From: Jason Halprin (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Jan 24 2007 - 09:49:04 PST
Adam,
You Wrote:
Video art draws much more, I think, from television and cinema than
from experimental film. The level of media sophistication that people
are absorbing from television and film is surprising (although I
suppose it shouldn't be).
______
I do not disagree that the level of media sophistication most people
are absorbing is high, but this seems unrelated to your first sentence.
Experimental film has never been a widespread media in the way that
television and cinema have been, so it would follow that people would
be making video art (today) in response to the media they are more
familiar with. How is this different from experimental film (or was
that even the point you are making)? I have always viewed experimental
film as drawing from cinema and television (think Conner's "Report,"
Brakhage's "Murder Psalm," for TV). It was in the cinema that the
language of film was first spoken, and it is from this origin the
experimental film works. I realize that there is also a heavy
influence of the other fine arts in experimental film, but is there not
also in video art? I may be casting the wide net in defining both
video art and experimental film, but it seems to me that all media and
art related, and it is the cultural experience of the individual(s)
making art that will be most critical to the influences present in the
work.
______
You Wrote:
However, in the case of film these glitches are the result of the
physicality of the medium whereas in digital video it is errors in the
information stream that result in the glitches. There is crossover, of
course. You can cause physical destruction to digital media (e.g. the
audio trio Oval scratching early CDs then playing them to produce new
sounds) but digital media is much more sensitive and in handling and
manipulating it you are as likely to utterly destroy your material as
you
are to produce something exciting.
____
How do you view the video glitch as an error that is diffent than the
physicality of a hair on film? The glitch arises from incosistencies
in the physical properties of the video system (deteriorated tape is
one possibility, but more likely there is a loose or improperly
functioning piece in the electronic circuit that is preventing data
from being processed in real time). I being nitpicky, I know, but it
seems that both the hair and the glitch are due to the physicality of
their respective mediums. As a side note here, have you seem Jesse
Bellon's "B Glitch?" A two minute video that is all a glitch, great
stuff.
______
You Wrote:
The manipulated reality that results from the intersection of digital
art and video is (or is becoming) an alternate reality unrelated to the
sleight of hand illusionism in experimental film and cinema. Last
thought: Should an experimental video artist know more about Stan
Brakhage or Ernie Kovacs?
______
Could you define what you mean as the difference between "manipulated
reality" and "sleight of hand illusionism?" I have seen video and film
works that each of these terms could refer to. I've always thought of
video art as featuring just as much sleight of hand as experimental
film...it really depends on the artist and what they are interesetd in
doing IMO. And Brakhage vs. Kovacs? I vote for Brakhage more for his
writing on the art of seeing, but really I would suggest that a video
artist know more about Joseph Cornell's boxes than about any moving
image - it's always about juxtaposition.
I have a feeling that we agree more than disagree in regards to this
thread (I feel that in 2007 it is plain wrong to consider film and
video art being made now as operating any other way than in potential
dialogue...actually, I should say film is constantly in dialogue, at
least in the background, with video, not necesarily vice versa.)
-Jason Halprin
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 2007 10:10:51 -0500
From: Adam Trowbridge <email suppressed>
Subject: Re: video haiku (was 365 v....) plus a plea for video threads
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