andenator

Part of my travels in Indonesia included meeting up with various video makers and organisations to 'spread the word' so to speak about DIY online distribution. I went into Jakarta to find a way, preferably a train, to get to Yogyakarta in central Java where I had organised to do a workshop. There were however unprecedented rains and major flooding just after I arrived which meant in the end I couldn't leave for 3 days. It also made it impossible to catch up with any Jakartan groups as getting around the city was a total nightmare. The only thing to do was to sit tight. Luckily I still had the net (though the power went out for half a day which meant forced chilling out). Could have been worse.

As the train line was flooded/covered in debris and mud, catching a flight was the only option. Indonesian airlines do not offer the most stress free experiences - an Adam Air flight had gone down on it's way to Sulawesi a few weeks previously - my flight had one of the most terrifying landings I've experiences in a while, plumes of burning rubber and sparks abounded.

After making it into Yogya I headed to Cemeti Art Foundation where they were having a welcoming/leaving party for the new and old directors. This mostly involved karaoke and VJing. Cemiti has nice space with a library documenting Indonesia art practice, meeting rooms, video editing studio, kitchen etc. It was with Cemiti that I had organised to do the workshop on online video distribution. I was meant to do the workshop on the 3rd but as I couldn't leave Jakarta it was pushed back to the 5th.

The workshop was at a net cafe called "the Gate". At about 1.50 (10 minutes before start time) a massive downpour began and lasted about 45 minutes meaning half the attendees were stranded in the rain and unable to make it. We waited about 45 minutes and by that stage a few committed people turned up drenched but ready for action. There was a good pool of about 10 people in the end, the maximum really to make this workshop effective. All of them were already making video, none had put any of it on the web, some had done some encoding before, most were students and either from a artistic or activist background.

Two big problems very quickly encountered were English and net connection. Pitra from Cemeti offered to do translation but people were a little too hesitant in saying they needed it. I think we managed to get through ok though and when people really did have blank looks on their faces I got Pitra to translate to be sure.

Bigger problem - even at a fairly upscale net cafe the net connection was very slow. I can't imagine broadband gets up above 128kbps in 95% of spaces - I'm making this statistic up but I connected at a lot of different locations, mostly downloads happened at about 5-8kbps which is slower than dial up. The EngageMedia site loaded particularly slowly - I'm guessing this is a problem with Plone as it's a common criticism of the platform.

At the beginning of the workshop and throughout I emphasised very heavily that they shouldn't think of online video just as watching a streamed clip in the browser a la YouTube. The fact that you cannot download clips from YouTube and must download them again if you start a new session on your computer, just adds to all the other problematic elements of the site.

Instead I tried to emphasise three other strategies to employ online video distribution in low-bandwidth situations

• short preview clips - putting a low resolution 30 second to 2 minute clip online can be a great way to 'advertise' your film - if someone is interested they can contact you for a higher resolution version that you can send in the post.
• screening resolution version - think of your video as a means of getting your video from A-B at minimal cost. An organisation (university, art centre, net cafe) with good bandwidth will be able to download it. They can then redistribute the video at screenings, on CD or via flash drives. Having a downloaded version means it can be shared by multiple other means.
• think of a wider, global audience - distribution inside your country might make more sense on dvd/vcd etc. but you can reach a global audience online - festivals can access it as can activist groups who might be able to use the film in solidarity/benefit screenings etc.

All this points to the need to have multiple resolution videos for all of the above scenarios but also to more greatly emphasise that online video is not a panacea for every distribution need - just one tool in the toolbox.

The workshop participants definitely got something out of it - though my ability to teach people encoding is still a significant issue - this is partly due to my lack of knowledge of windows and partly cause it's just not my area. Rather than imparting the nitty gritty I talked more about basic principals - who is your audience etc.? I think a couple couple of hours of people actually encoding their films is really required for them to go on with the knowledge. 10 participants to 1 facilitator is really too many for this, I'd say 1 to 3-4 is ideal.

Apart from the workshop I met up with Rahung, a nomadic film maker who was in Yogya at the time. I also had some good chats with the director of Cemiti, Farah, who used to be heavily involved in Ruangrupa/OK Video.

Yogya was definitely a trip worth making. It seems to be the Melbourne of Indonesia, a very creative/cultural city.

Jakarta
On the way home I managed to find a few hours in between flights to go and visit Ruangrupa who are respondible for putting on the OK Video festival. They have a pretty interesting space. They do a art mag from there called Karbon, have a video editing studio, some general office areas, a screening/discussion room and a space for people to stay who are there for residencies, which it seems they do quite a few of. This year they are doing three including one of media/technology.

We swapped some materials (I have a stack of indonesian DIY art books) and I took people through the site and posted a news story about the OK Video festival on EM. (again the site was loading quite slowly!)

Much work still to be done.....