As part of my sabbatical I’ll be spending some time exploring arts-based approaches to media recomposition – with an initial focus on environmental media.

To learn and experiment with different video recomposition and creative coding techniques, I’ll be co-teaching a new course on “Infinite Video: Exploring Video Archives through Code” at the School for Poetic Computation in New York, together with Sam Lavigne. Further details are available here and copied below.

INFINITE VIDEO: EXPLORING VIDEO ARCHIVES THROUGH CODE

How can code and automation help us see and manipulate large collections of videos in new ways? What do novel approaches in machine learning help make evident? On the flip side, what do these same approaches prevent us from seeing? What do they obscure? How can automated “content generation” be leveraged for political, poetic, and critical ends?

In this experimental video art class students will explore the possibilities (and limitations) of using Python, command line tools, and machine learning models as a means to critically analyze, filter, sort, edit, and compose video.

We will look at historic and contemporary examples of artists and activists working with video archives, with a focus on the political dimensions of experimental filmmaking. Students may bring their own video archives to work with, or use material we collect online. The class will conclude with a public screening of student work.