The Electoral College Tuner http://vectors.usc.edu/issues/06_issue/tec/ http://vectors.usc.edu/xml/projects/electoral_college_v1.xml http://vectors.usc.edu/projects/backgrounds/electoral_college.jpg projects/icons/electoral_college.jpg 1 800 439 0 0 flash/vectorspace/projects/06electoralcollege.swf 202 A central research element of the Tuner is a feature that allows viewers to submit audio commentaries to videos, a bit like the 'Director's Commentary' in the Bonus Tracks menu of commercial DVD's. The Electoral College and the project's publication in the Vectors Journal launch on the eve of the U.S. Presidential Elections. The project produces media from the floors of political events in real-time. Readers are presented with a web-based interface—called a "tuner" by the development team—suggestive of twenty-four hour cable news stations with video, still images, audio conversations, and text feeds. The Electoral College provides a strong commentary on the fabricated, often indulgent nature of U.S. politics. Memories of the campaign trail replayed on television, much of the action of the conventions—and indeed the spontaneous events—are based on detailed scripts created months before. Jon Winet's work provides an alternative view of convention characters and sub-plots and endeavors to understand the influence of large-scale media events.

Presidents in the U.S. are elected indirectly by U.S. citizens with each state casting proportional votes at the Electoral College. In most cases, a state's constituents vote as a whole, causing circumstances such as the 2000 election that saw Al Gore win the overall direct vote but lose
Photograph by Jon Winet taken August 31, 2004 at the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York, on the convention floor during California Governor Arnold Schawarzenegger's speech. Image from 2004-America & The Globe.
the election in the college . As a consequence, parts of the U.S. that have small populations and thus little national media exposure (for example, Iowa and New Hampshire) become a critical voice in politics. Winet's projects exploit aspects of political events that don't otherwise receive attention, often produce media from small population states, and emphasize the role of community in politics. The Electoral College began with video interviews with local residents during the Iowa Caucuses in January, 2008 (the snapshots may be viewed on the project's Youtube channel). Production locations include the Democratic and Republican national conventions in Colorado and Minnesota, and also interviews with Nebraskans that Winet produced while driving from Omaha and on-the-street interviews outside the convention center in Denver.

Central to Winet's research in the construction of media environments, The Electoral College "tuner" features audio commentary for the embedded videos. A reader presses a button and hears secondary audio conversations, similar to a DVD's director's commentary. The commentaries originate from invited participants or by reader submissions through an upload form in the application, which is then moderated. The technology on one hand makes the project more democratic by affording user participation. On the other, the moderated commentaries provide fodder for the construction of a pre-defined narrative. The audio commentary feature of the "tuner" is a bold step towards understanding the construction of media events by the U.S. political conventions.]]>
Since the mid nineteenth century when English and French culture simultaneously invented photography, it has defined our consciousness, and our social and personal memories.

2. The Electoral College Tuner

Memory plays a central role in the construction of mainstream American politics, and the presidential elections, in all their spectacular, mediagenic theatricality, take center stage every four year, burning into our retinas and brains lasting images of our leaders.

Although conceived originally for an August launch in advance of the major parties' national political conventions, we turn "The Electoral College Tuner's" lights on just days before the November 4 general election.

With its inclusion in Vectors' memory issue, we appreciate the chance to reflect on the election in retrospect, while we continue to document and comment on the unfolding events of this extraordinary moment in American life, society and politics.

The 'tuner' is the latest addition to "The Electoral College," a hybrid New Media | journalism project exploring the U.S presidential elections and democratic practice, and the possibilities of civic engagement.

The conventions, and the campaigns, deliver perfect, candid snapshots of the country and its two main parties—arguably by virtue of the fact that they are scripted with laser beam precision by brilliant, quasi-anonymous party operatives, creating instant yet lasting memories staged for, and reproduced by news media, and soon recycled in campaign ads and literature.

