Thursday 26 February 2015

3 New AoP Vine's Released

I am happy to announce 3 more Vines have been released over on the NUPRI Vine channel (simultaneously posted to Twitter). The new Vines showcase definitions of peace from:

- Saul Arbess, co-chair of the Department of Peace Initiative (Victoria BC chapter).

- Marc Kielburger, co-founder of Free the Children with his brother Craig. Marc is a major proponent in the creation of We Day which is based on the belief that every young person has the power to change the world.

- Peter Singer, a trained health professions who has spent the last decade working to finding creative solutions to many of the world's most pressing health problems. He is a professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto.

There are plenty more Peace Vines to come in the following weeks.

Our primary goal with these distilled versions of the "definition of peace" is to generate a discussion on the broader topic of peace. As more Vines are released you will see greater overlap in definitions, in a few cases almost word for word mirroring. This is not done intentionally. My work in trimming videos found on YouTube to fit the 6.5 second Vine format is merely to grab the clearest definition of peace put forward by the interviewee.
The choice of interviewee for the Vine project was partially random and partially based on name recognition.
It also must be noted the Vine project, at this point, does not encompass the entire 'Agents of Peace' archive it is a sampling of what is contained on the YouTube page and on the drives the project is housed on.

Thoughts and discussion are always welcome regarding the Agents of Peace project and the current Vine spin-off.

Peace,

Randy

Thursday 12 February 2015

Expanding Horizons

The Vine format has become incredibly popular in the short time it has been around (2 years). It provides short snippets of storytelling that can be watched, digested and shared incredibly quickly. It is truly amazing how something so short can create an impact and in such a clever and concise way.

Over the last few months NUPRI has been working to expand its horizons and its presence on the internet and across the study of peace. Vine is seen as an ideal format to help promote and quickly expand the horizons of peace. The limited nature of Vine forces us to synthesize the the clearest definition of peace from the numerous accounts we have in our archives.

This is the true challenge of Vine. How do you create something that is crystal clear in its message? How do you create something that is, at most, 6.5 seconds long from a definition that might run for over 2 minutes?
In some cases the definition is clear. The subject might have a definitive moment in defining peace and so it is a simply audio grab.
In other cases it is challenging. Sometimes it requires splicing between several different accounts of peace in order to bring the clarity Vine forces you into.

NUPRI is kicking off its Vine presence with 4 videos from Romeo Dallaire, Megan Campbell, Gordon Teti and Nestar Russell.

https://vine.co/u/1139616947906945024

This is only the first few of a number that will begin appearing over the coming weeks. The intention is to start by releasing a few at a time with the hope that they will generate discussion on the topic of peace and how it is defined. Over the coming weeks you may notice some similarities in certain definitions. These first few are deliberately designed to provide 4 different aspects of peace but even in their difference there are some similarities.

Once more are released we are looking at setting up a narrative by collecting several different definitions together to allow for a sustained commentary on them.

If you are intrigued by the Peace Vines I encourage you to spend some time on the NUPRI YouTube Channel. Track down the original videos to understand the larger and deeper meaning behind each definition. Feel free to respond and provide your own commentary.

NUPRI YouTube Channel

Please share the Vines. The more people we reach the greater the discussion we can have.

Peace,

Randy