hey Sterling,

I was in this boat a year ago and also sought rhizome's collective digital wisdom. In addition to the long list of specs one goes through when choosing a grad program I'd like to through out one that was key for me: community (if you're the type that believes in it). Both within and outside the institution - it was important for me to go somewhere that had an active scene/community that supported + challenged the kind of work I do. I'm partial to new media work of the "dirty" variety which in the end landed me at the school of the art institute of Chicago - which has some amazing faculty/students + is located in Chicago which outside the school has a very involved community of artists -- it's really made my experience.

-Nick-

thanks Michael and Rosa, your comments have got me thinking.

Looking back, my post was a bit quick and vague - I should probably clarify some things. As you noticed Michael I'm referring to after the work has already been curated as opposed to a call for work, though I have to say I agree with everything you said (personally I get irritated when my options for "original format" are: 35mm, 16mm, 8mm, miniDV, HD - most of my digital video work doesn't fit into any of those categories - and sometimes its all). For my purposes I'm coming from an archival perspective (which is my role in this screening series). When I archive information from our events (Q&A's, Artist Talks, and Work Screened info) the card reads something like this:

TITLE OF WORK (2010, 16mm, color, sound, 42 min)

Most of the work we screen is film and fits nicely into this formula, but with digital works screened from a computer (which we've begun doing more and more) that "format" section (i.e. 16mm) gets tricky. Would you suggest, Michael, to go with "digital file"? That would, as you mentioned, avoid potential problems, for example the audience wrongly inferring artist intentions. For archival purposes it seems a bit ambiguous and nondescript... I'm split.

You bring up some good points Rosa, we should move away from standard descriptions, especially when they're based on models for other media - digital video and film share common traits but they're fundamentally different and your list of potential properties for particular files is a testament to that. I wonder though, will these properties become irrelevant [obsolete] in the future? Will codecs become a thing of the past as computers get better, stronger, faster? If yes, which are the properties/attributes of these files that are here now and will remain relevant latter?

Thanks again for the thoughts (more welcome and appreciated)
-Nick-

I'm working with a screening series and I'm a bit on the fence on a small (yet important) detail on our program/info notes: the section which denotes "exhibition format." For traditional moving image work it's simple, whatever it was you physically screened (i.e. 16mm, miniDV, etc.) but when projecting off a computer things get tricky. Rather than simply saying "digital file", what would be the best way to specify an exhibition format? Some go broad and say "SD" or "1080p", but this really refers to "resolution" rather than "format", should you then specify the file type? Would this mean simply the extension or better the codec?

thoughts?

-nick-

MEHOH - VR1A
http://vimeo.com/3763089
by Jon Satrom