Cine-Machine as Method: Preface
These pages are a translation of my master thesis in Art History at Aarhus University. It was written in 2016 with Peter Ole Pedersen as my supervisor with the Danish title "Filmmaskinen som Metode - Om påvisning og betydning af algoritmisk agens i optisk-kinetisk værker".
Abstract
This thesis presents and develops the term "film machine" as a method. Inspired by recent art historical scholarship this method applies a "material turn" to film studies and discuss how it can be used in both analysis of individual films and in film history.
A film machine is defined an optical-kinetic instrument that creates, manipulates and/or displays cinematic illusions, and the method uses these machines as the object of its study. In this way, the method is a type of film archaeology whose goal is to gain knowledge about a historical artistic practice based on the available tools. The empirical data to study these film machines can be the machines themselves (if they still exist) as well as finished works, sketches, demonstrations, technical reports, manuals, interfaces, manifestos etc.
The thesis argues that rather than divide film history into a periodical scheme based on the opposition between analogue and digital, we must use a spatial scheme where the technological environments of film can co-exist without necessarily replacing each other. These environments are labelled optomechanical, chemical-mechanical, electronic and digital, thus cancelling terms like "pre-filmic" and "post-filmic" based on the assumption that "film" refers to the emulsion-based medium. Instead we must conceive film as a mediality.
Within this mediality there are the four main environment of technology and based on these we can categorize "film machines" according to which type of signal they handle. Each environment has certain indexical signs that are traits of its materiality, however, since the spread of the digital, this old notion of sign has been challenged.
In response to this, this thesis uses the metaphor of an algorithm as a basic model to describe how film machines operates. This basic tool seeks to define the input, parameters and outputs of a film machine, hence considering it an input/output-system that implicitly governs the creative process and affords certain types of expression.
The algorithm is developed through the concrete analysis of 5 film machines and 4 films works in which they are used. The 5 machines are: John Whitney's Arabesque-software, the film projector, the Gasparcolor-system, the optical printer and Stephen Beck's Direct Video Synthesizer.
The study of these machines is designed as a comparative analysis of their algorithms, which focuses on how 6 central motifs are imitated and transformed between these machines. By demonstrating the agency of the film machine in each appearance of the motif, we can argue that the motif is motivated by it in a material sense. But when we motifs appear almost similar across environments and machines, we must ask whether this imitation is motivated by materials and tools or iconography and film history.
The study concludes the method cannot determine this ultimately, but that it can be used to nuance our attention what transformations could be a result of a certain film machine. At the same time, these studies leads to a genealogical aspect of the film machine method that detects how imitation also happens from machine to machine. The thesis concludes that an important aspect to be aware about is the difference between an imitation of a parameter and an imitation of an appearance (of the output). This distinction is crucial because it often has immense influence on how the practice in relation to the machine is facilitated.
The results lead to two proposals for further development and application of the method. The first is the area of film history that can be reevaluated based on the history of film machines. This study would require an individual study of the history of the film machines themselves, which could be modelled on the genealogical principles established in this thesis, and could possibly develop the film machine as a way to address material agency in the historical development of the language of cinema.
The second area identifies the contemporary film machine as software and apps. These objects are not "films" in the traditional sense of the word, but they can be "film machines" in that some of them facilitates creative optical-kinetic practice. In this respect, the algorithm model can be a relevant, critical tool to discuss how previous practices are remediated in the digital. The interactive digital environment also provides a notion of the user, as opposed to the recipient, that can be seen as second coming of the earliest years of the film machines where the machines were personal toys for recreative purpose. This brings a new aesthetic perspective to the method where the use of the film machine is essentially related to a human acquisition of the laws of the algorithm within the machine.
Notes on the Translation
The translation of this thesis began in November 2019. Although the thesis could easily be expanded, I have tried to make a direct translation of the original Danish text in order to convey what was at the beginning of my film archaeological inquiry. When there are errors, I have corrected these, but I have made a few major changes to avoid confusion with the rest of this site:
- The "plastic-mechanical environment" is named the "chemical-mechanical environment" in the Danish original. I have changed this label to more clearly distinct the plastic from the optical. Whenever it occurs in the text, I have replaced with "plastic", and I have moved the few paragraphs and diagrams that deal with this distinction in the text (mostly in Chapter 2 about the environments).
- In Danish, "film" is usually used as the broad term, equivalent to what is "cinematic" in English. This makes some of the introduction hard to translate because a lot of the confusion with "pre-film" and "post-film" can be avoided by a conception of the "cinematic" as such. Because of this, I have tried to rework the English text to reflect this difficulty in Danish terminology.
I have used "cine-machine" to translate "film machine".
Note to the reader
Writing about films presents communicative challenges, especially when the analytical points relate to the way figures move or fully synthetic direct film sequences. I have tried to gather snapshots of the sequences analyzed to illustrate the analytical pointers, but otherwise I will refer to the "Other Resource" section at the back, with links to the four primary works, so the reader can experience them for him-/herself.
When the images in the text are from these films (John Whitney's Arabesque (1975), Len Lye's A Color Box (1935) and Rainbow Dance (1936), and Stephen Beck's Illuminated Music 2 & 3 (1972-3)) I haven't stated the title explicitly, hoping it will be obvious from the context. In pictures from other film examples, the title is listed in the caption and I will refer to the "Work List" for further information.
The images that come from other sources (and which are not my own work), I have listed the source in "Image References" at the end.
Finally, I have also listed some interactive resources including my own web-based simulations of certain film machines, and small videos demonstrating particular aspects. These are compiled under "Other Resources", and I refer to those with brackets (e.g., "{A}") in the body text. I hope the reader will take the time to examine these as well, as they can often be given to understand the very technical explanations.
