Leili on Sat, 4 Aug 2001 21:36:21 +0200 (CEST) |
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[Nettime-bold] FW: someding zu read |
---------- From: Arthur Clay <artclay@netsurfer.ch> Reply-To: lev@shoko.calarts.edu Date: Sat, 04 Aug 2001 18:57:18 +0200 To: lev@shoko.calarts.edu Subject: Re: someding zu read maybe people are actually interested in discussing art on this list. snotty comments are welcome so do respond. ------------------------------------------ Wallpaper Slaughter Houses, Introduction The modern artist working with what has come to be known as ‘new media’ is faced with a dilemma. Commercial veins working with the same media, but producing what they produce, can afford the equipment and the manpower to run it, however the modern artist wishing to work in this area can not. To judge the art as being inferior technically compared with the products of the industry would be a just call. Considering there is more to that what artist produce than the technical aspect, we can then level out the imbalance between the technological and the aesthetic by considering other categories. Artists are not concerned, lets us say true artists here, with producing technical fireworks, but would like to be innovative by including the technical with the theoretical in the form of a new art work. The cultural hero of the 19th century has been replaced by the competitive one in the 20th and he in return has been replaced by the machine. In the long run, the ‘inferior’ human aspect is lost and replaced by the ‘perfect’ machine. Without the power glove we can not play ‘be’ and if so we have to put on or winter mittens as an alternative we just end up sweating on account of indoor climates. Have we been castrated, made inept, because we can no longer celebrate that what we are? this short article tries to deal with the above conflicts and suggests alternative ‘domains’ which we as humans can create without the use of technology or the affordable variety of it, by just turning our imagination back on and invoking it in others. A Hollywood Cathedral Lev Manovich has written that effect films are the ancient cathedrals of the twentieth century. In a sense, this is true. Many highly skilled people have worked for years, to create something which could only be accomplished by group effort. But when considering the function of such a film in comparison to a cathedral and the amount of holding interest over the years for such a film, we come up with much less of a comparison. A ‘Chartres II’ is simply not needed, but we do need a ‘Terminator II and III and IV etc.’ to keep the interest. The largest point of difference, is that action films are taken off the market when they don’t make money anymore. Making your way through the labyrinth in Chartres is not the same as following the bloody action of Terminator II. It is clear both do not have the same message. We know from the newspapers and other sources that action films have brought a high amount of violence amongst the young. There are of course many parallels to be drawn between an 3d graphic action film and a ancient cathedral. The parallels have no substance and I prefer the silent space of a cathedral than the the wallpaper slaughter houses of twentieth century fox. In order to render a small part of the action films ‘Terminator II’, ‘Jurassic Park’ or any other film which utilizes modern 3d computer graphics, it costs millions of dollars and takes over a year’s time to render just a few minutes of it. Ironically, we then get to view the results on 2d wallpaper in a darkened room. The technical innovations far out weigh the dramatic content and the presentation manner of the film. One asks one self, where’s the real innovation? The reality like quality, so sought after by the film makers is also too perfect. The effects of a badly made home video manned by an unskilled camera person invokes more reality than any trillion dollar film. It also conveys more by simple including the human aspect of family even with its defects. if we look beyond the technical, we can recognize human values that are are inherent in the action and not tacked in to text to be politically correct so as not to offend its backers. An Imaginable Technology If we analyze what a screen is and the two sided space it is made up of, we can use this information to create ideas, although not as expensive and time consuming, the ideas can lead to results of high artistic quality and have interesting subject manner. There are other themes around than those of blood, sex and fake dinosaurs. Do we really have to exit our world, park ourselves in some germ-infected seat of a shopping center action-only-cinema, to ignore the world in which live, and which is more interesting and relevant to our lives? No. We know that there are two sides to a screen. The one side is the viewer’s side. He or she sits in his chair and remains there until the film is finished. Although he or she could change his seat after having bought popcorn, smoked a cigarette, or having gone to the toilette, he would see the same exact thing in the new position as in the old position. This is one of the downfalls of the two dimensional screen. When considering the other side of the screen, the actor’s side, we hardly notice that it contains a similar and more extreme limitation. The actor must stay in his or her position in order to be seen by the camera. The camera moves and not the actor and because of this, movement is expressed in film by camera technique. So like the screen itself, the audience and actors remain on fixed points and form another similarity to many ancient cathedrals: Slavery and bondage in modern times. The Dream Screen Perhaps there are other parallels we can draw. The idea that we go to the cinema to dream is a curious idea. A dream is screenless. It takes place in the mind in a three dimensional space. We can enter our dreams by penetrating them in their spaces. We have the feeling of depth sensation. This sensation we can’t get from film. If we want to stick or finger in the proverbial apple pie in a film, we just get shadows. If we do this with a dream, we put a whole into the apple pie. If we were to remove the screen and still be able to view the actors we would find ourselves in the theater. If we then continued in this manner and removed the dividing line between stage and public, we would find ourselves in a single three dimensional space. Within this space many conceptual ideas associated with virtual reality technique are possible. It can therefore be said that the human mind possesses more cinematic quality than film itself. I don’t think any one is even arguing this point, but then why go through all the trouble and expense to get something of less quality? By using the concepts of cinema it is possible to develop ideas of multi-dimensional space, which unlike their cinema counterparts are easily within the reach of a modern artist possibilities. Perhaps a comparison of dreams and film is not a fair one, but the important point being made here, is that we would like to have three dimensional space using new media and can have it without the expense and all those computer geeks and without giving up our lives to a computer keyboard. We obtain this with the use of the mind and this remains the main element of art, whether it is film, painting, theater or whatever. We use our mind to create and that what we create invokes a similar response in the viewers mind. The artist invokes a third dimension by including it while conceiving his art. Though the abilities as an artist he or she can then coax the viewer into new dimensions by having the viewer fabricate that which is not present by engaging his or her imagination. A truly virtual reality system and in this way we can compete with George Lucas easily by just simply thinking again. Conclusion We don’t need the screen to create a virtual reality. The concept of immersion can therefore be based on the mental state of the viewer. We can use our minds to move in and out of both sides of the artist-viewer screen in order to accomplish this. We are no longer fixed to a single point in space. When we change locations we obtain a different perspective, see something new and thereby change scenes. The ‘actor’ is also free to change his perspective, or even more than one actor may do this without demanding that the camera to zoom out to catch the changes in position. The only borders here are the imagination of the viewer or his willingness to immerse himself into the happenings around him, and of course the abilities of the artist to invoke a media space which can be considered to have a cinematic effect. The four walls which contain both actor and viewer can be seen as the inside of the media space containing, scenery, actors, layers and the effects we are subjected to by engaging the mind. Here it can be said, that most movie viewers would rather be in the film acting than sitting outside it and just passively watching. In this manner we can experience three dimensional space described above as media space, which includes both sides of the screen and extrapolating beyond it by the employment of the imaginative skills of the artists and viewers. Art Clay Basle 4.9.2001 -- LEV List Webpage : http://shoko.calarts.edu/~cchaplin/lev/lev.html -- _______________________________________________ Nettime-bold mailing list Nettime-bold@nettime.org http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold