I started a new blog on Crowdfunding called artistandaudience.net.
Crowdfunding is not only a new form of collective cooperation by people who pool their money together to support cultural projects - in my opinion it’s also a crucial shift in the relationship of artist & their audiences in general.

As I am planning to finance my next short film via crowdfunding I am sharing my questions, thoughts & experiences on the subject, visit the blog to get to know more!

The internet is the dominant cultural memory of our time. Video hosting web sites like YouTube are cumulate enormous archives of moving images (in YouTube’s case 20 hours of footage are uploa-ded every minute), nourishing the old story of the information overlaod. But indeed, structuring the-se archives is an important question, and besides technical developments in search algorhythms and semantics, the personal recommendation has become one of the most important organisation prin-ciples of web. Blogs, Playlists, Channels, Links and Likes have become important entry points, and as the archives of visual culture have become inexhaustible, access is no longer the paradigm but selection.

At this point the curator steps in and is confrontated with the new medium challeging his profession. Not only she herself has to find ways to discover the gems in this ocean of videos, but there are so-me demanding questions she has to deal with. First of all there are no proper terms for what forms of online video exist. On the internet the borders blur between commercial and private content, ama-teur and professional and there are no rules how to define their aesthetic qualities. So while the big-gest question for the curator is how and what to choose for exhibiting it, the medium also bears new questions of where to exhibit (physical or virtual spaces) and questions of authorship and copyright. Moreover curators are experimenting with how to exhibit works online and are crossing the edge to artistic expression when they arrange footage in video sculptures (e.g. the exhibition „3 Hours in 1 Second“ at http://grid.curatingyoutube.net/show/index.html).

The project Curating the Web contributes to the discourse of how web video can be categorized and conceptualized from curational points of view.

I’ll start off the project with a lecture&screening at Cluj, Romania, and as a seminar/exhibition at University of Siegen.

Together with my fellow filmmakers Frerk Lintz, Mirko Kubein and Hendrik Löbbert I’ve launched the film collective FILMFOREST.

We felt that there is the necessity for a new aaproach to online video journalism. Online video has been around for about five years now but most of the productions lack originality, concept and visuality. We think, now it’s time to leave the quick&dirty paradigm behind and try out new ways. Online video needs to free itself from the close-minded production structures of tv networks and publishing houses, on the net there is a global and awake audience, bored by the ever-the-same tv formats which chop information into easy-to-swallow bits and pieces.

We think online video is the medium to create new formats. We want to do films, which last as long as the story needs to be told, which speak with a strong visual language to the voice of a subjective, combative author.

Because it is the right time.

FILMFOREST will start as a blog, we’ll have some talks and screenings soon, and hopefully will be doing out own productions soon.

I took part in an exhibition called 3 hours in 1 second, along with Constant Dullaart, Jodi ans lots of other great artists, curated by Sakrowski from Curating YouTube. Sakrowski programmed a front-end which gave the artists the oppurtunity to combine up to 16 YouTube-Videos into on big multi-channel installation.

I made two installations called Attention and Evolution of dance. I really enjoyed the opening venue at Basso Berlin on february 5th, 2010. There you could interact with the installations, play and pause videos, level the audio, it was almost like playing an audiovisual set. The exhibition was installed only for one day but you can still watch the artworks online here.

In the winter turn 09/10 at University Siegen I’m holding two seminars:

Musicvideoproduction
Supported by GrandHotel Pictures and in cooperation with SONY Music Enterainment we’ll realise a complete Music video production in this course.

Starting with some introductory sessions on the aesthetics and narratives of music videos, the students will later be teached how to develop ideas and write treatments. Thereby prepared for the business we’ll have a pitch for one of SONY’s bands - followed by the realization of one of the students’ ideas as a professional music video production.

Web Video - editorial and documentary formats
Video content is becoming more and more popular on the net lately. Publishing houses, networks and other media players use the more emotional and involving moving images to enhance their text based services.

Since the quick&dirty paradigm of the first years didn’t work there is more than ever the question which specific qualities web video can deliver.

The students will create their own online videos in this course, focusing on format development and strong narratives.

Together with Mirko Kubein I produced a Popkomm webvideo special for Electronic Beats. Electronic Beats is a platform for electronic music and lifestyle which is run by T-Mobile. We did the whole package from concept and editorial supervision to production and post.

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I posted my most favourite clip featuring the extraordinary Zeigeist from Sweden here. Check the other clips at Electronic Beats.

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SimonSchwarz.org is my new playground for experimental projects.
Expect some progressive experiments soon!

The Website is not finished yet, but you can check out the brand new showreel!
Exclusive soundtrack by jsaal.

Moving Web is a blog I started accompanying my diploma thesis on the covergence of movin media and the Internet. It has grown into a lively discussion platform for progressive trends and developments, where I continue my research in the field of web video.

Moving web is a place to share thoughts about all forms of moving content on the web. As bandwidth keeps growing, the internet will converge with the moving media: film, tv & video.

Therefore the Internet as a textbased information medium seems to be the past - moving web explores the future possibilities of the internet as a more immersive entertainment medium. We choose a rather broadly based perspective on the theme of motion on the web: Flash Video, Mobile Web, WebTV, Viral Video, Interactive Narration - all these phenomena are discussed with the emphasis on how moving content will change the web.

Together with Advertising Agency Die Vision I realized two Video Banner Ads for a Health Insurance Company.
While they did the concept and postproduction I was responsible for Production and Direction on the shooting.
The Ad was released on big portal sited like AOL or Finanzscout.