Materiality and Discourse

From Cinemachines

[little book that potentially could be published in POP's series on film] [this project deals with materiality and discourse as ideas (historical) rather than "cinemachines" and "algorithms"] 


   1. Part I: Theory
       1. Mediality and materiality
       2. The development of camera
       3. The environments [rather than "periods"]
   2. Part 2: Traditions / Approaches / Histories
       1. Pure cinema
       2. Pure material
       3. Phenomenology and "scope"
       4. Meta-film and hypermedia
   3. Part 3: Towards a film archaeology


The first part deals with the mediality and materiality of cinema.

Elleström: Mediality and materiality (and substance) + Mediality or discourse (+ articulation)

Camera

Environments > introducing "environments" rather than "periods" > introducing "markers" of environment (but not yet the discourse surrounding them - see chapter 5)

[] how images migrate between discourses - especially mainstream and avantgarde - and how they are [informed/motivated] by both material and discursive factors.

Chapter 4 describes the "cinema pur" discourse which is closely linked to the origin of the cinema avantgarde. This tendency describes how "cinema" could become an art form through the distinction from other art forms (especially literature and theater) as well as "mere realism". This resembles the broader formalist-realist distinction in general film theory, but here it is especially interesting to see how this "purity of cinema" is achieved and through which means.

As we shall see, the "pure cinema" tradition gradually splits into other tendencies. First of all, a "pure material" trend, where each environment seeks it's own ontology to distinguish it from the other materials (e.g. "optics", "film", "video" and "digital"). This proposes different ontological question than "pure cinema" (remember "Direct Theory") that are closer related to the material practice (Schier's digital articulator, early video experiments, Paul Sharits in film, and so on). [Furthermore, these can be described as "scopes" that visualize a material "essence"]

These "spill" into mainstream film as (a) set decorations (e.g. Whitney's film in "Westworld" on screens + as "robot vision" (e.g. Robocop, Terminator) [again, closely related to "scope" too]), (b) as special effects depicting "new realities" (e.g. "Star Wars" or the "hyper-speed" film - a bit like the problem of "marmorering") and (c) as hypermedia, e.g. the use of Scanimate in "7up" commercials to signify "the latest".

The second division is phenomenological and "extended scope", relating to a broader "visuality" discussion (once again relating to "camera" and "anti-camera" movements). This tendency stems from a tradition of "the scope", which has been a problem since the first close-up. It heightens in the avant-garde, namely with the cinema of Stan Brakhage, and once again the images migrate (the relation between "Dog Star Man" and "Fantastic Voyage" is particularly fun - FV uses Brakhage's kind of optic to show endoscopy, and Brakhage uses endoscopy as optic element).

This furthermore spills into mainstream as "caustics" in film, e.g. "Bleu", "Marathon Man", "Die Hard", "Blade Runner II", [some Besson film] and so on.

Third tendency is "meta-film as Verfremdung" tradition. Both as surreal effects (e.g. in "Duck Amuck" where Daffy walks between frames), political purpose (Godard), and lately also as "retro media" where material markers are used to signify history and/or nostalgia (e.g. in "Shaft" (2019)).

> There's a historical point now where earlier media technologies are used to signify "old school" or nostalgia [thus calling their materiality into question (or accentuating materiality)], whereas contemporary media is seen as immediacy and "flawless"

[TV grafik og "effektfuld" visuel dybde]

What is the motivation behind film historical change?

Is there a morphology of phases (like Spengler, Goethe and Hegel) in every media? What are the aims of innovation? What is the relationship between mainstream and avantgarde?

From "exp film and pop.odt"

Experimental filmmakers and video artists have always led the lives of suppression.

Avantgarde experiments have been integrated in mainstream films to make sense of them, e.g. Whitney's films as display in "Westworld". Others participated in popular culture, either as special effects (Larry Cuba and Adam Beckett in "Star Wars"), commercials (Walter Wright), music video (who?) and so on.

Some famous mainstream filmmakers have made avant-garde, e.g. George Lucas, Jim Henson ("Time"), mv.

The ownership of machines was open to artistic use, either using the equipment after hours (such as John Whitney, Lilian Schwartz, Stan Van Der Beek) where artistic research was an essential part of new (especially digital) technology (AT&T, IBM) + borrowing equipment to other tasks (Brakhage's 16mm) or making artistic explorations in commissioned works (Brakhage's "Art of Seeing...", Lye's G.P.O., McLaren's commercial works, Fischinger's commercial work...)

