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Another street in Copenhagen, Denmark

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I easily get addicted to things; I guess I am suffering from the obsessive-compulsive disorder. Particularly, I am suffering from computer addiction, and I have been so since as far back as I can remember.

I remember when I was a kid - maybe 7-8 years old. I visited my older cousin, who already back then was somewhat of a computer whiz. I remember his computer, with the tape and the flashing lights. I remember how obsessed I became with it, and how much I wish I had my own computer like that. A few years later, I remember how I could spend my whole allowance on some stupid arcade game, like “bubble bobble”. Years later, I became addicted to MUDs, then CS, then - after a few years without gaming, it was World of Warcraft, which hit my world like a brick in February 06.

In between all the gaming, there was the constant urge for more bits and bytes of data, of information. Of scanning through ever more RSS feeds, or videoblogs, or trying to find a way to link all of that data together, rhizome style. If you have been following this site for the last years, you will have noticed my “subliminal video” style, where you have flashing text on the screen, where “In Spirit” is an early example, and my video series “dr. redd” for The PAN is another (I will find a direct link to one of the videos in this series later). Point is that these videos become like a symbol of my thinking. Flashing text, emotions, patterns of thinking, and the risk that sometimes this pattern just repeats itself, becomes a beat of its own that I indulge in.

I remember how I in 2000 and 2001 used the FPS Counter-Strike as a de-stressing factor while trying to process so much information from my daily work as a student representant at my university, as well as other activities. I could be at it for hours, just using the deagle or scout for instance, and letting my subconsciousness work with the questions at hand while I seemed to just be practicing my head-shots.

The last months I have been seriously battling with how to deal with my suicidal friend, while trying to get over my concussion fully. I still have pretty frequent nausea attacks, which basically disable me from working for 1-2 days at the time. Today, I then read my paper from my doctor which I am to give to a therapist - because it is clear by now that the nausea is not primarily the consequence of physiological damage to my brain, but the concussion and the violence that caused it has stirred up some other - well - shit. And it hurts to read it on paper, yet it is so essential to see it from the outside. How I withdraw into the computer games and the books. How I sleep badly at night. How I withdraw from my friends and contacts. How I basically just let apathy rule my life.

So tonight I made the decision to stop being in Azeroth - at all. I disenchanted my gear on Ehich and deleted him as well as my other avatars. I will also stop just digging myself into the books, and rather DO something with some of the information. Write reviews, or maybe write about some of the issues that interest me here on dltq.

Videoblogging - where has videoblogging gone in all of this?

Well. I withdrew from the vlogosphere, quite strongly, in several steps, untill I acted like none of this mattered to me anymore. It does. I still become Very excited to see videos like this:

Not because it involves TV as such, but because it is an example of the bridging of a gap. Of how - now - any point of entry can become a point of center.

Also, there is VlogEurope 2007, which takes place this September in Heidelberg, Germany. I have agreed to be a co-organizer this year, and I Definitely need to pick up that ball on that one :/

So, I am currently battling my inner demons while at the same time trying to do something at least semi-constructive besides my full-time work in the bookstore. How will it go?

I will force myself to at least post more often here now, both more personal updates like this (this is, after all, a personal site/vlog/blog), and more general topics like “What is the state of videoblogging in Europe today?”.

Ok, I end this rant with another lumiere video, this time from Fiolstræde in Copenhagen.

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Windows.

Seeing the videos from people from around the world as windows into their life, little holes we can peek through.

My first video on a blog was a so-called momentshowing - I showed part of my surrounding in the wintertime in Bergen.

Since then, videoblogging has developed far and wide, and “youtubing” has become a verb, and there are hundreds of new shows popping up, from around the world.

The last months I have, for personal reasons, been pretty much away from the scene, only talking with my friends and contacts within the vlogosphere now and then. And now I return to see what is going on, and I notice these lumiere videos popping up here and there. I talk with Andreas, who points me to this post on his site where he explains the context for it.

This holds truth, to me.

The limitations help me get started on this thing called videoblogging again. Putting videos on a blog.

So my first lumiere video is a scene from my room earlier today. I had not shaved, or taken a shower yet. The bare wall behind me, the trees outside.

Click To Play

A lumiere video, as Andreas has defined it, has the following rules:

* 60 seconds max.
* Fixed camera
* No audio
* No zoom
* No edit
* No effects

Minimalist videoblogging, yay! See all the other lumiere videos here.