtrack. Some of the Scene.org sounds are also available as sound only. The images can be used as part of a dance music performance but this is an area I don't know much about. I have come across versions of something similar on the Web and at the current "State of the Arts" exhibition at the Exeter Phoenix. Here there is a screen-based jukebox of tracks from local musicians. There is a slightly different computer animation for each of them. Presumably a VJ would control this more directly. I hope to learn more about this when people comment on this text.

Earlier this year at the Phoenix, "A New Canvas" -- computer generated films from the 1960s and 1970s -- were shown as part of an animation festival. These included "Cibernetik 5.3" by director John Stehura and "Permutations" by John Whitney. "Cibernetik" was done on punched cards that saved images to film. "Hummingbird" by Charles Csuri was not shown as no film was available. However there is a version on the Web.

My impression is that a lot of the work from Scene.org compares with the computer animation in "A New Canvas." Abstract shapes and movement combine with variation in color. This seems to be a starting point for limited computer resources.

So far there has not been much display on computer screens as part of animation festivals. Local artist Paul Gillard supplied a DVD of his work that was shown on plasma screens at the local Panasonic shop during the festival. This worked well and perhaps more work will be transferred to DVD before next February.

Hidrazone is a new Web site/journal concerned with digital art. They are not restricted to animation but some of their content is relevant. "Abstract Pixel" by Russell Richards generates a picture that is constantly changing. It works online but, "the optimum mode of display is within an A2 or bigger wall-mounted LCD screen. The output would provide new stimulus each day as it could be set to refresh at a number of different rates, i.e., every hour, half-day or day."

The Web version is set to 30 seconds. Hidrazone is not intended as a journal of animation but the theory they develop could be useful in explaining what Scene.org and others are doing.

Film festivals still assume that film is the essence of the media they should consider. Gradually, forms of digital distribution are happening as well. They do not need to be part of the official program but there can be links. One way forward is to find ways of exhibiting from a digital source. Obviously there is nothing against using an IMAX screen when available.