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Youngblood w/Phil Morton

Hey everyone, here's a pretty awesome video of Gene Youngblood lecturing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the 70's, manipulated by the Sandin IP. It's sooper cool.

Gene Youngblood at SAIC from Phil Morton on Vimeo.

Optional Reading

Hello all,

I know I've already got some optional reading for you guys, but in the case that you're looking for a little more help on thinking sculpturally about our immaterial media (i.e. expanding cinema/video into space), I found a link to an essay by Vito Acconci that might be helpful. Also, it may be good too look back at the Gene Youngblood chapter on intermedia and refresh yourself on some of those concepts. See you in the morning.

Vito Acconci - Television, Furniture, and Sculpture: The Room with the American View

Also, you may find this reading illuminating to the other readings we've been doing about Peter Campus and a video of his we will watch tomorrow called Double Vision. Double Vision document.

U B U W E B - Film & Video: Peter Campus - Double Vision
- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Bill Viola - Peter Campus Image and Self

I found it interesting that Campus got so deep into his own work of Self image projection pieces that he needed to get out. Campus piece, "Head of a Man with Death on His Mind," was himself starring intensely at the camera (the Viewer). I found this piece interesting because you have to rely on the title of the installation to understand what is going on. Peter Campuses pieces were so deep in the inner soul of existence portrayed in high contrast of black and white footage, I wish I could go see his works.

Uh-Oh It's Magic...

A Line Describing a Cone

I like the line McCall described between Avant-Garde film makers and film artists. "The two worlds sometimes seem like a Crick and Watson's double helix, spiraling closely around each other without ever quite meeting".

As a New Media artist I consider myself to be more connected with film than other mediums, but the question of "is it art?" always seems to be of concern. Is it art if it's a music video? What about a commercial? Many people would say no, I say yes.

The youtube documentation of A Line Describing a Cone makes McCall's written description of his work more understandable. Especially in that he gave a lot of credit to those who viewed his pieces and he described his works as an individual experience that is different for everyone. In this clip on youtube you can listen to the viewers conversations and see how they are experiencing the piece uniquely.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vr_lYSTfIo

16mm Resources

Hi Everyone,

I just got tuned in to a new website that has several different bits of information you may find useful if you work with 16mm in the future. This is maintained by a filmmaker named David Tetzlaff (who recently answered a question for me about diy repairs on Eiki focus knobs.)

http://djt16.110mb.com/

Also, for all things experimental film, you should know about the Flicker website. It's sort of the hub for this kind of work on the internet: www.hi-beam.net

IARTA lecture

I went to the lecture on Thursday night and Friday morning in the music building. David Dunn and Paul Demannis were the speakers. David Dunn is an artist/scientist how has done extensive research recording small insects such as the bark beetle in their natural habitats. He believes that they communicate with each other in a much more complex way than people have perceived and he makes it a point to listen to the environment in ways that no one ever has before. Because of this, a lot of his discoveries are really quite groundbreaking.

Paul Demannis is an artist and musician who teaches at Stanford University. His artworks are incredibly interesting and beautiful. He is interested mainly in communication technology and how they actually separate people from each other. A piece of his that I found really cool is called the Pygmy Gamelan '73. It is some electronic conductor that picks up wavelengths from surrounding signals to create beautiful tones. He tried to sell it as an alternative to car radio and it became a sound art installation piece. He also has managed to do things like play holograms of records with lasers.

Seeing these artists/scientists/musicians just made me want to learn more about everything that i'm not currently studying.

Gunning Reading

I like the idea that Cinema is an attraction, like an amusement park ride. The first people to see projected films were frightened and intrigued by them, as noted in Gunning's essay. "Confrontation rules the cinema of attractions in both the form of its films and the mode of exhibition". This suggests that people then and now enjoy seeing films because they like being confronted with the action and conflicts presented there in. This "thrill" allows people to live in the fast lane without actually being put in danger. Gunning enjoys the example of the train films, and the excitement and the rush of experiencing that powerful machine through film.

Gunning....

