Lens is the new photojournalism blog of The New York Times, presenting visual and multimedia reporting — photographs, videos and slide shows. A showcase for Times photographers, it will draw on The Times' own pictorial archive, numbering in the millions of images and going back to the early 20th century. Features in their first week include: Essay: Slow Photography in an Instantaneous Age, about what it means to shoot on large-format film in the digital age; Showcase: A Prom Divided, a multimedia feature about a segregated prom in 2009 south-central Georgia.
posted by netbros on May 22, 2009 - 9 comments

Mortal Engine (highlights; interview) and Glow (interview) combine dancing and projected video to stunning effect. The secret? The dancers aren't following the light — the light is following the dancers. [more inside]
posted by nebulawindphone on May 9, 2009 - 24 comments

Man fell from the garden of Eden, and he planted the Garden of Herbal Evil, to justify Brutal Myths against women. Fortunately women have the Blissful Garden of Herbal Good to bind the evil herbs. (possibly NSFW, contains line drawings of genitals.) [more inside]
posted by fontophilic on Apr 28, 2009 - 32 comments

Newspaper says goodbye via Vimeo. The Rocky Mountain News published its final edition today, after 149 years, 311 days in circulation.
posted by yiftach on Feb 27, 2009 - 82 comments

Ghislain Poirier wants you to "Beat Up Your Own Remix" (Don't forget to hit record!)
posted by geos on Dec 25, 2008 - 7 comments

The Turn is the latest creation from multi-media singer/artist Fredo Viola. Using multi-track recordings of his voice in rich harmony, coupled with unusual video vignettes, The Turn [flash] offers a dozen performances of Viola's interesting integration of voice and visual artistry. His first album was just released this week on iTunes and includes works like The Sad Song.
posted by netbros on Dec 12, 2008 - 9 comments

Max/MSP is a graphical programming environment primarily used for music, video and multimedia. Max/MSP has sometimes been described as a digital erector set. David Tinapple describes Max in this way: "it's like you're drawing a diagram of what you want the program to do, and then when you're done drawing the diagram you've also sort of accidentally programmed it". [more inside]
posted by Crumpled Farm on Apr 21, 2008 - 27 comments

Gravityland. Interactive Web TV series. Watch weekly episodes, respond, contribute. Read blog. Add moves to music video. Play Where in the world is Gravityland? Read comic book. Build FAQ. Somehow, it's all related, and all possibility. [more inside]
posted by Miko on Mar 5, 2008 - 8 comments

Wayne White's paintings [more inside]
posted by 1f2frfbf on Dec 20, 2007 - 19 comments

The Daniel Dennett interview with Bill Moyers [GoogleVid now with free viewing]. Dennett's talks at TED. Dennett with Robert Wright [GVid]. And additional AV at Daniel Dennett Multimedia -- his presentation at the Center for Naturalism (on "Breaking the Spell") is excellent. [Previously 1, 2, 3, 4]
posted by McLir on Jul 25, 2007 - 21 comments

The Sancho Plan "create live audiovisual performances and installations for your listening and viewing pleasure." Spacequatica, recently performed at Martyn Ware's Future of Sound event, is an intriguing mix of live sound and animations triggered by electronic drums -- worth a few minutes on a Friday.
posted by diastematic on Jun 8, 2007 - 5 comments

Photosynth. Blaise Aguera y Arcas (second one down) does a live demo (with some subtle humor) of the product we've discussed previously. Via the wonderful Ted (mentioned a few times).
posted by allkindsoftime on Jun 6, 2007 - 24 comments

Ubuntu Studio is a Linux distribution focused on creative audiovisual pursuits.
posted by phrontist on May 10, 2007 - 55 comments

Back in the mid-nineties, before broadband took hold, the CD ROM was drawing considerable interest from publishers, musicians and other artists. Notable (for contrasting reasons): Laurie Anderson's Puppet Motel, The Residents' Freak Show, Peter Gabriel's Xplora, The Voyager Company. Launch, Media Band, Headcandy.
posted by davebush on Apr 25, 2007 - 22 comments

The mobile content market is big but the mobile service companies control the bottleneck of data to your phone and may well be holding the industry back. A NZ site has launched offering a platform for mobile content producers to sell direct to mobile content consumers globally: Voeveo.
posted by Samuel Farrow on Feb 11, 2007 - 8 comments