Abstract film in popular culture

Jordan Belson: “While working diligently as an independent filmmaker within the flourishing West Coast scene, Belson’s visionary cinema caught the eye and imagination of Hollywood, with Donald Cammell making use (with Belson’s permission and an official licensing agreement) of Belson’s imagery for Cammell’s controversial science fiction film The Demon Seed. Philip Kaufmann went even further by hiring Belson to design key special effect sequences for his rousing bio-pic epic of the first American astronauts, The Right Stuff. Belson’s wonderful “fireflies” sequence gave form to the cosmic flares seen by John Glenn on his return to Earth, a voyage that had earlier inspired Belson’s remarkable Re-entry.” - http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2012octdec/belson.html 


Titel Year Director Anvendelse/discourse
Seven 1995 David Fincher *
Intro-sekvens (paratekst - filmens identitet)
  • Billede på en psykopats sind


Fantasia
 1940 Walt Disney
Oskar Fischinger
Jules Engel
2001: A Space Odyssey 1968 Stanley Kubrick
Trumball
Inspireret af Whitneys slit-screen (Keefer in “Abstract Video”: p 92)
??? 20xx ?? *
Music visualisering af hovedpersonens oplevelse af musikken (Cello?)


Punch Drunk Love
 2002 Paul Thomas Anderson Jeremy Blake
Vertigo 1958 Alfred Hitchcock John Whitney + Saul Bass
North by the Northwest 1959 Alfred Hitchcock Saul Bass
Psycho 1960 Alfred Hitchcock Saul Bass
The Right Stuff 1983 Philip Kaufman Sekvenser (effekter?) af Jordan Belson (se Keefer in “Abstract Video”: p 92)
Tree of Life 2011 Terrence Malick
“More recently Terrence Malick studied the work of Jordan Belson, Richard Baily, and other Visual Music filmmakers before creating the abstract sequences in Tree of Life (2011). Several shots from Wilfred’s Lumias are in the film.” (Keefer: p 92)

“Remember Terrance Malick's Tree of Life? Wilfred's Opus 161 was used during key moments in the film.” (http://www.wnyc.org/story/thomas-wilfred-and-art-light/ )

Ringu + The Ring 1998 + 2002
Nakata Hideo
Gore Verbinski
 Videobåndet (ifølge Akira Mizuta Lippit in “Video Cinema Ether (VCE)” et symbol for det analoge VHS-bånds død (i øvrigt produceret af det japanske selskab JVC) (p 146 in “Resolutions 3”) + den ringende fastnets-telefon (“The videotape is the ghost” - p150)
The Trial 1962 Orson Welles Bruger pinscreen-animation af Alexeieff
Westworld 1973 Michael Crichton *
Første eksempel på “digital image processing” på film til at lave pixellering (udført af John Whitney Jr. - firma er Information International)
  • “Matrix III” (med trekanter og hexagoner) er featured på nogle af computer-skærmene i kontrolrummet
  • Brent Sellstrom, who was the film’s visual effects coordinator.


Dancer in the Dark
 2000 Lars von Trier Artwork af Jeremy Blake (saml. Per Kirkeby i “Breaking the Waves”)
Challenge of Change aka Seeing the Digital Future 1961
AT&T/Bell systems
Dir: Robert Wilmot
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avHo0-qU8xo
Brug af “liquid light”-lignende motiver og “strenge” (især i starten)
Opbygning ift. business-kredsløb minder meget om “arbejdsdeling” fx. hos Vertov og Lye (eller var det McLaren?)
Demon Seed 1977 Donald Cammell Jordan Belson og Ron Hays bruges (MEGET) til at vise Proteus’ computerens kommunikation via skærm (inkl. At vores skærm overtages af dens billeder, fx. i samlejet - “I cannot touch you like a normal man, but I can do something else”)
Star Trek episode (Spock’s brain) Lillian Schwartz: In 1968 her kinetic sculpture Proxima Centauri was included in the important early show of machine art at the New York Museum of Modern Art entitled "The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age." This sculpture was later used as a special effect for a Star Trek episode, in which it served as a prison for Spock's brain.[2]* KILDE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Schwartz (14.05.2017)
  • REF: Lillian F. Schwartz with Laurens R. Schwartz (1992). The Computer Artist's Handbook. W.W. Norton.
  • SKULPTUREN: http://lillian.com/kinetic/ 