An interesting passage is at the end of page 119 when Gunning states that as in the magic theater, the apparent realism of an image makes it a successful illusion but one understood as an illusion nonetheless. Gunning goes on to elaborate further but I can see the relevance of his point today in term of the videos, projections and so on that we have developed. Even an abstract work follows his statement in that as it is animated, it gains life and we relate to it as real, albeit an illusion of real.

TomGunning Response

Gunning is a little dense with his wording, but from what I can tell, he begins by breaking down the short film "A train arriving at the station" which is pretty much just a demo for this new piece of technology. Gunning then analyzes the somewhat comical reaction the film received from the audience, which was pure terror. Apparently people actually thought the grainy black and white moving image of a train was going to burst through the theater walls, crushing them in a violent display of mayhem and destruction.

Gunning then goes on to discuss how the invention of film evolved from there, such as its uses in shows to create illusions and apparent miracles. As he goes on to describe these shows, Gunning not only portrays the aesthetics of these attractions as well as their meanings, but also goes into great detail on the impacts and impressions these types of shows had on minds of the audience. He explains how these types of phenomena have shaped cultures and fueled various areas of our market throughout the nineteenth century.

Part 5

It is interesting how video art and film have a way of finding, connecting, and reconnecting with each other. After getting a better understanding of analog technology when Lars visited and viewing examples of the machines capability it is easy to see how videographic technology works hand-in-hand with music, which I deduced is mainly through the psychedelic counterculture. Like Lars working currently with the neo-psychedelic band Neon Indian and occasionally with the Flaming Lips, Scott Barlett was also approached by classic psychedelic bands, like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. The appeal of the videographics is obvious when making the connection to psychedelic drugs and the visual experience that accompanies it. But I found it most interesting that the psychedelic bands, no matter the era, are interesting in analog video synthesizers and their vast capabilities in terms of a "visual experience" to go along with the soundtrack they provide.

Part 5

Youngblood describes the convince in how television has allowed us to see many historic events right from our own sofa. It is interesting how you don't actually have to be anywhere, you can just turn on the tv and let your mind wonder. I also find chroma-keying to be interesting use for artists to allow different colors to be omited out.

Part 5

I like how Youngblood describes television as a "powerful extension of man's central nervous system". I think this is a pretty accurate statement given the way we use technology, especially in this day in age.

In the section about videographic cinema I find it interesting how popular culture plays its part in the films of Jud Yalkut and Ture Sjolander and Lars Weck amongst others. Extremely distorted images of celebrities reconstruct the appearances of these idols "until little remains of the original icon". I'm assuming the music industry was a big "in" for a lot of these video artists as it still remains presently.

The idea of television as art is also thought provoking. I especially like Les Levine's philosophy that "all of television, even broadcast television, is to some degree showing the human race to itself as a working model." In some ways television can seem more like inserting a computer chip into your head that tells you who you should be, how you should dress and what kinds of things you should say and do. Les Levine's piece, Iris, was created more as a mirror for people to see themselves the way they really look, which is often different than the way people think they represent themselves.

Interesting IP project

I stumbled on this when poking around facebook and thought you all might find it interesting. An artist named Amy Karle is working on a project using a Sandin IP to generate a video waveform from her body's energy.

In her words:

"The instrument featured here is a Sandin IP - an analog computer that processes sound and video in real-time (learn more about it @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandin_Image_Processor). The instrument "reads" wave-form energy. My energy is the input here and as I meditate, the image and sound fluctuates with my "vibrations". This was just the first test in-house. I'll be showing publicly soon ~ it will include projections and be more of an "immersive" experience for the viewer too! The first show will be in August in Detroit - hope to see you there!"

Really Sweet DIY 16mm guide

http://filmwerkplaats.wormweb.nl/pdf/to%20boldly%20go.pdf

Also found this half hand written, DIY "DIY 16mm Guide"

http://www.angoleiro.com/cine_texts/recipes_for_disaster_hill.pdf

Not sure how I found this, but I did.