The Luce Foundation Center in the recently renovated and reopened National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, is more like a smörgåsbord-cum-antique store, packed in an overflowing archive rather than a more traditional museum layout. The collection is comprised of varying American art styles and genres in intimate display cases, with little in the way of context or reference. (Though the same site in this link is available on computers scattered throughout the gallery for further detail.)
posted by Dave Faris on Jan 12, 2007 - 12 comments

Lustfaust, an expiremental noise band from West Berlin has been steadily building an online retrospective archive of band photos, memorabilia from past gigs, and collected submissions of artwork that fans created for their own mix tapes. They can also be found (of course) on MySpace. For those of you in the NYC area, tomorrow is the final day of a show at The Volume Gallery that features artwork created by fans of the underground group . What they've pieced together is a pretty loyal and diverse following for a band that doesn't really exist.
posted by stagewhisper on Jul 21, 2006 - 23 comments

videoville.org .. a wiki for cool music videos. An extension of videos.antville.org.
posted by crunchland on Mar 30, 2006 - 7 comments

Nighthaunts www.nighthaunts.org.uk I have come across “London website of the week” on TimeOut magazine. I really like the idea of writer Sukhdev Sandhu hanging out with London nightworkers and writing up a journal. I’ve always felt fascinated about what is going on in the city at night, whilst (almost) everybody is sleeping. We should be able to find out as journal unfolds … Great recognition to people who work at night in order to keep the city going, and we often forget about …
posted by Brainstormer on Mar 9, 2006 - 5 comments

Soft Cinema is a software+video project by media-theorist Lev Manovich, which 'mines the creative possibilities at the intersection of software culture, cinema, and architecture.' While perhaps more intriguing in prospect than in practice, it seems at least a noteworthy attempt at making something new. A DVD version of the project was released earlier this year.
posted by misteraitch on Nov 17, 2005 - 8 comments

Driving down the street in my Panzer tank,
sittin’ drinkin’ Cris’ with my bitch Anne Frank.
And when I step into the club’s you know I’m steppin with style!
Raise my left hand, party people say “Heil!”
posted by jcterminal on Jul 3, 2005 - 24 comments

If you liked the Craigslist/Google Maps combo, you'll be happy to hear that the boys and girls over at Engadget have a tutorial on how to make your own annotated multimedia Google map. Pretty sweet!
posted by JPowers on Apr 10, 2005 - 3 comments

Myron Krueger began his pioneering work in interactive art in 1969. He was one of the first to explore the aesthetics of interactivity with his "responsive environments." While preparing a talk that included a reminiscence of Krueger demoing Videoplace in the 80s, I was surprised he'd not yet merited even a stub in the Wikipedia. While that may eventually motivate me to register and start the page, for now, I will just share some links. [more inside, including videos]
posted by KS on Mar 31, 2005 - 2 comments

PIANOGRAPHIQUE the graphics piano is a multimedia instrument,each letter on the keyboard sets off a sound and an animation. audio-visual-collage (flash)
posted by hortense on Mar 22, 2005 - 6 comments

Alex Grey's Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. Grey has been around for a long time but hasn't been linked here before. He has a new DVD out called World Spirit, which you can watch clips from online. [Via Future Hi.]
posted by homunculus on Jan 30, 2005 - 11 comments

This is the first presidential election where the power of personal computers have been put to use by large numbers of amateurs to create their own ads, cartoons, and multimedia political statements. Some are ridiculous, some are inventive, and some are well, amateurish, but they are all done by people trying to express their political views in a way that may seem to make more of a difference then by casting a ballot. I know that the links I've posted are anti-bush slanted, but to be honest they are easier to find...
posted by copacetix on Oct 6, 2004 - 7 comments

I've been having a good time with "You and We", a project from Born Magazine that invites you to "contribute your words and images to this continuously evolving, collective experiment." Users upload art, text and photos to be collaged together in a fast-moving montage that actually turns out to be pretty nice. So far there have been over a thousand contributors. [Flash, Sound (toggles), and possibly NSFW.]
posted by taz on Aug 27, 2004 - 1 comment

Thoughts from Within is an interesting multimedia poem from Woody Harrelson, whose work has been previously discussed on Metafilter here. [Warning: link goes directly to .swf flash file]
posted by banished on Aug 20, 2004 - 12 comments