Auroratone, fx. “WWII Bond”
 1940s Cecil Stokes Psykiatrisk anvendelse af abstrakt billedsprog til at behandle PTSD
Futureworld 1976? a computer-animated version of Peter Fonda that appeared in the movie for about a minute. Futureworld also featured “A Computer Animated Hand,” a one-minute piece of CGI that was created by Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull.
The Last Starfighter
John Whitney Jr. + Gary Demos (Digital Productions) using Cray computer


Black Hole 1979 Gary Nelson 3D animation i credits af Robert Abel (se "HISTORY OF COMPUTER ANIMATION")
The Time Travelers 1964 Ib Melchior “The Lumigraph also appeared in a 1964 science-fiction movie The Time Travelers, in which it is a "love machine" that allows people to vent their sexual urges in a harmless sensuality.” - https://www.mauramcdonnell.com/colour-sound-2002/ 
Tron 1982 * Robert Abel
Star Wars 1977 * Adam Beckett (rotoscoping, including R2D2 shot by Jawas sequence)
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey 1991 Pete Hewitt * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital effects: ed, video Image)
Disclosure 1994 Barry Levinson * Richard 'Doc' Baily (computer graphics animator (uncredited))
The Game 1997 David Fincher * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital animation supervisor/producer)
Blade 1998 Stephen Norrington * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital animation supervisor/producer) (Image Savant)
Fight Club 1999 David Fincher * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital animation supervisor/producer) (Image Savant)
Battlefield Earth 2000 Roger Christian * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital animation supervisor/producer) (Image Savant)
The Cell 2000 Tarsem Singh * Richard 'Doc' Baily (computer animation) (Image Savant)
One Hour Photo 2002 Mark Romanek * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital animator) (Image Savant)
Solaris 2002 Steven Soderbergh * Richard 'Doc' Baily (digital planet animation) (Image Savant)
The Core 2003 Jon Amiel * Richard 'Doc' Baily (additional digital animation) (Image Savant)
Stay 2005 Marc Forster * Richard 'Doc' Baily (visual effects artist/producer/supervisor) (Image Savant)
Superman Returns 2006 Bryan Singer * Richard 'Doc' Baily (visual effects - spore design and animation)

ABSTRAKTE TITLES

  • Red Lights (2012, d. Rodrigo Cortés) - open: Jorge Calvo - Abstrakte “prikker”, Brakhage-agtig
  • Perfect Stranger (2007, d. James Foley) - end: Nina Saxon (vist?) - Organisk-geometrisk mønstre, ala Electric Sheep


MEDIE-IKONOGRAFI I FILMHISTORIEN

  • The Ring - den døende VHS (“The videotape is the ghost”)
  • “8mm” (Nicolas Cage)
  • “Sinister” (gyserfilm med Ethan Hawke, hvor han finder gamle smalfilmsruller med mord, der bl.a. Brænder op)
  • Poltergeist
  • David Lynch: “In Lynch’s films electromagnetic currency, TV, and the video image are frequently conduits from one sealed world to another. The anonymous videotapes that appear on Fred and Renee Madison’s doorstep in Lost Highway (1997) eventually penetrate their house (VHS) and record a murder yet to occur. The perpetrator, Fred Madison, learns of the murder (of his wife, Renee) that he has committed only upon seeing it on the screen; he is absented by this videotape from his own action. Videotapes and electromagnetic signals form the world of the TV series Twin Peaks (1990-91) and its film prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992). Killer Bob travels through the video ether, entering discrete worlds through TV screens and monitors. Everywhere in Lynch, video provides global entry and exit points” (lidt ligesom spejlet i gotisk-inspireret litteratur??) (p 153 in Akira Mizuta Lippit)
  • Videodrome (1983) - forårsager hallucinationer (mægtigt, bestålende over TV-skærmen)
  • Især i japanske gyserfilm (Ju-on og Pulse) bruges analoge medier også som noget, der både er besjælet med ånder (ghost in the machine - altså ikke bare klinisk, ren, åndsløs videnskab) og som “måleinstrumenter”, der kan måle (eller forstyrres af) åndelige aktiviteter, fx. Et spøgelse går forbi eller en person, der er forbandet (her ser teknologien det klarere end i virkeligheden, ligesom Proust’s myte)