Nic Collins and McLuhan

I really enjoyed reading this chapter on video music/translating signals into sound, hacking etc. It was all pretty fascinating although, it took me a couple of times to read over each paragraph . The coolest projects I think he mentioned were creating video-free video with a raw loudspeaker and filling it with sand and connecting it to an amplifier. I also like the idea of taking a bar code "wand" and passing it over a variety of dark/light bar code like images. Also playing with magnets and old TVs looks so cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI6Ya73ykI

From the first paragraph of the McLuhan reading I am more interested as to what makes this person so nerdy than what he's actually saying. So I looked him up....and he went to Cambridge. Enough said.

McLuhan Response

The types of works McLuhan describe in this piece really interest me. When new media projects involve a certain level of inventing/engineering I tend to be inspired. I not only related to this article personally, but its quite relevant to my current work as well. In Jenny's class, I am constructing a series of surreal sculpture-type pieces, one which involves a jacob's ladder (climbing arc). For it I obtained a 9k volt transformer from a neon sign and am using thick copper wire for the electrodes. Really fascinating imo/

Nic Collins

I have just found it so interesting how many gadgets have been hacked, taken apart used for other purposes then intended. It has made me want to go start taking things apart to see what I can make or create by making oscillators. I also like all the warnings of the "killervolts" and to be careful with old tvs.

tv music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdUzUe37vIU

There are an amazing amount of hazard warnings in the Collins readings, the second line even re-assures you of no danger to your equipment this time. At least it balances out how encouraging it is. "Cloud Music" seemed simple by pointing a camera at the sky and letting the photoresistors translate cloud brightness into sound. But, at the same time it is appropriate with the unrecreatable method. It would be impossible to reconstruct the same sounds with the exact same weather input. McLuhan touches on all areas of television, mostly pointing out the direct effects on culture.

Collins and Mcluhan

In regards to the Collins article on visual sound, I found the project where Arthur Elsenaar and Remko Shcaa attached electrodes to Elsennaar's face to create a visual/sound representation of his facial expressions intriguing. Human emotion is a mystery that science has been unable to quantify, but using machines to capture emotions accentuates the enigma and allows for us to perceive emotions differently (in the context of art) rather than trying to understand them through the lens of scientific rationale.

Mcluhan seems to go back in forth in his perception of tv and its affects on culture. For example, he briefly explains that certain English dialects have re-emerged due to television, but then follows by explaining how tv is the cool medium for political propaganda. However, he does seem to lean more on the side that tv is degrading culture.

Video synths

Hey everyone. Two things I want you to take a look at for tomorrow:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qh6jRzjmcY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

this is a video by Dan Sandin where he demonstrates his early video synth, the sandin I.P. Lars' system is a kind of update of this iconic piece of equipment.

http://www.lzxindustries.net/

this is a link to Lars' company's website. Take a look, he has lots of videos uploaded. Have a few questions ready to ask him tomorrow. See you then!

part4

This section of Youngblood's text brings to light how computers can aid in human creativity, which is a sign of their intelligence as well. "The computer amplifies man's intelligence in about the same ratio that the telescope extends his vision," and in being such an efficient tool, merely completes the tasks that the humans assign to it, with often unexpected results pointing to its own creativity as a media. This is exemplified through the various computer films discussed.

Part 4

Youngblood talks about the computer as a part of man because it was made by and for man. It made me think about the computer assigning more value to backgammon than checkers. More affluent people play backgammon and the world trend moves toward wealth, but whose values were implanted for the computer to calculate? Are these values an extention of the playters? My brain assigns checkers as more important because more know how to play than backgammon. This is why "the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention man needs to make". The invention is an extention of the people who created it, everyone else has to adapt. Its like the iPhone, some people think its the greatest smartphone but some jail-break and adapt around Apple's attempt to restrict your play.

Youngblood-Episode Six

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Intermedia section of the Youngblood text. Specifically, the section on 'Artist as Ecologist', where Youngblood describes the synergy of art, intermedia, physics, metaphysics, engineering (etc.), as helping us become aware of unnoticed relationships on the micro and macro scales, and the places where they occur. He mentions how the artist and scientist, or artist/scientist [what have you] develop through the exploration of Form, Structure, and Place to achieve what I like to call a higher state [cloud 9, nirvana, formlessness, call it what you will], which leads well into the next section about intermedia as a medium to explore non-ordinary realities; holographic technology is on the way, stay tuned!

