I was thinking about the first response that came to me as we discussed the digitization of archiving. I don't wish to get into my past Blog entry's shit on digital vs. analog signals and warmth and tone and bits and such. Instead, what interested me was the LUCK involved.
I was reading an essay last night in The Believer on Fielding Dawson. Some of it can be found here:
http://www.believermag.com/issues/200612/?read=article_fox
What struck me was the place where Dawson was inspired, the place where he met his working contemporaries. Black Mountain College. It intrigued me the minds that worked at this place. Many of whom knew Dawson and came up in the essay.
I investigated it considerably and though about applying for grad school there, in the past, 50 years back. Daydreamed.
Then I got the email from Bleu about researching Jonathan Williams. I knew the name rung a bell and it sent me back into my study of Black Mountain.
It seems that the most inspiring connections - the most alluring luck - in the world of literature comes from serendipitous chance. Not through hyperlinking.
There's something to be said for time spent nose-deep in books and the quest that comes with discovering new information on paper. Algorithmic searching never seems to provide the satisfying response that a more labor-intensive libraric quest might.
No?
Monday, February 19, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Buddha Trainwreck
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about film projects. The film-feedback project and a work-in-progress got me thinking about the things that film can do that other media cannot. I guess if we wanted to, we could sort through the masters of each individual medium and find that what they did was unworkable elsewhere.
Sure, it's a conjecture, but it might be what makes a work good. The impressionists were responsive to photography, right? "A photo can do this? Well, a photo can't do that."
So, in keeping with properties of media that cannot be replicated, here is my proposal for a new work:
Two Buddha Machines play a loop in tandem from two separate stereo channels. The loop is less than a second long. Due to the minor difference in length (the wonderful imperfection of this machines), they begin to trainwreck after a few 'measures.'
Basically, their rhythms will fall further apart. If you don't know 'trainwreck,' it's a DJing term.
Two projectors will each be displaying the same or a different piece of film on two halves of a screen. The halves will mimic the stereo channels. Each projector will be loaded with a loop of film exactly the length of the corresponding Buddha Machine's loop (or precisely twice, no more).
As the looping of the audio falls out of sync, the looping of the film will do the same. The viewer's mind will make new connections between the sound and audio just as they make new connections between the 'instances' in the half-second loop.
It's a trainwreck meditation.
Sure, it's a conjecture, but it might be what makes a work good. The impressionists were responsive to photography, right? "A photo can do this? Well, a photo can't do that."
So, in keeping with properties of media that cannot be replicated, here is my proposal for a new work:
Two Buddha Machines play a loop in tandem from two separate stereo channels. The loop is less than a second long. Due to the minor difference in length (the wonderful imperfection of this machines), they begin to trainwreck after a few 'measures.'
Basically, their rhythms will fall further apart. If you don't know 'trainwreck,' it's a DJing term.
Two projectors will each be displaying the same or a different piece of film on two halves of a screen. The halves will mimic the stereo channels. Each projector will be loaded with a loop of film exactly the length of the corresponding Buddha Machine's loop (or precisely twice, no more).
As the looping of the audio falls out of sync, the looping of the film will do the same. The viewer's mind will make new connections between the sound and audio just as they make new connections between the 'instances' in the half-second loop.
It's a trainwreck meditation.
Monday, February 5, 2007
On The Tactile in Arts
I had a terrible time explaining to my friend and co-worker why I had purchased a Super 8mm movie camera instead of a digital handicam. I showed him some Youtube short films of passing cars and pedestrians shot on 8mm. Over and over, I repeated the shot of pedestrians crossing in front of a store, as the light from behind them created silhouettes.
It has a better feel than digital, I explained. Digital just looks like shit, imperfections are better than artifacts, grain is better than pixellation. I tried but couldn't explain.
It reminded me of the Boards of Canada talking about how they swore they could hear the difference between analog and digital reverb in music recordings. This is a group who produce some of the finest electronic music out there - some of the most endearing and the most intelligent - completely in analog.
This is a debate that in no way resists the progress of technology. But what if technology just makes us lazy? The hardest part to explain to my friend was that processing the film would be astronomically expensive - something to the tune of $10 a minute. Why limit myself? I'm sure not rich.
And what of the photographer who shoots only one image a day - exposes only one negative. Isn't this the kind of discipline we should cultivate in order to maintain photography as a craft? No longer would we have to argue that it isn't simply the one picture we've taken out of 14 billion that captured light and form perfectly. It was all the work we put into one image in one day - or three minutes for $30.
No more fucking around.
Somewhere between work ethic and the warmth of analog is a comfortable place that favors puppets over CGI and hammers over keys.
It has a better feel than digital, I explained. Digital just looks like shit, imperfections are better than artifacts, grain is better than pixellation. I tried but couldn't explain.
It reminded me of the Boards of Canada talking about how they swore they could hear the difference between analog and digital reverb in music recordings. This is a group who produce some of the finest electronic music out there - some of the most endearing and the most intelligent - completely in analog.
This is a debate that in no way resists the progress of technology. But what if technology just makes us lazy? The hardest part to explain to my friend was that processing the film would be astronomically expensive - something to the tune of $10 a minute. Why limit myself? I'm sure not rich.
And what of the photographer who shoots only one image a day - exposes only one negative. Isn't this the kind of discipline we should cultivate in order to maintain photography as a craft? No longer would we have to argue that it isn't simply the one picture we've taken out of 14 billion that captured light and form perfectly. It was all the work we put into one image in one day - or three minutes for $30.
No more fucking around.
Somewhere between work ethic and the warmth of analog is a comfortable place that favors puppets over CGI and hammers over keys.
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