Project proposal 2 : The Future of Video Media

Major Studio2 - Interactivity / Ji Sun Lee (Sun) 04/07/2005
The Final project proposal:
The Future of Video Media

I am studying video media in convergent devices because I want to find out how the future media that each person would hold everywhere affects an influence in everyday life in order to understand the behavior of using video media in the past and predict the features of it in the future.

1) Motivation
When the video camcorder started to be sold to customers in the 1960’s, many artists and people were spoiled by huge possibility of video use, because it seemed like the camcorder could contribute media power to individuals, rather than one–way communication of television. However, the video has degraded and limited because it is used to keep and record personal memories such as birthday parties, weddings, and special events although few video artists and persons who engaged in a social movement have applied video media in their own work.

Recording videos using the camcorder was not easy jobs and the video equipment was not cheap. Furthermore, reviewing video tapes was such an annoying job because people had to find video tape in a book shelf and plug a line of from a VCR to a television. Television also became more complex than ever before. The people can’t avoid many advertisements which are inserted periodically into a program and they had to channel surf very long time to search for favorite programs out of more than 100 channels every day and every time.

In the past, many experiments, including interactive television, which supplement the disadvantage of television combined video recording and telecommunication technologies. However, interactive television hasn’t been successful. Instead of that, the mobile and strong convergent media are taking the future role of television because people carry the devices all the time. Then, how will video media be advanced in convergence media? How will the future media apply the previous functions of television and video camcorder? How will people use functions and adapt them to their life?

2) Thesis
“The past is a window to see the future.”
We don’t know about the future, but we can assume the future, When we assume the future, people can find the better way of using the video media and how to use more effectively.
To compare the past with the future of video media, I will research how video media is used everyday life and what was the limitation of that. In addition, I’m going to collect information about current technology to overcome the weakness of past video media from books, articles, and related projects.

3) Implementation
Based on my personal experience about the video media, I will write the scenarios of using video media and compare the past and present with the future. Each scene will include a short essay to reflect future prediction in books, essays, articles and my opinions. Then, I will make movies about those scenarios.
The scenario about the past and present : scenes of channel surfing on the television

The scenario about the future : scenes showing interactive interface and communication


The movie about the past and present will be displayed on a traditional television and the movie about the future will be displayed on screen of convergence media such as a cell phone or PDA.

4) Reference
- Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, 2001
- Phillip Swann, TV dot COM, 2000
- Steve Curran, Convergence Design, 2002
- Negro Ponte, Beyond Digital, http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED6-12.html, 1998
- FT.com, Mobiles to ‘replace TV as prime ad medium’, http://news.ft.com/cms/s/9710c238-a6d6-11d9-a6df-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html, 2005