Youngblood 4

In this section Youngblood discusses the role of the computer and how it has affected man. He tells us how this tool was so powerful to our species, that we had to virtually relearn how to live in many parts of our lives. He also talks about how it was made by man, for man, and is therefore, a part of man. Youngblood also breaks down the inner workings of a computer and how they parallel the inner workings of a human. The bond between man and machine is already a strong one, and this bond continues to spread to various parts of lives.

Response To Dinnell

I'm not sure what Bruce McClure does that is awe inspiring because I could only find one link to a video of his. He does these multi-projector pieces, that by the text have been associated with the idea of "color music" and that has been a problematic endeavor for most artists/musicians who have attempted it. The author of the text seems to be a Bruce McClure fanboy and loses objectivity as the text delves further into praising Bruce for his masterpiece "Christmas Tree Stand".

Youngblood part 3

In Youngblood he goes to compare human intelligence with computer intelligence. It just so happens Jeopardy this week IBM's "Watson" will be competing for the first time against the two smartest human contestants. "There is a real possibility that we may one day be able to design a machine that is more intelligent than ourselves." (Southerland p. 187). It also brings up the interesting fact that if we design a computer more intelligent then man, then in turn would that machine create one more intelligent then itself? We use computers to run our lives from shopping, traffic lights, home use, vehicles, money, travel, and more.

Youngblood pt.3

In this section Youngblood focuses mainly on the meaning and technique behind the psychedelic visuals of 2001 and Jordan Belson's experimental film portfolio. Author C. Clarke, author of 2001, talks specifically about the techniques behind the creation of the effects used in the film, such as the light-slit machine and painting on glass, and explains how technical difficulties/experimentation can lead to future success. Completely opposing Clarke, Jordan Belson speaks conceptually about his work without revealing any specifics on how his visual effects are created. The mystery behind his work is intriguing, and it is interesting to know the narrative/ thought process behind each of his visual experiences.

I also wonder if Youngblood choose to interview Clarke after reading his interview in Playboy magazine. I guess Youngblood does read Playboy for the articles.

the flicker

"Viewers would term the experience of watching the film 'masochistic'." I found the readings on The Flicker interesting in terms of the open interpretation. I am prone to migraines triggered by light so I agree. I can only watch about 5 seconds of this type of film before turning away, even shutting your eyes doesn't stop the film's effects. The only reason I would continue to watch is if I intentionally wanted to give myself a major headache. Even though the film only consists of black and clear frames every viewer is going to see something unfamiliar, the inability to process the changes makes me feel like my brain is frying. This makes me think, are these perceptions really visually induced mini mind melts? The aim of the film is to free the viewer of the film maker's perception and make the personal experience the focus, "The pursuit of a 'de-automatized perception' that would interrupt and prolong the habitual processes of vision and thus render them newly conscious, transforming perception into appreciation". The intended effects on my vision result in a nightmare of transformed perception that my own mind produces. The marriage of art and science is explored in terms of experience perception but unexplained in terms of how the mind is being affected.

Part three "toward cosmic consciousness"

In this section of the book Youngblood further pushes the reader into the psychedelic sphere considering outer space visuals and philosophy as it relates to the human consciousness in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 A Space Odyssey and several of Jordan Belson's film artworks.

In 2001 A Space Odyssey, "the astronaut is a child of the new age, a man of cosmic consciousness". This according to Youngblood separates him from his family on Earth as he is part of a new generation. A generation which is subjected to face the reality that there are things beyond our home planet and that Technology will ultimately separate us from what we now consider nature. In an interview with Arthur C. Clarke, co-author of the film, he states "This film is about the two most important realities of the future: development of intelligent machines, and contact with higher alien intelligence. Which of course may be machines themselves".

Youngblood admires the way Kubrick merges science fiction and art almost seamlessly. He manages to keep a minimalistic vision that is strikingly captivating. Similar outer space visuals that were created in 2001 through the use of complicated inventions and big budget were also more simply created by Jordan Belson using an Oscilloscope in his piece Allures.