The Movement is a 7-member art project, conceived (somewhat) as a multimedia version of the games Telephone or Exquisite Corpse, in which each member "adds a voice to the work -- a voice which expands the work, a voice which modifies the work, a voice which contests the work" through text, image, or sound. Initiated by writer/musician/radio host Julius Nil, the brother alter-ego of Olias Nil (himself the alter-ego of Seth Cohen) of the late, lamented Fire Show and Number One Cup. Includes work from Nil's Fire Show/Number One Cup collaborator, musician/photographer M. Resplendent .
posted by scody on Jul 21, 2004 - 1 comment

Making the Modern World brings you powerful stories about science and invention from the eighteenth century to today. It explains the development and the global spread of modern industrial society and its effects on all our lives. The site expands upon the permanent landmark gallery at the Science Museum, using the Web and dynamic multimedia techniques to go far beyond what a static exhibition can do. Terrific wrapping, excellent content.
posted by tcp on Jul 12, 2004 - 4 comments

Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = Winamp 5 (download lite or standard) . After it's admittedly dissapointing and rushed effort with Version 3 of their popular media player, the Nullsoft team seeks to make amends with their newest release, combining the stability of 2.x with the extras of Winamp 3, adding several new features while they're at it. Though already long-considered the standard for Windows machines, Winamp 5 puts more pressure on other competing, low memory-footprint audio players that have cropped up like Foobar and QCD. More cheerleading/zealotry inside...
posted by lotsofno on Dec 15, 2003 - 44 comments

The Open Video Project offers nearly 2,000 videos from various sources and collections, including such gems as 34 reels from the 1930s and 40s in the Digital Himalaya Project, a series of classic television commercials, and, from the Library of Congress, some shorts from the early 1900s, including the popular 2 a.m. in the Subway and A Ballroom Tragedy ("Vaudeville" is a good search term for finding more like this). Also, especially for MeFi, Johnny Learns His Manners.
posted by taz on Oct 12, 2003 - 17 comments

The Book of Roofs is a site to take your time with. Originally an art installation, the web site is a look at the concept of roofs - anthropological, biological, spiritual, metaphysical, social and political - in a collection of "roof tiles" consisting of short articles, personal narratives, mythological references, quotes, historic events, video and photographs, all related to the concept of shelter. If you feel so moved you can even contribute your own tile. Flash and sound
posted by taz on Oct 8, 2003 - 2 comments

Cyberlicious: the Art and Culture Network. In a lo-brow search for "bubblicious", I happened upon the hi-brow and highly browse-friendly, ACN. Why? Because "bubblicious" is one of its in-site "keyword" searches, describing that quality "shared by champagne, soap foam, hot air balloons, and gum... lighter than air, ephemeral, in a state of creative tension, colorful, beautiful, and amusing", and returning results for movements such as "Pop/Surrealism/Anti-Design", "Miniskirts", "The Digital Era", "Smarty Arty Pop" and "Glam Rock", along with artists such as Mary Quant, The Ramones, Mariko Mori, Gene Kelly, and Mouse on Mars. (more...)
posted by taz on May 19, 2003 - 5 comments

The Los Angeles Times goes multimedia. For the past few weeks, the LA Times has begun a significant push into offering video, audio, and interactive Flash on their website. One of the most interesting aspects is that the paper has moved one step beyond simply replaying AP Television clips as many sites have done; the LA Times writers are stand before the cameras and microphones themselves and report stories in a stuttering, non-hairsprayed, introverted demeanor that I find very refreshing, though so far I have gleaned very little additional information from it. When does (or can) this mode of journalism on the web rise above gimmickry or 'just because we can' and add value to a written article? Can video/tv news rise above mere spectacle?
posted by 4easypayments on Mar 20, 2003 - 3 comments

Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle Multimedia artist Matthew Barney, 36, is almost universally fawned over by critics and is hailed as the most important artist to come along in years. In a stunning installation at NYC's Guggenheim Museum, he's made the museum into a bit player in his massive gesamtkunstwerk. And now this gorgeous website ups the ante on Flash-based sites. In addition to all this, the soundtracks from his Cremaster series by Jonathan Bepler are breaking new ground in modern composition. Oh, yeah, Matthew Barney is the dad of Bjork's child. Where does it end?
posted by ubueditor on Mar 17, 2003 - 27 comments

Users don't like a lot of Flash - Looks like Macromedia's new Web site redesign that utilizes all Flash for its navigation isn't winning any awards with users, especially those running Opera and Apple's Safari browsers. It's nice looking, but I prefer a simpler design like here MetaFilter.
posted by MediaMan on Mar 11, 2003 - 53 comments

