From: James Knox (email suppressed)
Date: Thu Jun 29 2006 - 02:06:54 PDT
I think Michael lends this thread a lucidity that has become a little elided by the oppositional thinking of Cartesian logic...
Frankly, the argument seems a little reductionist. What's the function of sound in these works, whether on film, video or 'other'...?
The moving image is the preeminent form for the cultural values of capitalism - irrespective of its source media... I prefer (to return to where it all began) the term 'mediaworker', because it suggest the possibilities of unities rather than divisions. It also conflates a lot of pompous romantic bullstuff.
(also, I'm mindful that technology comes from the greek tekne, which is hand I think. The machines can be different, but human agency is always - or ususally - pivotal. The tools you can't replace are intelligence and imagination, irrespective of your shooting and exhbition media)
Which is not to deny the functional difference of these material forms, just to acknowledge that (certainly, here in Australia) debates about which work should be privileged with funding, exhibition, etc, typically hinge on specific source media.
Right now, so called "new media" is having its state-sanctioned day in the sun. Last Friday I went to a seminar with representatives of all the peak national advocacy groups for creative media. The first speaker defined "new media" in opposition to film (she actually said it wasn't cinema, before providing an extensive catalogue of all the things it did include).
(In some ways fair enough, tho' I think there's an awful lot of shared ground. Interactives owe some kind of debt to the 'Kino Automat' for instance. And the connection that can be drawn between primitive cinema and new media are tremendous)
Precisely what noone discussed at the seminar, was the relative aesthetic merits of the work. I.e., this area of "new media" has achieved a form of legitimacy purely by virtue of its carrier apparatus.
so, unnh...
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Betancourt <email suppressed>
To: email suppressed
Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2006 18:03:58 -0500
Subject: Re: labels
By "no." I'm objecting to this entire division into supposedly "neutral"
descriptions of materials whose primary aid is to the conservator. This
labeling isn't neutral and, I would suggest, it doesn't "interpretive field
a geology" so much as decide the (potential) approahces to a work before we
even look at or think about that work--which includes a built-in set of
good/bad criteria. That much is obvious from even a passing read of this
thread. Thus my question about the good/bad issue implicit here.
Great. Let's talk about "value" rather than good/bad. What makes a work seen
"at Starbucks" devalued since obviously you seem to think that it is.
Michael Betancourt
Des Moines, IA USA
www.michaelbetancourt.com
www.cinegraphic.net
the avant-garde film & video blog
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.