At the time of its publication in Vectors, the Tuner arrives in its final design form, with defined areas for videos, image galleries, telephone conversations and interviews, and texts, fields ready to be progressively filled as events unfold and we attempt to provide meaningful, subjective non-fiction hypertext commentary to the unfolding history of this election and its aftermath.

The design is inspired in equal parts by the rash of new interfaces for online rich media, [from YouTube to MSNBC to Hulu to current.tv], and the fact- and talking heads-filled design of Bloomberg Television. It is also inspired by the classic of rabbinic scholarship, the Talmud, and a hypertext document collaboratively authored over time and space.

A central research element of the Tuner is a feature that allows viewers to submit audio commentaries to videos, a bit like the 'Director's Commentary' in the Bonus Tracks menu of commercial DVD's. This feature further explores the interactive potential of online television, and points to a near future in which multimedia annotation will be common practice. This is hardly a prediction: in August, while working on an earlier draft of this statement, I got news of Google's acquisition of Omnisio, a company that has developed technologies that lets people add annotations and cartoon bubble captions to videos. Given Google's ownership of the formidable media asset YouTube, which already sports similar features, we can look forward to increasingly easy ways for viewers to add their voice to media, further upending traditional roles producer and consumer, artist and audience.]]>
Vectors' Erik Loyer's skillful implementation of the Tuner has been critical to the completion project, and his work is equally, enthusiastically, appreciated.

I extend special thanks too, to Allen Spore, whose creativity, friendship and spirit have been key to this and previous election year projects. Thanks too, to the entire staff of Vectors for their interest in, and support of this project. We look forward to the memories ahead.

Jon Winet
Director, The Electoral College

Below is what we hope will be a complete list of the many people whose support and contributions to the project have made it possible.

The University of Iowa
School of Art & Art History Intermedia Area
Steven Strait
Char Banach
Craig Dietrich
Graduate College Office of the Provost
Virtual Writing University Experimental Wing
Chris Dibbern
Information Technology Services
Greyson Purcell

Washington, D.C.
Henrietta Pence
Provisions Library|Brushfire|Signal Fire
Don Russell
Niels Van Tomme
American University Museum Katzen Art Center
Stefanie Fedor
Bruce Wick
Jack Rasmussen
United States Senate Press Photographers Gallery
Phoebe Peacock
Julian Brunner, DC Train of Thought
6.54
Nina West

San Francisco Bay Area
Allen Spore, Project Associate Producer and Photographer
D.L. Pughe
Scott MacLeod
Laura Hartwick [Santa Cruz]
Mary Ellyn Johnson, San Francisco Art Institute
Susan Spore
Monty Sher
Alice Butler
Everett & Jones Barbeque
Greg Poulos, Chairman, Contra Costa County Republican Committee
Judy Lloyd, Blackhawk Republican Women
Vallejo Republican Club
Derek Ryor

Buffalo, New York
Geoff Kelley, Editor Buffalo Art Voice
Ed Cardoni, Director, Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center

New York, New York
Jessica Liebman
Charley Whitehead
Eyebeam
Sarah Cook
Steve Lambert, Add-Art.Org
Kelly McLaughlin
David Levi Strauss
Aperture Magazine
Dana Triwush
Brian Jones
Brooklyn Rail
Phong Bui
Theodore Hamm

Denver, Colorado
Dick and Betsy Stukey
Liza Williams
The Big Tent
Sarah Ingersoll
Suzanne Turner

Minneapolis-St. Paul
Dan Shulman
Margaret Shulman
The UnConvention
Marlina Gonzalez
Steve Dietz
Chris Strouth, UnConventionTV
Intermedia Arts

Los Angeles
Vectors Journal of Culture and Technology in a Dynamic Vernacular
Tara McPherson
Steve Anderson
Craig Dietrich
Erik Loyer

revised: 31 October 2008 14:15]]> The Electoral College Tuner is both an experimental and integral part of a year long project focusing on the 2008 U.S. presidential election and democracy in America.