Belson's films are very much based off of his Buddhist practices and his concern with the inner and outer explorations of the soul. When creating Samadhi, 1967, "he severed emotional and family ties, reduced physical excitement and stimulations,(...)and focused on his inner consciousness." His inspiration and focus for this piece was our sun and how it is a process of life and death; a star being reborn and an atom which is part of a much larger, unseen structure.

I think that all of these films are extremely aesthetically pleasing. They are very different to me however. I think of Belson as more of a visual/psychedelic kind of artist and though his films are largely based off his philosophies they seem to stand without the narrative. Whereas 2001 a space odyssey brings up more psychological interpretations in my mind.

Example posting

Hi Everyone,

To provide an example of a slightly more interesting way to approach posting, I'm going to share a work that I think addresses (tangentially, at least...) part of this chapter by Youngblood.

Youngblood mentions at the beginning of the chapter that the language of cinema was expanding to include new technologies, and that likewise the language of science was expanding to include spiritual realities. A contemporary artist who I think exemplifies some current development in this thinking is a woman named Aspen Mays who approaches aspects of current science from the perspective of an enthusiastic, awe-filled amateur. A recent piece of hers called "Larry", which was a tribute to "Lawnchair Larry", an amateur who in the early 80's attached several weather balloons to his lawnchair in order to float about 3 miles into the sky, is a good example to start with.






You can see a short video documentation of the piece here: Larry Video

She sent a tiny little mock-up of Larry's chair into space with a video camera to document its ascent and fall. You might be reminded of the father and son who did something very similar with a tiny hd camera this last year.

While this may not relate directly to the kind of technology Youngblood is discussing, which primarily relates to his metaphor of the informational "Noosphere" forming a kind of common consciousness that relates to certain Eastern metaphysical systems, I think it does highlight one of the current approaches toward science and technology in contemporary culture: one that doesn't necessarily need to understand the technology fully to be filled with the kind of awe that could be described as "cosmic consciousness".

Toward Cosmic Consciousness

The internet and social media have brought us into a higher level of planetary consciousness, and the emergence of more powerful technologies for exploring interstellar space and sub-atomic space are bringing us into an elevated awareness of the cosmos. As Youngblood discusses, science has been lurking in highly conceptual, metaphysical realms since the early 20th century with the introduction of quantum physics, realms that have been explored by artists and spiritual seekers for thousands of years. Youngblood mentions a sort of revolution,"...the remarriage of reason and intuition," the fusion of art and science. The ancient civilizations seemed to make the connection between creativity and rationality facilitating a cultural paradigm which embodied the cosmic consciousness Youngblood discusses. The current paradigm is built upon the separation of things, especially rationality and creativity. I think Youngblood is saying that we need to see how all disciplines can be connected and applied into a cohesive system where one practice feeds the other in order to see how the universe works.

Youngblood 2

After reading just the first few paragraphs, I can already tell that it's turning into a who's better than who contest. Now that television has "revealed the observed, the observer, and the process of observing", as well as the fact that there's no longer any need to represent the human condition through art, expanded cinema must attempt to go beyond these concepts, not in a technological advancement way, but in order to deeper probe our consciousness where "synaesthetic" cinema is created and viewed. This point on how expanded cinema is constructed and observed by and through the viewer rather than the artist who directed it has been stated before in Rosler's text. It is an idea that I continuously find interesting.

However, there are times where I feel like the weirder or more abstract videos become, that the people who made them are all trying to be better than the other by saying "mine takes a deeper trip into the subconscious and is harder to understand, therefore mine is better!" I'm not sure if there is, in fact, any competition in expanded cinema since each video is different from each other, but I imagine this is how it would be if so. Not all new media work is like this, of course. There are many videos that are infinitely entertaining to me, whether I understand them or not, but every so often there exists a video I come across that seems to be trying too hard, that instead of being baffling yet fun to watch, is confusing and boring to watch. (I'm not trying to come off as ignorant when I say these things, but I definitely won't sit and watch a video that I don't understand and PRETEND to afterward. I believe merely acting like you know what the meaning of a work of art is, rather than admitting you have no clue what the idea was behind it, would be kind of insulting to the artist, and ultimately you'd be insulting your own intelligence as well.)