"At the Institute of Militronics and Advanced Time Interventionality we have been committed to time travel based research since 2005." Sure, it's probably just a poker-faced art project by the electronic Writing Research ensemble, but isn't it nicer to think of it as the life's work of the late Rosalind Brodsky (1970-2058), artist, musician, and Martian real estate agent?
posted by snarkout on Feb 14, 2003 - 4 comments

Listening Post: Giving Voice to Online Communication One of the most realized multimedia installations ever presented, the work of Mark Hansen from Bell Labs and Ben Rubin from earstudio. Essential.
posted by plexi on Dec 17, 2002 - 2 comments

Seamless City is a project made possible by proliferation of gigabytes of affordable disk space, digital cameras, photo composition applications, and a lot of time. Take a 30 mile pedestrian tour of San Francisco.
posted by mnology on Nov 20, 2002 - 8 comments

Philip Glass, Late Twentieth-Century Music And Your PC, Sort Of... Andante's Carte Blanche is a new multimedia magazine dedicated to contemporary music. Its first guest-editor is Philip Glass and he's assembled an interestingly unscholarly, offbeat and pleasantly accessible issue. At least for those of us who generally pay contemporary music (too) little attention. I wonder why this is, as it's invariably challenging or enlightening when we do. Who knows? Perhaps Carte Blanche may convince some of us pop-obsessed philistines to change our ways... [ Composer John Adams, writer Susan Sontag, choreographer Mark Morris and British director Jonathan Miller will follow in what promises to be an unmissable online proposition.]
posted by MiguelCardoso on Aug 1, 2002 - 12 comments

Last Mile by Laser "The multibillion-dollar optical-fiber backbone that was built to bring...high-performance multimedia..to office and home computers...has come up a bit short" Free Space Optics may be the answer
posted by ajayb on Jul 12, 2002 - 3 comments

First JPEG virus discovered... "The W32/Perrun virus, as it is now being called, extracts data from JPEG files and then injects picture files with infected digital images. A fair warning to those individuals who are fond of sending multimedia files to friends and families." Is everyone's porn stash threatened now?
posted by darian on Jun 14, 2002 - 28 comments

Project Euh is a self-proclaimed multimedia weblog with many "web experiments" and something I never though I'd see, a curved scroll bar. But that's just the beginning. Click on euh? to load a random experiment.
posted by dgeiser13 on May 28, 2002 - 16 comments

World of Awe -- Through a portal on 419 East 6th street in Manhattan, a traveler passes into the Sunset/Sunrise--a desert terrain locked into the mindframe between night and day, in search of a lost treasure. The voyage is documented in a journal found on a laptop evidently built by the traveler in Silicon Canyon, which is a graveyard for old computer components. The journal contains letters to an absent lover, travel logs and descriptions of the unique navigation tools. Following a hi-tech/lo tech, double-sided map (Eep & Moo), the traveler describes a search for a treasure that keeps relocating. The only remains found are crumbs fallen from the body of the treasure that surprisingly resemble candy sprinkles.
posted by boltman on Apr 30, 2002 - 6 comments

Flash Player 6 Beta .... need I say more.
posted by MintSauce on Feb 1, 2002 - 10 comments

Interviews 50 ¢ is one of my all time favorite sites. Alex Chadwick sets up a card table and a handmade sign "Interviews 50 cents". People walk up and tell stories. If they are esspecially moving, he hands them 50 cents, otherwise they put 50 cents into the cigar box. (In Quicktime format and text)
posted by Zebulun on May 18, 2001 - 5 comments

Adobe and SVG: Adobe leverages their Acrobat reader along with Real Player to include their SVG browser plugin. Of note are the SVG with sound, filter effects, and JavaScript animation. Is Adobe gearing up to position this as a Flash competitor?
posted by mutagen on Apr 21, 2001 - 16 comments

Real goes subscription. A decent business model, IMHO. But with two lacking elements: 1) Too expensive ($3-5/month is better), 2) More compelling content (needs more name brands). I think a flat rate type content model could work well for video/multimedia content (the porn industry does well with it).
posted by owillis on Aug 15, 2000 - 8 comments

I can't help but feel that Flash interstitials (like those one finds at HillmanCurtis.com) are like holographs stuck on book covers. All the little flashing squares and pomo imagery and industrial sounds are wonderful, but they don't seem to add very much to the user experience. Did the Web kill cool multimedia? Have we actually taken a step back from the mid-1990s, when there were interesting projects on CD-ROM?
posted by tranquileye on Jun 19, 2000 - 8 comments