The BBC, YouTube  and Ridley Scott are combining forces to make a grass-roots documentary about life in the UK using videos made and uploaded by ordinary British folk. The YouTube website with instructions on how to take part is http://www.youtube.com/britaininaday

This is an extension of the recently aired 90 minute “Life in a Day” on the BBC – a mash up of video captured on 24th July 2010 by people all over the world. Provocative, touching, shocking, mundane but above all powerful - I found this compelling viewing, so well worth a watch on YouTube or BBC iplayer (if you are in the UK) if you can. Apart from the end results of these types of project being fabulous pieces of documentary film-making, I think they are intriguing collaborations between traditional and ‘new media’ visual production organizations – are these perfect examples of the democratization of broadcasting and film production or a colonization of previously viral and ‘less organized’ visual culture channels?

Saturday, 12 November 2011 from 14.00 to 15.30 GMT an online workshop is dedicated to visual research projects that explore issues of power: ”The Chair. Visual Encounters with Power”

Organizers: MAGMA Contemporary Medium, SEMEISTOS Web-Semiotics Research Group

Online presentations of 10-15 minutes via Skype are welcome, and/or offline written presentations of visual research projects that are aimed at exploring leadership, power, and status issues. We intend to publish these presentations as an e-book and make them available for broader audiences. A live streaming of the workshop will be available at: http://www.livestream.com/magmalive

For details, please contact Rozi Bakó at bako.rozi@gmail.com.

Please visit the SCOS 2012 blog for full details of next year’s SCOS conference (SCOS = the Standing Conference on Organizational Symbolism) on the theme of  Organizing Through Displacement, Travel and Movement: Transience, Transitions and Transformations.

Although this might not seem to be an obviously “visual” theme, SCOS is a community that pushes the boundaries of organization studies and visual presentations/ films/ installations etc are very much encouraged. There is also an open stream if you don’t think your work fits the main theme. If you’ve never been before, you’ll find it is quite unlike any other “management” conference you’ll ever go to! The location is Barcelona… in July… how bad can THAT be?! )

The 2nd International Visual Methods Conference team have set up a jiscmail mailing list for all things related to visual methods and methodology that we might want to share with a like minded community. Click here to access the jisc homepage to register for the list.

Hi all! The Sunday Times Magazine published a fascinating story last weekend about a piece of shrapnel, a flag, and a water bottle….and a range of other ‘war objects’. These objects, chosen by military and service personnel, tell the stories of their work, lives and experiences on the front line. These ‘visual narratives’ will be on display as a collection at London’s Imperial War Museum (opens 28th October 2011), along with videos and photographs captured by those working in Afghanistan. Also see an audio slideshow from the War Story exhibition at: www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/war. All the best, Harriet.

Jonathan Schroeder came across this interesting site the other day – lots of fascinating posts and I think you can send your work to them for publication on the blog too…. http://viz.cwrl.utexas.edu/content/about-viz

Two enterprising students are selling their faces as advertising space for a year to pay off their university debts. A bit of student madness? Or an inevitable development of visual branding? What do you think?

Visual Methodologies is a new, interdisciplinary journal.  There are several Invisio members on the editorial board, including me and Caroline Scarles.  Note: site requires registration for full access.

http://journals.sfu.ca/vm/index.php/vm/login?source=%2Fvm%2Findex.php%2Fvm%2Fuser%2FauthorizationDenied%3Fmessage%3Duser.authorization.restrictedSiteAccess

From an interesting website, Mashable, a story of the transformation of venerable British firm Burberry’s transition a ‘media company’. I have been interested in Burberry since their early 2000s rebranding, largely via black and white ’snapshot’ advertising campaigns.  http://mashable.com/2011/09/21/burberry-media-fashion-company/?utm_source=iphoneapp

http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps