| Lismore on Sat, 27 Jan 2007 04:55:42 +0100 (CET) |
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| Re: <nettime> Cinematic Video, v. 2 |
Video Art, and video as a medium, cannot reconcile moving images as mediated products. To say that video, does a better job of exposing flaws, or shrinks the 'perceptual distance' between maker and audience to me is a reflection upon the uses of the medium, and not the medium itself. When looking at early moments of artistic production in video like Vito Acconci, or even second gen makers like Bill Viola, it is easy to see how the medium was sculpted to form a more immediate exchange between messenger and receiver, or at least to speculate on the affects the medium has to offer. However, this is not to say that Video itself implies symbolic connectivity. Also to say that video is a poor substitute for any medium to me discredits the aesthetic choice most artists made to use the medium because of its particular stylistic qualities. A clear example of this, that seems to be overlooked within the essay is moments of feed[back] systems, realTime image processing, and live preformative elements developed in Chicago by Dan Sandin and Phil Morton (with Tom DeFanti later on). Regardless of their marginalization in the cannon (compared to Bruce Nauman lets say), it seems unavoidable to call upon these types of makers to disrupt, and/or problematize the idea of video being an "easy solution to film." If video was an obvious financial choice of artist in its earliest moments, then why did artists such as Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton continue to work in film? Frampton in particular could have easily made Nostalgia(1971) in video, however he was influenced by the weight of narrative history that occurs in film cinema. He uses film artistically in order to deconstruct the language that narrative cinema to that point had established (and continues to maintain). In essence, video was, and should continue to be not a substitution for finance (although I'm aware that it is necessary sometimes), but instead an aesthetic decision that makers should utilize. Video artists did not keep the medium happily to themselves, and to propose that Video now bemoans the encroachment of the 'professional world' or to an invasion of 'filmmakers' to me seems historically(hystorically) hypocritical. Early Video moments occurred (not exclusively mind you) as a response to the 'professional world,' particularly to Television. They were the encroaching force on the medium at one point, and their viral tendencies now grace our canonized worldview, and we congratulate and admire those moments of broadcast bastardization. Cinema is not imagining. Watching cinema is imagining. Cinema is a construction, but it is also a device used for documentation, and this I believe occurs throughout different mediums of time based image making. It is important to distinguish between recording and documenting. Recording on the one hand is supposedly objective, whereas documenting is a subjective act (regardless of what Cinéma vérité has tried to teach us). There are constantly decisions being made in cinema that dismantle an argument for objective filmmaking (such as an edit). In this way video is also not a recording device, but instead of documentation machine. The "Film Image" is now an index. There are rules, implications, references, styles, and constructs that are (for the large part) maintained by commercial ventures. and this has allowed for alternative mediums to insert themselves into the act of filming (for instance game design). Moving images made with a camera are now bound by their constructs, and the insertion of different tools does not enhance any potential that cinema has to offer. To presuppose the introduction of new technology will bolster the medium seems too linear, and only will help solidify the modern epoch of 'progress,' whereas the democratization of tools should defer into a more pluralistic opportunity of radical image making. These rule sets continue to be unchallenged by mediums due to expectations that cinema has made and continues to abide by for the past century. Digital production has marginalized the effort of making a clear distinction between film and tape and now high-end HDV/HD production where 'data' is the new film(i.e. tape less/film less digital recording of files to portable HDD) has blended the vernacular even more. However, these new technologies continue to unchallenged the constructs that cinema has created over time. >From a narrative cinema standpoint, new tools sets have just started to disrupt the conventions of cinema (for instance Russian Ark, and its break down of the expectation of cuts in film). Now there should be a call for deconstructing cinema along side the development of new tools. Cinema is constantly being reborn, but that resurrection does not rely on new mechanisms it relies on new thinking. On 1/18/07, Heiko Recktenwald <uzs106@uni-bonn.de> wrote: <...> > porculus wrote: > > > just a question of $..welknown those who find filth super8 of their granma > > hidden in their dead granda bazar are surely from a good wealthy familly.. > > it's all as cocaine & drugs & pornographie in XIX and early XX, just a > > bourgeois caprice funnily sew by law & police..we all want to be bourgeois > > with funy police > > See also "Felseneiland mit Sirenen", the entrance of a house in > Charlottenburg, RG 79, something, the artists rights and the rights of the > owner, no Citroyen colors on Dubuffet, the Lehrter Bahnhof etc. <...