I will leave to Georgia in two weeks in order to take some videos from the upcoming parliamentary elections there to put online as well as hold a seminar on the use of videoblogging in organizational work related to minorities groups.
At the seminar there will be participants from a range of eastern European countries, and I hope that we can get some of them not only interested in videoblogging, but coming to Budapest in october for VlogEueope 2008.
More information about my trip to Georgia is on my blog.
One of the problems of the European vlogosphere as opposed to for instance the U.S. region is how diverse our languages are. This is of course also a strength, but in terms of finding interesting new videoblogs from across the continent, this makes for quite the challenge.
How do you find European videoblogs from a country different from your own? For me, it is quite easy to find Norwegian videoblogs on for instance snutter.no which is a rather large Norwegian vlog-site with thousands of users. But if I am looking for Finnish content, or Hungarian, or Italian, it becomes much more difficult, mostly because of the language border.
Of course, you could search for Finnish content on Youtube, Dailymotion or other sites, but how do you find those local national portals? Anyone have suggestions for finding localized content from a language area different from your own?
Jeffrey here. It’s time for an update.
First and foremost, my visit to the Videoformes Festival in Clermont-Ferrand was fantastic. I met/saw great video artists such as Triny Prada and , a live performance from the amazing Charlie Mars and the Digital Slaves (whose video of the festival is embedded) and Loiez Deniel showed me the wonderful street video installations that made Clermont-Ferrand proud.
What did not make Clermont-Ferrand proud was their Police Department, which harassed artists and administration from Videoformes on their opening night. In a case of mistaken identity, the police roughly threw the party out of a cafe-bar while they were celebrating over a nightcap, and our dear friend Triny Prada was arrested and spent the night in jail for basically no reason. You can read up on what happened in French, English and Spanish at the webste L’affaire Triny Prada. Please stop by and leave a comment in support of her and her colleagues as they voice their grievances with authorities. What happened here was an unacceptable injustice, and supporting Triny is supporting everyone who faces dreadful situations like this.We continue with planning for the event in October, and will be bringing you further details in the coming month as we “nail things down”. We’ve been talking about the following:
- For the Americans who want to come, a weekend may not be enough justification for a long and costly trip. In answer to that, we’re looking at creating excursions and events before and after the main event. Among the things we are discussing is a train trip from points west such as Amsterdam, Barcelona and Paris to Budapest with stops along the way in places like Munich, Vienna and Bratislava.
- Another idea is to facilitate a Vlogging Event for women before or after Vlog Europe. We’d love to hear your ideas and would love for a woman to step up and help us make this event a reality if there is a demand for it.
- Final determinations on the size and shape of the event itself will be made. Questions like ‘Sessions or no sessions?’, ‘Sponsors or no sponsors?’ will be answered.
- We will secure a venue, see what we can do to make travel costs more economical through group rates and such, and will get all the vital details to you so travel planning is as clear and easy as possible.
- Collaboration and suggestions are most welcome. Get in touch.
More soon!
Jeffrey Taylor here.
Next weekend, I’ll be heading down to Clermont-Ferrand (about 4 hours by train from Paris) for the 23rd annual Vidéoformes Festival for Video Art and New Media. Directed by videoblogger and future Vlog Europe attendee Gabriel Soucheyre with heavy involvement by the brilliant Vlog European Loiez Deniel, Vidéoformes offers video exhibits from artists-in-residence, a Nuit des Arts Electronicques (Night of Electronic Arts) event, awards the annual Bruno Mrozinski Prize for creativity in new media and much, much more. Check out the site (and their fantastic visual for this year’s event) for more information in both French and English.
Vidéoformes presents a big opportunity to bring together video artists and our community of Vlog Europeans. I’ll be filming while there and will report on this and the development of the Vlog Europe ‘08 planning when I get back.
Inthe meantime, take a look at featured Vidéoformes Artist Triny Prada’s take on Clermont-Ferrand, called “Where are you?“
I hope you had a good Christmas, a Great New Year celebration, and have managed to cool down from all the celebration in January.
There’s many more details to handle, and Jeffrey Taylor and I are compiling all of your feedback. We know a lot of you have tight schedules and need a time and place far in advance, so here’s what we’re suggesting so far for VlogEurope 2008:
1. Place: Budapest, Hungary Suggested by Loiez, Budapest fulfills our often stated intention to move things east. Budapest is cheap to get to, cheap to be in and we hear of many good times there.
2. Date: October 18th and 19th, Saturday and Sunday, with hopes that as many people as possible can be in Budapest Friday night. October is in the climate-friendly autumn, squarely situated between the summer and christmas’y travel plans that you might have and is a direct answer to the feedback we requested concerning dates.
Be sure to join the Vlog Europe Yahoo Group, leave comments on this blog entry, or e-mail me or Jeffrey Taylor personally if you have questions or comments
We’ll be coming out with further details on what we ourselves envision the event to look like within the next couple of weeks.
Be sure to get the word out to anyone and everyone who would be interested in coming to the event!
We let things get a bit quiet over the holiday period, but we’re back and ready to move forward with the blog!
First, we invite you join the Vlog Europe Yahoo! Group (mailing list), in which many conversations surrounding the annual event and general discussion about Videoblogging. For instance, one member let us know that a very promising event, VideoCamp Paris , is in the planning stages.
One thing we’ve been discussing over the past few months on the Vlog Europe Yahoo Group is the how and the where of Vlog Europe event for 2008. We are in the middle of compiling everything that was said, and will be putting forward a proposed plan both on the Yahoo! Group and on this blog within the next couple of weeks. We hope that the past participants and interested future participants will like the ideas we came up with based on your feedback and watching what other people are doing with their events.
Finally, we will begin curating videos here soon, and we think it’s a good idea to start by posting some of the best work we’ve seen from past Vlog Europe participants. If anyone would like a login to post some of these videos or to post about anything related to Vlog Europe, please let us know.
Stay tuned, and make sure you’re subscribed to our feed.
VlogEurope.com was established as a site in July 2005 to convene with a European meet-up of videobloggers in Amsterdam called VlogEurope 2005.
Since then, we have had 2 more VlogEurope meet-ups: In Milan in November 2006 and in Heidelberg in September 2007. We are currently planning VlogEurope 2008, and in preparation of it we are re-launching this blog.
The VlogEurope blog will be a place for frequent showings of videoblogs from around Europe. It will basically be a curation of the different projects going on in this space across the continent, and we aim that over the course of the next months, we will be able to show the variety and depth.
Welcome!
Best,
Jeffrey Taylor and Raymond M. Kristiansen
editors, VlogEurope.com
