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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
Video Streamer
Edward Elliott
The 'Video Streamer' works in two simple modes: flowing for capture and paused for review. When the Streamer is flowing, the video source, which can come from broadcast, from a camera, or from videotape, is arranged as a three-dimensional solid, stacking the picture frames in a block much like the pages in a flip book. As new frames enter, they push the older frames towards the upper left of the display, further away in distance and in time.
The sides of this block, formed by the edges of hundreds of video frames, reveal a number of temporal attributes of the stream. Shot boundaries and editing rhythm are clearly visible along the sides of the block, as are many camera motions.
By pausing the Streamer, the user can review the contents of the block of frames. Using a mouse or a stylus, individual frames are selected for display by placing the pointer over the edges of those frames in the extrusion block. Moving the cursor quickly across many frames displays those frames in motion, similarly to thumbing through a flip book. As you stroke across each frame edge in the Streamer block, its image appears in the viewer, and its accompanying sound is played. Some people liken this to 'scratch' in hip-hop music, only here you are scratching across both pictures and sound.
Technical Background
HW: Macintosh
SW: Custom Software
The sides of this block, formed by the edges of hundreds of video frames, reveal a number of temporal attributes of the stream. Shot boundaries and editing rhythm are clearly visible along the sides of the block, as are many camera motions.
By pausing the Streamer, the user can review the contents of the block of frames. Using a mouse or a stylus, individual frames are selected for display by placing the pointer over the edges of those frames in the extrusion block. Moving the cursor quickly across many frames displays those frames in motion, similarly to thumbing through a flip book. As you stroke across each frame edge in the Streamer block, its image appears in the viewer, and its accompanying sound is played. Some people liken this to 'scratch' in hip-hop music, only here you are scratching across both pictures and sound.
Technical Background
HW: Macintosh
SW: Custom Software
Edward Elliott (US), bachelor's degree in computer science form the University of California at Berkeley in 1984. Worked for Televisa in Mexico City during the 1986 World Cup soccer championship as technical director for effects production. Then joined postproduction facilities. 1990 master's degree at the MIT Media Lab, working in the lab's Interactive Cinema Group.