- Spectacle: The Music Video is “the first museum exhibition to celebrate the art and history of the music video…the exhibition reveals the enormous influence music videos have had on contemporary culture over the past 35 years.” Included in the exhibition are fan videos — Killa and T. Jonesy’s vid “Closer” and Luminosity’s vid “Vogue”. The exhibit opened on April 2 at the Museum of the Moving Image in NYC and continues until June 16.
- Former OTW Board member Francesca Coppa’s Transmedia vs Fan Media presentation was live blogged and made available on Swarthmore University’s website. “Coppa shifts to discussing vidding, the making of fan music videos out of television or film clips. Vids translate “from narrative to poetry.” Vids are lyrical and emotion-driven rather than plot-driven works…Coppa asks the audience to take a few notes while she shows a series of Harry Potter vids, paying special attention to narrative structure, color manipulation, timing and editing, and song choice. Everything in vids is intentional.”
- One advantage of fanart is the way it can cross language barriers to spread fandom joy. Aja Romano wrote about a fanart challenge that began in Japanese-language Sherlock fandom and spread on Tumblr to its English-language counterpart. “Taken together, the works of fanart from 101 Japanese-language artists form a meme collage…Though each one is using the same basic body pose and layout, when viewed closer, they’re all different.” The meme has since spread to other fandoms.
- Wired wrote about charity fundraisers in a variety of fandoms. “Here’s the thing about geeks…more than just about anyone, we’ve figured out how to digitally connect with each other, and how to use the internet as an extension of ourselves. Yes, some of our time will always be spent arguing over whether Matt Smith or David Tennant is the better Doctor — but that same passion, interconnectivity, and OCD-ness can be used for good. The trick is to keep that in mind — even when somebody’s totally wrong about Doctor Who — and see what else we can accomplish.”
If you have your own fandom activities to talk about, write an entry in Fanlore! Contributions are welcome from all fans.
We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent OTW Fannews post. Links are welcome in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.