The Changing Face of Art

Listen! Can you hear it?

That’s the sound of people all over the world uploading videos to Youtube. 48 hours of footage every minute.

While that number represents an unwatchable (and perhaps unfathomable!) amount of video, what it says to me is that we are interacting online in a new way. Video has become a standard and casual medium.

Involving Ourselves in the Conversation

Rather than passively sitting back and being entertained, we now interact with whatever we are watching… we share it on facebook, we comment on it, and we even make response videos. It is definitely a new world of media, sharing and entertainment.

But in some ways we are stuck in the past. When I released my first youtube video, some folks reacted as though I have some kind of monopoly over the internet dialogue, as one might have in a network television interview.

But it’s simply not the case. Anyone can create a Youtube channel, and the technology for making and sharing videos has become cheap and ubiquitous. So I now encourage Friends to create their own Youtube channel and respond with video. It’s easy! And its the nature of the conversation.

The Video Song

All of this shifting digital accessibility has created some very interesting new genres of art, one of which has seriously caught my attention.

Video songs are an emerging genre of video, pioneered by Jack Conte of Pomplamoose. The essential rules of a videosong are:

1. What you see is what you hear.
2. If you hear it, you’ll see it.

And I’ve added a 3rd rule, which is:

3. Break the first two rules.

CYiR Video Songs

My first foray into the videosong was with a guitar looper in a meetinghouse in Bucks county. It took me hours to set up, do lighting, convert and edit the footage, and post it online. All for a 3 minute doodle on the guitar.

I’m honestly a little surprised that I didn’t quit after that. How could this possibly be worth it? Wouldn’t I prefer to be just making music rather than meticulously documenting it?

But as with all things, I asked, I prayed and I listened. I was being called to learn something new, and it was going to be uncomfortable and a bit awkward. But worth it (?) in the end.

Lifted Up

The Burden of Vision

Having my most recent venture into online video so widely shared among the Religious Society of Friends has caused me to step back and examine the forum that I so suddenly plunged into… Quakers on youtube!

I thought it might be useful to share some of the interesting and odd resources that I’ve found. And things seem to be progressing relatively quickly.

For example, we’ve come a long way since January, 2008, when this video was compiled:

Quakers on Youtube

…and since these non-Quakers were the most visible folks discussing Quakerism in video form:

(…and I just searched and searched for the original “introduction to liberal Quakers” video that was just a list of spiritual opinions from someone who hadn’t ever been to Meeting. But it must have been taken down. And enough old videos from folks unfamiliar with our movement!)

Martin Kelley pointed me to this great video from Callid Keefe-Perry, which is a reaction to the lack of self-description from Quakers on youtube.

More great vids from Callid at his channel,
THEOPOETICSdotNET

The following video is one in a series of tasteful and well-produced videos on Quakerism according to Watford Friends Meeting in Watford, England from user srekauq:

My favorite Quaker video of all time, Can We all Be Friends, is not online. But it is available in the Pendle Hill Bookstore, and if we bother producers Coleman Watts and Betsy Blake enough, they just might put some of it up on youtube!

…and where are we headed with electronic/video outreach? Check out this interview with Raye Hodgson of Ohio Yearly Meeting’s Electronic Outreach Committee:

Some more Quaker video resources:

• Quakerquaker.org/video
• The Bridge Film Festival, An International festival of student films from Friends, (Quaker) schools and Meetings worldwide.

And of course, I’ve been focusing on the liberal Quaker perspective, but there are also some strong resources from other branches:

• QuakerforChrist
• ChristianQuaker.net

I just returned from a camping trip with my brother and his wife and baby in the Sierra Nevadas to find that my first music video has been widely shared amongst Quaker circles in it’s first three days in existence! Tons of emails in my inbox, facebook messages and a semi-fiery conversation in the “comments” tab of the video.

Wow. I must say, I’m quite impressed and overwhelmed. So glad to see folks stimulated by my music and ministry (I recorded and released that song two years ago!) and to see that all of my work this Spring and all the work of Ben Schilling has paid off. Go go gadget internet!

My first feeling was nervous and a little self conscious. Sure, I wanted to share it with the world. And was hoping it would help get the word out. I’m just seeing for the first time the real viral qualities of the internet. 2,200 views in three days! (it takes me months and months to get that many plays on my MySpace!)

Anyway, my second reaction was to build up JonWatts.com as now potentially hundreds of folks may be visiting it. Done.

Now I’m sorting through the responses on Youtube and recognizing the conversation that is being held online (the same one the song has inspired so often in person).

For now, I would like to point folks to a blog entry of mine that I wrote a while ago about the potential helpfulness/hurtfulness of “Friend Speaks My Mind” and it’s abrasive chorus (“I”m not a Christian but I’m a Quaker/I’ve got Christ’s Inner Light but He’s not my Savior”).

The “Friend Speaks My Mind” Study Guide

…until I feel more clear about what my relationship is with online dialogue begun by a piece of my art:

peace.
Jon