Youngblood part 2

Youngblood talks about cinema and the way film has changed into something more then a story with a plot. A way for humans to communicate on a more sexual level. Brown says this, "The Western consciousness has always asked for freedom: the human mind was born
free, or at any rate born to be free, but everywhere it is in chains; and now at the end of
its tether." Youngblood talks bout the "underground" movies for "personal cinema" which "is by definition sexual cinema" Sexual cinema moved from "underground" to commercial and later to Hollywood. Hollywood was breaking thou new ways of sexual exploitation and getting people use to seeing what was considered inappropriate or a "sin." I have noticed this from watching I love Lucy show to a show like Sex in the City. Slowly desensitizing the majority audience to accepting that is the way it is. Not only that but at the time personal recording devices made it easier for people to record themselves without worrying about censorship. This made it easier for culture and people to realize sex wasn't just man and woman and creating, but for mere pleasure and enjoyment. Andy Warhol created a sense of the "polymorphous-perverse." I find it interesting that Warhol help create films that had no drama and had a bases on redefining the unisex world we live in.

Youngblood pt.2

"Television is one of the most revolutionary tools in the entire spectrum of technoanarchy."

This term "technoanarchy" seems to be extremely fitting to what Youngblood is implying. He describes a new frontier of filmmaking that moves from being informative to becoming entertaining, as television has become the newest means of mass communication. This releases film from its traditional, realistic state to a new anything-goes state of "technoanarchy" that allows the artist to communicate cinematic experiences to the viewer.

Youngblood also has a very Freudian manner of thinking when he relates cinema and television to body and mind. "Humanity extends its video Third Eye to the moon and feeds its own image back into its monitors. "Monitor" is the electronic manifestation of the superego. Television is Earths superego."

I also found it amusing when the book referred to Andy Warhol's recent work. Gotta love 1970.

Young Blood Part 2

Synaesthetic cinema as I understand is all about experiencing film in a much more psychological way than the films that say hollywood produce. It's about reaching a state of mind, actually becoming more aware of yourself throughout the process. This is done by creating more meaningful and artful films that don't necessarily have a story or plot but communicate through images. "The effect of synaesthetic cinema is to break the hold that the medium has over us, to make us perceive it objectively." The goal is to shift from being a kind of entertainment for the masses that doesn't accurately speak for the masses to being something that literally anyone with access to the current technology can create and make it meaningful.

Youngblood-Synaesthetic Cinema

My interpretation of this reading is that cinema, or synaesthetic cinema is the most effective medium for expressing and realizing human consciousness because it enhances our sensory perception to communicate more efficiently. It is hard to ignore the power of cinema because we spend the most time, roughly an hour or two, watching a movie or a short film as opposed to a few minutes with a sculpture or painting. Directors and filmmakers have approximately one hour to mold our brains, plenty of time to bend time. It seems as though cinema is an evolutionary catalyst that is altering and enhancing human perception.

Rosler Rosponse

I believe that one of the most important topics that Rosler touched on was the "museumization" of video art in a gallery setting. She states that "the camera and print technologies were perceived as neutral, tool-like machine to be subsumed under the superior understandings of an aesthetic elite." With this statement she hints that photography and video art were undeserving of gallery presentation because they were not in the traditional style of making art, but perceived simply as a tool that created work quickly. It would also seem that fear had a role in the museamization of video art too. The "aesthetic elite" understood the accessibility of the camera and feared the idea that anyone could now own one, shoot video, and potentially call themselves an artist. " The neutralization of the mass culture puts the pressure on to produce a history art video, or video art, that belongs in the art world and that was authored by people with definable styles and intentions, all recognizable in relations to the principle of construction of the other modern art histories." This became the line between video art and amateur film. It became more important to understand that video art wasn't something that could be presented anywhere, but specifically tailored to be viewed in a gallery setting or installation. "Museumization has heightened the importance of installations that make video into sculpture, painting, or still life, because installations can live only in museums...[and also] contains and minimizes the social negativity that was the matrix for early uses of video."

