government and politics

iAM/iCAN Brandon Redux

2014/04/13

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iAM/iCAN is a multimedia documentary shot in Austin, Texas in 1994. It featured tagged/searchable video embedded into a raster graphic interface. Five subjects discussed gender, race, nascent-on-line culture, technology, hopes and dreams for the future. Given the technical constraints of the time, this meant 4:3 aspect video compressed to a rather severe 160 x 160 pixels, so that streaming off of a state-of-the-art 2x cd-rom player was feasible. Video was shot by Shane Herman, and edited with Premiere. An interface was coded in Director. We called it New Media but didn’t really even understand the Old Medias.

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Years later, the video is small and grainy and the interface elements seem rather small, but still pretty. The audio is still quite powerful. The interface doesn’t work anymore but the individual graphic elements can be clicked on and the original files are still valid. Still holding interest: the audio, the actual interviews.

Here are all the interviews with Brandon Rogeness, who has fearlessly given permission to share his commentary from 1994.

Government and Politics