Vidgets: the development and use of interactive, network based video works

This exegesis looks at interactive, network based video through the development and use of experimental works. The works are described in terms of the concepts, techniques and theories explored and their implications. It documents the formal and technical experiments which were used to investigate the affordances of network based video for real time interaction, and tracks the development of vidgets as audio-visual tools and instruments as they were increasingly designed for use in live VJ performances. I explain how used sound art and systems based art as frameworks for conceptualising interactive screen based works as an alternative to cinema, and devise the term ‘alldata’ as a means to describe this environment. Reflecting on the processes of action research used in the project, I identify and explore a number of techniques and attributes common to interactive, network based video production as a practice which may be used in a range of future projects.<br>