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Leonardo 34.1 (2001) 41-44



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New Media Dictionary

Manuscript received 31 August 2000.

The New Media Dictionary project was born out of the desire to name and define the many and varied forms of art that have developed in conjunction with technology. A whole lexicon is being created to describe the many processes, techniques, instruments, critical and aesthetic concepts--in short, the entire emerging culture--of this immense laboratory workshop.

The original electronic version of this dictionary (in French) contains about 2,000 entries, illustrations, examples of works, references and comments from artists and experts (URL:<www.comm.uqam.ca/GRAM/Accueil.html>). English translations of selected dictionary entries can be found at the following Web site: <http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/NMD/nmdhome.html>.

The terms selected for this installment of the New Media Dictionary come from the field of video. The original group of terms and definitions have been selected by the Groupe de recherche en arts mediatiques (GRAM). However, interested artists and researchers are invited to submit additions and comments to Section Editor Louise Poissant [1] for possible inclusion in the electronic version of the dictionary; credit will be given to all contributors. In this way, the New Media Dictionary will gradually become a collective project in which each significant contribution will find its place.

These definitions were prepared by Chantal duPont and Monique Langlois. Project director: Louise Poissant. Translator: Lou Nelson.

Dictionary Terms--Part II: Video

Architecture-Opera--An exhibition/show composed of a walk-through installation and a live opera presented on a set with video sculptures. During the show, the video equipment is used to synchronize images and sound and acts as an intermediary between the singers, who can affect what is being shown live or on the video displays exhibited. The term was created to describe a work by French video artist Catherine Ikam and American music researcher and computer scientist Tod Machover. The two co-produced the first architecture-opera, entitled VALIS-opéra, in December 1987 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris. VALIS is an acronym for Vast Active Living Intelligence. The libretto for the work is taken from a novel by Philip K. Dick and tells the story of an initiatory journey through a place inhabited by simulacra and seductive traps.

Audio-Video Environment--1. Video installation that involves sound and requires visitor participation. 2. A category of video art installation distinct from video sculpture, trap devices, video environments or video painting.

Corporate Video--A video produced by a company to inform or educate its employees. Corporate videos are sometimes confused with commercial videos, particularly when several groups produce the video jointly.

Docu-Fiction--Video work in which actual recorded events are combined with recreations or imaginary scenes in order to provide information on a specific topic. Docu-fictions also exist as movies. In video, Jean-Pierre St-Louis, member of the Coop Vidéo (Montreal), described his video Elle remplace son mari par une TV (1983-1984) as a docu-fiction. The term was used frequently thereafter, and Vidéographe, a Montreal distribution, production and post-production company, added it to the glossary in its catalog in 1994.

Documentary--A radio or television broadcast or a film of actual events that investigates an issue using documents and facts. The short recordings of reality (actualités) by the Lumiére brothers in 1896 could be classified as documentaries, because they depicted real events, not fictitious ones. But it was not until 1922 and the appearance of Robert Flaherty's film Nanook of the North that the history of documentaries truly began. The English word "documentary" itself first appeared when used by John Grierson in an article in the New York Sun to describe Moana, a film produced by Flaherty in 1926. Grierson associated "documentary" with the French word documentaire, meaning travelogue, a lecture on a trip or an expedition accompanied by a film or slides. In the 1930s, Dziga Vertov in the Soviet Union produced newsreels in the Kino-Pravda ("film truth") series. Vertov subsequently used his...

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