Killer Entertainments

Killer Entertainments[1] is a joint venture by Jenny Terry and Raegan Kelly addressing the role of video in the War in Iraq. The project attempts to answer the question of how to present and analyze videos taken by soldiers and marines during combat without diminishing or sensationalizing their contribution. Terry and Kelly's resulting design cultivates the many attributes of the digital medium by making nonlinear connections lacking substantial narrative form. They present multiple viewpoints without focusing on a single argument, thus allowing the user to make their own interpretations.

Support

Jenny Terry and Raegan Kelly project utilizes the Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular space from the University of Southern California.[2] The international online journal maintained by the University of Southern California's Institute for Multimedia Literacy within the School of Cinematic Arts explores the convergence of culture and technology in the shaping of our daily world. Vectors publishes projects that are best told through the multimedia tools of in the digital sphere.[3]

Layout

The three-way split for viewing videos on the main page is representative of the variety of viewpoints available in a war zone. Once the user clicks on red and brown information points branching out from correlating screens the red spots darken slightly while the brown spots become hollow. After extensive exploration of the project the page takes on the sight of a battlefield, littered with red tracers, dried blood spots and bullet holes.

More importantly, these informational points provide significant contextual background, giving the user a greater ability to interpret the various videos. Points include location, people, military units, warfare terminology, cinematic vocabulary, and larger war questions. For example, cinematic vocabulary divulges the effect of camera types and angles on the audience. Terry and Kelly differentiate between: helmet mounted, hand-held, video game Proprioception, night vision, gun/vehicle mounted, direct address, and war documentaries.

Sources

Beneath the individual screens is a brief description, production notes, the location the video was shot, when the video was posted and a link to the original website it was found. Videos were taken from a variety of websites ranging from the purely military militaryvideos.net to the insurgent based khaibar.org and infovlad.com . Within the micro-narratives Kelly cites articles, books, and various websites.

gollark: It takes me something like 10 seconds to publish code I write in random-stuff and no effort to not do that.
gollark: It doesn't take much effort to do this.
gollark: Generally not for very long, at least?
gollark: Which is why I have slightly done that a bit.
gollark: I mean, when you hide something mildly neat, you *do* get to feel intellectually superior.

References
  1. http://www.vectorsjournal.org/index.php?page=7&projectId=86
  2. Vectors Journal About Page http://vectors.usc.edu/issues/index.php?issue=5
  3. USC School of Cinematic Arts http://cinema.usc.edu/programs/institute-for-multimedia-literacy/ Archived 2009-10-26 at the Wayback Machine
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