> -- Lismore ------=_Part_39673_18828023.1169827699094 Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Video Art, and video as a medium, cannot reconcile moving images as mediated products. To say that video, does a better job of exposing flaws, or shrinks the 'perceptual distance' between maker and audience to me is a reflection upon the uses of the medium, and not the medium itself. When looking at early moments of artistic production in video like Vito Acconci, or even second gen makers like Bill Viola, it is easy to see how the medium was sculpted to form a more immediate exchange between messenger and receiver, or at least to speculate on the affects the medium has to offer. However, this is not to say that Video itself implies symbolic connectivity. <br><br>Also to say that video is a poor substitute for any medium to me discredits the aesthetic choice most artists made to use the medium because of its particular stylistic qualities. A clear example of this, that seems to be overlooked within the essay is moments of feed[back] systems, realTime image processing, and live preformative elements developed in Chicago by Dan Sandin and Phil Morton (with Tom DeFanti later on). Regardless of their marginalization in the cannon (compared to Bruce Nauman lets say), it seems unavoidable to call upon these types of makers to disrupt, and/or problematize the idea of video being an "easy solution to film." <br><br>If video was an obvious financial choice of artist in its earliest moments, then why did artists such as Paul Sharits and Hollis Frampton continue to work in film? Frampton in particular could have easily made Nostalgia(1971) in video, however he was influenced by the weight of narrative history that occurs in film cinema. He uses film artistically in order to deconstruct the language that narrative cinema to that point had established (and continues to maintain). In essence, video was, and should continue to be not a substitution for finance (although I'm aware that it is necessary sometimes), but instead an aesthetic decision that makers should utilize. <br><br>Video artists did not keep the medium happily to themselves, and to propose that Video now bemoans the encroachment of the 'professional world' or to an invasion of 'filmmakers' to me seems historically(hystorically) hypocritical. Early Video moments occurred (not exclusively mind you) as a response to the 'professional world,' particularly to Television. They were the encroaching force on the medium at one point, and their viral tendencies now grace our canonized worldview, and we congratulate and admire those moments of broadcast bastardization. <br><br>Cinema is not imagining. Watching cinema is imagining. Cinema is a construction, but it is also a device used for documentation, and this I believe occurs throughout different mediums of time based image making. It is important to distinguish between recording and documenting. Recording on the one hand is supposedly objective, whereas documenting is a subjective act (regardless of what <font size="2">Cinéma vérité</font> has tried to teach us). There are constantly decisions being made in cinema that dismantle an argument for objective filmmaking (such as an edit). In this way video is also not a recording device, but instead of documentation machine. <br><br>The "Film Image" is now an index. There are rules, implications, references, styles, and constructs that are (for the large part) maintained by commercial ventures. and this has allowed for alternative mediums to insert themselves into the act of filming (for instance game design). Moving images made with a camera are now bound by their constructs, and the insertion of different tools does not enhance any potential that cinema has to offer. To presuppose the introduction of new technology will bolster the medium seems too linear, and only will help solidify the modern epoch of 'progress,' whereas the democratization of tools should defer into a more pluralistic opportunity of radical image making. <br><br>These rule sets continue to be unchallenged by mediums due to expectations that cinema has made and continues to abide by for the past century. Digital production has marginalized the effort of making a clear distinction between film and tape and now high-end HDV/HD production where 'data' is the new film( i.e. tape less/film less digital recording of files to portable HDD) has blended the vernacular even more. However, these new technologies continue to unchallenged the constructs that cinema has created over time. From a narrative cinema standpoint, new tools sets have just started to disrupt the conventions of cinema (for instance Russian Ark, and its break down of the expectation of cuts in film). Now there should be a call for deconstructing cinema along side the development of new tools. Cinema is constantly being reborn, but that resurrection does not rely on new mechanisms it relies on new thinking. <br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 1/18/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Heiko Recktenwald</b> <<a href="mailto:uzs106@uni-bonn.de";>uzs106@uni-bonn.de</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Hi,<br><br>porculus wrote:<br><br>> just a question of $..welknown those who find filth super8 of their granma<br>> hidden in their dead granda bazar are surely from a good wealthy<br>> familly..it's all as cocaine & drugs & pornographie in XIX and early XX, <br>> just a bourgeois caprice funnily sew by law & police..we all want to be<br>> bourgeois with funy police<br><br>See also "Felseneiland mit Sirenen", the entrance of a house in<br>Charlottenburg, RG 79, something, the artists rights and the rights of <br>the owner, no Citroyen colors on Dubuffet, the Lehrter Bahnhof etc.<br><br><br>H.<br><br><br># distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission<br># <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, <br># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets<br># more info: <a href="mailto:majordomo@bbs.thing.net";>majordomo@bbs.thing.net</a> and "info nettime-l" in the msg body<br># archive: <a href="http://www.nettime.org";> http://www.nettime.org</a> contact: <a href="mailto:nettime@bbs.thing.net";>nettime@bbs.thing.net</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Lismore ------=_Part_39673_18828023.1169827699094-- ----- End forwarded message ----- # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net