O4/30/2O22, 8:58pm Eastern Early Evening Time
Klaimco,
vimeo FILM FESTIVAL
A playfull re-appraisal of the humble origins of
‘ Vimeo, Inc. ’ also-known-as VMEO [NASDAQ]
‘ Via curated revivals of the site’s historical record
Time and time again, technological advancements
confound, uproot, and re cast our inhabitance
within the realm
of kaleidoscopic media environment
s.
Being between eras and key industry players,
retrospective and forward–looking conversations,
and as participants of the internet-as-ongoing-event,
We inherit, shape, and are shaped by the mediums of our
Time
s.
In time, growth and cognition make way for
Perceptual shifts that shed new light on prismatic questions
like::
What is the future of online videos ?
How does it feel to be online ¿?
What is the role of the archaeology of technology in our lives ?
?
?
?
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Where once The World Wide Web was a
seemingly futuristic place accessed primarily by
dial-up data transferred through telephone
modems, the Internet of 2O22 is largely
omnipresent, pervasive, and practically un–
observable in its totality.
Just as the spirit of the Internet is being re–
written through chiefly financialized lenses, the
vimeo of 2O22 is in the process of eschewing
its indie origins in favor of purveying
commercialized video distribution products and
services for professionals and businesses.
The story tellingly unfolds by way of vimeo’s
perennially updated tagline:: “watch, upload,
and share” shifted into “discover, create,
share, sell” before becoming
“create, manage, grow ” and ultimately
landing on a
“video for every venture. ”
Historically, the first movie cameras were
invented in the 188O’s with commercial motion
pictures premièring as early as the 189O’s. Fast
forward to the year 2OO4, after voicemail but
before virtual reality:: a group of film-enthusiast
friends embark on a side project envisioned as
a simple website for organizing and sharing
video clips online. The project was dubbed
vimeo (a play on “video“and”me”), and in the
years following the Dot-Com Bubble Burst, it
came to be known as the first video sharing
platform to support high-definition
videos with nŎ advertisements. In 2OO6, the
same year … that Google acquired Youtube, IAC
(InterActiveCorp),
an American holding company, acquired and
ultimately oversaw vimeo’s development of
high-definition content delivery systems, its
pivot to business-to-business
Software-as-a-Service (B2B SaaS), and of late,
its spinoff into a stand alone public company.
vimeo’s initial waves of growth, and online video
sharing at large, mushroomed thanks to the
introduction of broadband internet, Wi-Fi, social
media networks, smartphones, cloud
computing, advancements in miniaturization,
and the rise of networked devices. The pioneers
of early film may well have foreseen some
commercial application for their innovations,
though they likely could not have imagined the
globalized motion picture industry of the
2O2O’s. Similarly, in 2OO4 it might have
seemed unimaginable to the young founders of
vimeo that they would be ousted by the very
company that acquired them in just a few short
years.
In light of vimeo’s open-ended corporate
restructurings, and its successive marketing
campaigns away from everyday videographers
and towards primarily business and professional
clientele, it can’t be understated that the vimeo
of today is one of countless companies with a
history and present significantly at odds with
each other. Despite the perpetual invocations of
growth and progress, we need not embrace
these technological advancements or
enterprise evolutions as
inevitabilities;
rather we can understand them as a series of
choices with weighted consequences and viable
alternatives.
Our challenge and collective responsibility is to
find creative ways to evaluate today’s
technologies outside of their current narratives
and business contexts– so, let’s take this
opportunity to look forward into the past & look
back into
the future::
Spelunking through the backwaters of vimeo’s
oft re-vamped website, this film festival
highlights a compilation of compelling, yet
seemingly overlooked videoworks. However,
online videos such as these, may well have
been tailor-made and uploaded for particular
audiences and otherwise unconcerned with
broader viewership. Given the present-day
preoccupation with view-counts and data
analytics, it’s heartening to recall a time before
dog-eat-dog benchmarkers and overly
competitive metric jockeying.
In spite, or perhaps because of the ability of
these platforms to withstand the relentless
commodification of The Internet
[...[ The rise of attention economies,
autonomous machines,
The Internet of Things, and legal rulings over
digital anthropomorphisms such as “business
intelligence” and “electronic persons,” it seems
More-Timely-Than-Ever to resurface these 22
lesser-viewed videoworks published on vimeo
over the last decade by children, parents,
animators, designers, tourists, renderers,
artists, teachers, filmmakers, neighbors,
documentarians, walkers, archivists, and nature
lovers.
Before viewing we recommend a few breaths of fresh air.
So, let’s
Get comfortable
Find a quiet place to sit or relax
Breathe in through your nose
Let your insides fill with air
Breathe out through your nose
Take three more full, deep breaths
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Now that we’ve all hit [Refresh], ,
we invite Y0U
and online-video-enjoyers from all walks of life to delight,
as we have, in the following
…
V
V
V
V
