Words You Can Use: The BAVC BLOG

by Alicia Schmidt, BAVC Marketing Strategist

Okay, to be honest, this blog is going to be all over the place. That’s cause truthfully I can’t really wrap my head around all of this just yet, but here goes . . .

NPR recently reported that the world’s largest database on reproductive health (POPLINE, run by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), has been blocking searches using the term “abortion” since late February.

Apparently a medical librarian at UCSF discovered the fact and contacted POPLINE. The folks at POPLINE told her that they had indeed turned “abortion” into a “stop” word – a word that is ignored by search engines – because they are funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (hello George Bush?) and they cannot by law support “abortion activities.”

The UCSF librarian then complained to the POPLINE administrators AND sent out warning messages to her colleagues through a mighty librarian list-serv. After word spread, the administrators quickly restored the search term. (more…)

by Carol Varney, BAVC Director of Development

On a recent trip to New York City, and thanks to my friend Rachel who works in media relations at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), I had the pleasure of meeting with Constance DeCherney, Media Relations Liaison at the ACLU, and the person who is behind the ACLU’s presence in Second Life.

Anticipating the 6th anniversary of prisoners arriving at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba, the ACLU hooked up with the Producers Institute-developers Nonny de la Peña and Peggy Weil, creators of Gone Gitmo. Gone Gitmo is a Second Life experience of rendition and Camp X-Ray, the now-defunct arrival center at Gitmo, developed as a virtual world companion piece to the documentary Unconstitutional. Gone Gitmo allows SL avatars to experience being hooded, handcuffed, verbally abused and detained. (more…)

by Chris Lincoln, BAVC Director of Technology, Media Arts & Innovation

trans•for•ma•tion
— a thorough or dramatic change in form or appearance

— a metamorphosis during the life cycle [of an animal]

— a process by which one figure, expression, or function is converted into another that is equivalent in some important respect but is differently expressed or represented

tran•si•tion
— the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another
— undergo or cause to undergo a process or period of transition [verb]

So which is it, transformation or transition? Both terms were used liberally at BAVC in 2007 though the former seemingly more than the latter. Certainly elements of both operated at BAVC in 2007 as we moved away from our analog post-production roots to expanding our resources in the web 2.0 and digital domain. But what began in 2006, a transition with the catch phrase—Art + Education + Technology, became a wholesale transformation of technology at BAVC in 2007.

A standalone department was created to include the Media Arts staff and information technology personnel from multiple areas. The new department, Technology, Innovation, and Media Arts (TIMA), combines BAVC’s evolving digital media services and staff with the IT staff responsible for the day-to-day support of our instructional, administrative, and network systems. Most importantly, TIMA is chartered to create BAVC’s future technical architecture and to deliver a technology framework that facilitates growth and innovation supporting BAVC’s core creative mission. (more…)

by Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming

As Director of Creative Programming, the focus of my attention is bringing the most promising stories and media makers, new media projects and video archives into the world of BAVC; and creating partnerships and programs that impact the field of public media and independent filmmaking. 2007 was a big year at BAVC, full of opportunities for artists and institutions to explore innovative approaches to new work, and creative solutions to challenges in postproduction and preservation. These programs included: Producers Institute for New Media Technologies, Mediamaker & Mediamaker Advance Awards, and the Womens HD Artist-in-Residence. (more…)

by Alicia Schmidt, BAVC Marketing Strategist

I’m a white girl who grew up in capital “S” suburban Maryland where a hot, high-school Friday night included sipping wine coolers in the parking lot of the Friendly’s Ice Cream store and tipping cows at the Naval Academy dairy (no lie). When I left high school, I went straight to Washington, DC, and straight into an indie punk scene that pretty much saved my life. I even hooked up with a few anarchist punks who crossed over into hip-hop and graffiti writing. They let me “tag” along when they bombed walls in Eastern Market (near the Capital building) and it pretty much started my obsession with graffiti and street art.

Needless to say I was psyched last December when an old friend from DC invited me over to a holiday “throwie” party at their house in the Western Addition. When I walked in to a table full of little multi-colored LED lights, lithium batteries, and super strong magnets, however, I have to admit that I was a little worried that maybe he was going a little Weather Underground.

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by Wendy Levy, Director of Creative Programming at BAVC

I admit it. I read all technology news through a distinctly independent lens. The new gadgets and functionalities and trends interest me mostly in how they can, or will, impact documentary and creative storytelling, advocacy, communities without access, and people in need. At BAVC, we regularly invite tech geeks, filmmakers and activists to sit at the same tables in the same rooms to share vocabularies and concepts in nascent stages. It’s like herding really smart, creative and sometimes resistant sheep. Things have been changing - new platforms are now more deeply connected to content and audience than ever before.

That’s a good thing.

Looking ahead to 2008, to where media technology is going, and what independent producers are thinking about and creating, I just wanted to put a flashing yellow post-it on a couple of areas that need some attention from those of us devoted to world-changing independent media. (more…)

by Connie Hwong, BAVC Grants Manager

A couple weekends ago, I attended a Creative Commons 5th birthday celebration – one of many synchronized parties worldwide. Some of the biggest bashes took place within the same 24-hour window in Berlin, Belgrade, Bangalore, and beyond, and true to CC’s information-sharing philosophy, the organizers of smaller house parties and informal gatherings were invited to add their events to a publicly-accessible Creative Commons party wiki.

The SF party attracted several hundred bloggers, tech bigwigs, Internet geeks, music fans, and at least one very attractive, extremely well-mannered infant (didn’t hear him cry once during the entire night). For the music nerds in the house, the highlights included an intimate performance by tropicalia legend Gilberto Gil (one of the earliest adopters of the Creative Commons sampling license) and his son, Bem, followed by a dynamic dance set by aural experimentalist DJ Spooky. For the geeks in the house, the highlight was a keynote speech by Lawrence Lessig, CEO of Creative Commons, and an accompanying Powerpoint presentation by Joi Ito, the Chairman of the Creative Commons Board. (more…)