Mash-Up TV | The Cornell Daily Sun

Ever had trouble remembering that minor character introduced three seasons ago on your favorite show? That character who, for whatever reason, happens to become incredibly important in the current season, if only you could remember who they are?

Fret not. Help is on the way. Last week, New Scientist reported a new scene analysis software to help you keep up with your favorite shows. Named StoryVisualizer, or StoViz for short, the PC-based technology creates short video summaries around a given plot line or character. For example, say you select that character we were just talking about, the one you?ve completely blanked on. StoViz will piece together a personal video summarizing that character?s appearances on the show (allowing you to watch whole episodes with only your favorite characters). Same goes for plot lines.

Developed in France, the software takes advantage of the vast data storage capabilities of digital video recorders like TiVo. Using advanced image and audio analysis, developers first grouped scenes around key words, background scenery or actors? faces. After these initial themes and story threads were isolated, the software?s complex algorithms could then identify story elements deemed ?semantically similar? and assemble them into short, personal videos based on user preferences.

All this is well and good for those, like me, who have trouble keeping track of complex plots. I wonder, though, about the need for such technology. Do we really need help catching up on our television shows? StoViz seems designed for hardcore fans who have forgotten earlier seasons or missed a few shows. It seems a little pathetic. Surely another viewer can point out who the mystery character is or fill us in on the last few episodes. But if you?re like me and generally watch television seasons long after they?ve aired (usually condensing an entire season into a few weeks), the software becomes even less relevant.

I?m generally pretty excited about interactive narratives and interfaces that allow viewers to participate and customize their experience with media. However, StoViz doesn?t do anything novel or interesting with this interactivity. Instead, it seems to operate more like CliffNotes or fanfiction, taking away from the artistry of the programs as they were meant to be watched.

Although the New Scientist article does not specify whether StoViz can compile videos from multiple shows, I?d be surprised if it can?t (or won?t in the near future). Here?s where I see things getting really thorny: users could potentially use StoViz as a kind of video compositing program, mixing and matching elements from multiple television programs (and perhaps later on, movies as well). To some extent, all artistic mediums are already doing this. We sample and reference other styles and stories. This has been a key postmodern trend in the arts, evident in everything from paintings to movies to books to music.

So far, music has definitely taken such sampling the furthest. ?Mash-up? artists, for example, directly composite multiple songs together, controversially heralding the result as a separate artistic work. Although I?m hesitant to label something that simply builds off the efforts of others as ?art,? these ?mash-up? artists have a point. The way they combine the songs is novel, original and often incredibly artistic. However, a program like StoViz would take even that minimal level of artistry away, consigning these choices to a computer program that mashes scenes together based on algorithms.

Given the current popularity of ?mash-up? songs, I?m not sure why ?mash-up? videos haven?t already become a cultural phenomenon. Perhaps the data is too vast, the technology required to composite videos too complex for those without training. StoViz seems to eliminate both these problems. If StoViz becomes popular, it?s only a matter of time before videos go the way of ?mash-up? songs and sampling.

The great thing about mash-ups? There?s something for everyone. Don?t like Rihanna? Well, maybe you will if we mix her with Mumford and Sons. Sometimes, I marvel at the way the songs are combined, at the new ways I begin listening to an overplayed, overfamiliar song after hearing it mixed with something else. But mostly, I wonder why the artistic landscape has become so barren, why we?re all listening to the most common denominator. It would be a shame for television and movies to go this way too, if they haven?t already.

Source: http://www.cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2012/11/13/mash-tv

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