EKSPERIMENTALFILM-TEKNIKKER I ANDRE GENRER

  • Reklamer og public service
    • Len Lye’s GPO-reklamer
    • McLaren’s GPO og “OBS”-agtige videoer
    • Fischinger’s cigaret-reklamer
    • Robert Abel
    • Scanimate
  • Børne-TV
    • Scanimate blev brugt i Sesame Street
  • Musikvideo
    • Beck laver “Voodoo Child”-musikvideo for Jimi Hendrix!
    • Earth Wind and Fire (Vist “September”) bruger synth
  • TV-grafik
  • Special effects i spillefilm
    • Star Wars: Adam Beckett, Pat O’Neill, Larry Cuba…
    • Close Encounters
  • Motion graphics i spillefilm, tv-serier, mv.
    • Saul Bass og John Whitney i “Vertigo”
    • Maurice Binder i James Bond-serien
  • VJ’ing, koncerter, mv.
    • Joshua White
  • Dokumentarfilm…?
    • Fx. Larry Jordan’s Indien-filmen… udvidet brug af optisk printer
    • Beck (i interview med Gregory Zinman - Paik Archive) refererer til en dokumentar om “Autobiography of a Yogi”, hvor nogle af visualiseringerne minder om hans billedforståelse (p 18) - muligvis “AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda”
  • Medical films, oplysningsfilm
  • Hypnose-bånd, psykiatrisk behandling, hypnose
    • Dick Sutphen's "Incredible Self Confidence" (1987) m/ Emerald Web's video synthesis
    • Dick Sutphen’s ”Sedona: The Psychic Vortex Experience” (1984)
    • Psykiatrisk behandling i form af Cecil Stokes’ bånd mod PTSD
    • Yantra (James Whitney) som meditations-redskab
  • Planetarium
    • Jordan Belson i Vortex



“The fact that animators get involved with money-earning activities (children’s television programs, TV commercials, music videos, special effects) and with the other arts is not new. Since the beginning Richter and Ruttmann and Fischinger, Reiniger and Bartosch and Lye, Alexeieff and Parker, Bute, Grant and Lee have for long or short periods made documentaries, medical films, commercials and logos, sequences for features and even entire full-length live-action films; they illustrated books, painted, made kinetic sculptures, taught filmmaking, ran commercial animation studios, wrote articles and books about films and art.” (p 16 in Russett and Starr)


Og omvendt - teknikker kan også arves fra andre domæner

  • Jordan Belsons teknikker er inspireret af planetarium-opgaver
  • John Whitneys maskine stammer fra “air-craft”

Diskurser i exp. film

Traditionelle diskurser (jf. "Eyes, Lies and Illusions")

  • Okkult
  • Videnskabelig
  • Underholdning/Legetøj


Videnskab og underholdnings-dualiteten beskrives også af Jonathan Crary i “Techniques of the Observer” iflg. Egbe & Woodward (p 2)


War and cinema

  • Virtual reality on-head-ting var også militær instrument (jf. Oliver Grau’s “Virtual Art”-beskrivelse på Karagarga)
  • Whitney’s analog computer
  • Virilio (1997) og Kittler (1999) iflg. Egbe & Woodward (p3)
    • Optical printer var oprindeligt en masse-produktions-maskine til at sprede propaganda


Black-boxing

  • Bruno...


Experimental film discourses

Diskurs Beskrivelse Eksempler Kilder
Film-ontologi
Cinema pur
Perceptions-diskurs
Stan Brakhage
William C. Wees: Light Moving in Time
Altered states of consciousness (psykedelisk) I video er der en overensstemmelse med sindets entoptiske krafter og mediets substans (Coppoly?)
James Whitney
Jordan Belson
 Coppoly
Cosmic consciousness
“2001” (Kubrick)
“Moon” (Scott Bartlett)
Eric Siegel (Coppoly: 75)
Youngblood
Visual music
Expanded consciouness/cinema
Videnskabelige “scoper” Tidlig artikel i [Sight and Sound: Winter 1936/1937: Volume 5, Issue 20], som diskuterer filmens muligheder som#
erkendelses-instrument
  1. visualiserende


Post-human
Instrument (video synthesizer)

Abstraktions-strategier i tidl. exp. film

Typiske strategier for at opnå abstraktion er:

  • Hurtig klipning
  • Nærbillede
  • Fotografisk abstraktion (jf. Arnheims differentieringselementer)
    • Sort/hvid
    • Mangel på lyd
    • To-dimensionalitet
  • Multi-eksponering
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