Response to Rosler

While reading Shedding the Utopian Moment, the quote by Kaprow, "non-art is more art than ART-art," caught my attention. I have always found ready-made art pieces to be insulting. The idea of someone being able to simply choose an object at random, stick it on a pedestal and declare it to be art infuriates me. I feel like the artist should be responsible in some way for the objects creation, whether it be the design or the actual process of constructing the artwork. Duchamp did not create the design for the urinal, nor did he construct one himself to be displayed as "Fountain". However, Kaprow's quote has made me realize that there is another aspect to art that, until this point, I had not accepted. Kaprow speaks of the universe, down to particles of lint and dust, as being more spectacular than anything an artist could create. I would like to think that a ready-made sculpture is a way of bringing attention to the beauty of ordinary objects, and the credit of bringing attention to the artistic nature of the objects would belong to the artist of the ready-made sculpture. Despite the fact that no physical alterations were made, the artist created an alteration in setting, taking the ordinary object out of its natural environment so that the beauty of the object could be revealed to the audience.

M. Rosler

I was interested in the 'culture vs consciousness' idea in the reading and its persistence to emerge. With dominating groups trying to exploit the good out of every possible source and the skeptics of its potential, recognizing video as an art form strengthens the individual and opposes the mainstream.
“As the examinations of the Paik myth suggests, it would be equally mistaken to think that the path of transgression is the destruction of tv as a material object.” Even with all the roadblocks towards shedding western influence changing what the tv represents should be the correct goal. Like in the past, absorb and overcome.
I too wonder who belongs in this target audience the mainstream is supposed to be appealing to. Who decides to produce shows like Jersey Shore and Jerry Springer? Its not only disappointing that such shows ignore the consciousness but represent a cultures of poor values.

Response To Rosler

Again with the art speak and notions of how the "art world" is above the rest of society with its innate ability to be there when new technologies/opportunities arise. Rosler did do a decent job covering the gamut of art/technology from the beginning. Unfortunately, my comprehension of her more elevated statements was lost among her "flowery" art speak and long sentence structure. It's a great way to keep us regular artists on the outside and the "high artists" on the inside with the rest of Post Modernism.

Shedding the Utopian Moment-response

Rosler comments that film-art experienced its height in the 1960's with the counter culture/hippy culture in which psycholdelic and fluxus movements prevailed durring this utopic moment in history. Then, before or after she gives some sort of a westernized art lecture stemming from Dada to Surrealism to Modernism. All the"art world" talk about how non-art is more art than "art-art" made me wonder first of all (and this hasn't been the first time) what and who makes up this supposed art world and how come everyone talks about it?" In my opinion there is just one world and everyone is an artist of some sort within it but that notion isn't so glamorous as Rosler's notion I guess, or maybe its the same notion since i don't fully understand the term. However, I can presume that "art world" people probably consider themselves more cultured than others.
Rosler talks a bit about redefining media from the inside out using avant-garde film to challenge television. Trying to fight against the mass media turned out a failure since the common American has little to no input and since the people that do have control of the airways make way too much money and have way too much fun with it to ever want things to change.
I did find this reading interesting in a kind of tongue and cheek way because it totally dramatizes history in a way that I can't really relate to being born so recently. Did the people really take these things so seriously in the 50's and the 80's, I know the 60s were intense but times change.

Reading Response (Martha Rosler)

So I guess this was about how technology being introduced into society affected it? I find that to be a bit presumptuous; to draw conclusions on what everyone was thinking when so-and-so happened, but lets dive in.

A particular passage took my interest as I found it to be a bit obvious, which was jarring considering the piece I was reading. When referring to the affects of new video technology on society, Rosler says, "Commentators on both left and right looked on the centrality of the machine as meaning the decline of cultural values in the West." I think a lot people's first instinct when something new comes out is to exploit it. It didn't take publicly accessible TV channels long to start producing smut for the masses. I could site examples all day.

I also enjoyed Rosler's conclusion about Jane Livingston's except. Livingston basically says artist style is non-existent in video art, which of course is bogus. I suppose in 1974 no one could have guessed what forms video would take on in the near future.

Overall, the reading was a bit flowery in the wording, and Rosler's sentences sometimes drag on for six lines, but it wasn't bad. I just hope I can think about this critically at 8am tomorrow... See you then!

Jon Cates Glitch Presentation

Hey everyone. I'm not exactly sure how this video corresponds to the talk Jon gave at Centraltrak Saturday since I wasn't able to make it, but you should definitely take a look at this. It touches on several themes we've been talking about in class, including discussion of cyber-psychedelia, live glitch-based video performance, and thinking about technology as performing a "magical" function. This should provide an interesting counterpoint to the Rosler essay you are all reading for Monday and her discussion of the mystical/poetic strain of early video artists. Enjoy!

!NV0(ɔ)4XXX!0N555 PTI - jonCates (2011) from joncates on Vimeo.

Reading Response

(I believe I'm posting this a bit early, but I didn't realize that until half way thru writing it, so I'll post it anyway, ha ha.)

I found a particular statement in Martha Rosler's Shedding The Utopian Moment kind of interesting and would like to expand upon it. She was basically describing how one was not supposed to "enter the system, but to transform every aspect of it and ... to redefine the system out of existence by merging art with social life and making audience and producer interchangeable." After reading more thoughts on this issue, and with a bit of translating on my part so that I could easily understand what was being said, it seems Rosler came to the conclusion that video art creates its message or whatever image it portrays through the audience that's viewing it as opposed to industries or institutions that common broadcasting try to target. You're able to interact with video art through your own consciousness, which is what makes these videos, and the bond between art and technology, work in the first place. We don't usually feel much for normal, daily broadcasting on television because we've been inclined to think that it's always trying to sell or suggest that we do something that will benefit them, thus we lose whatever real connection we could have with those videos. Simply knowing that a video was made and meant for us to watch , that wants us to use our own interpretations, opinions, and "sensibility" to help birth the artist's AND the viewer's vision, is the difference between the "culture industry VS consciousness industry" Rosler mentions earlier.

Oops...

Hi everyone. As Andrew pointed out in his response, I botched the acronym that represents the course when making the blog. Sorry for any confusion (probably only my own.) As you can see, I've changed the title at the top of the blog, but the domain will remain the same. Also, I wanted to say that you each made some great observations on the readings for this last week and I'm looking forward to your responses in the coming weeks. That said, if it's possible to make everyone's response an independent post, this will be easier for navigating. Then, if you feel compelled, you can respond to the observations of your peers in the comment section. I'm sorry I didn't mention this the first day. See you in the morning.

Mike

response to readings

From reading the preface to Expanded Cinema I was then inspired to read the introduction which gave me a greater sense of what this book was about. From a philosophical standpoint I took from it that people need to start working together to make the world a more sustainable and practical place to live for everyone rather than getting all worked up over money and other short term goals which don't matter in the long run. Because the Universe is our home and it is a place that is constantly changing and moving and we know almost nothing about it. This seems like a really positive notion to me.

Kino Eye and Metaphors on vision seem to question human perception and suggests that we try to see without thinking or editing what we see, but to picture our eye as a camera and to observe what we see as real- "allow so called hallucination to enter the realm of perception"..."accept day dreams or night dreams, as you would so-called real scenes, even allowing that the abstractions which move so dynamically when closed eyelids are pressed are actually perceived."

Readings Posted

Hello everyone. In case I didn't have the right e-mail address for you, here is the link to the class readings:

http://michaelalexandermorris.com/readings.html

See you Monday.

Mike

Welcome to ATSU 4450 New Media Topics course on Expanded Cinema.

Hello and welcome to the course blog for ATSU 4450 New Media Topics at UNT. As we will discuss in class, "Expanded Cinema" is an approach to thinking about image making and media that can be interpreted liberally. We will be considering the historical and contemporary contexts of avant-garde film and video art and how they have informed and are informed by this particular perspective. Much of this will revolve around Gene Youngblood's text, "Expanded Cinema", but will include other writings as well. This blog will be a forum for us to discuss readings, projects, and works viewed in class. While this is a studio course, there will be readings assigned on a weekly basis, and you will be required to post a substantial response on the blog before the following class meeting and be ready to discuss. Readings will be assigned in class, but will also be denoted on the syllabus.

I'm excited to get to know you all and look forward to seeing the work you produce!


Here's a little something to whet your Expanded Cinema whistle.



Mike Morris