"Film making today is...

...questioning our understanding of our relationship to the universe." Yeah, that's pretty heavy handed. I thought about using world, or reality, or consciousness but none of them sounded any better. And how many times do you really get to use the word universe? All of my readings this semester were trying to build tangible pieces of understanding out of the vagueness of life. They cited philosophers throughout our history and applied their thoughts to films looking for the same answers, or to films that brought new questions to the old answers and ideas. I think film making, and really all art, gives us the chance to explore what we think we know. You know what, that sounds a lot better, but I'm sticking with universe.

Field Report #3: Art Encounter

One of the readings for class, Sounds of the Season by Ivan Peterson, stresses the need for us to open our ears. It suggests we should take the time to listen to the details of sounds, particularly the sounds of nature. It talks about wind and birds and barking. I wonder if any of them have ever listened to the sun. There are so many things were can listen to beyond what our naked ears can perceive, and Semiconductor’s Brilliant Noise and Jeanne Liotta’s Observando el Cielo provide some amazing examples. I was struck at first by both films mostly because my final project for another class was an animation of an eclipse that used the sounds from the magnetosphere and other satellite gathered radio recordings. So I was at first very surprised, but also I was so excited to see other films using this material. I will limit my discussion only to Observando el Cielo though because of their similarities. There were a couple things I noticed about the sound besides its familiarity. The first is that for most of the film it felt like a separate entity from the image. It always complimented the image, but there is hardly any fidelity between the two. I feel if the image and sound were to be separated each could stand alone as its own piece. I think this is a result of the filmmakers intending to put these sounds, which most people have never heard before, on display. I get the feeling like they want to display the sounds purely and don’t want the sounds and images to combine. But then there are points at which they do synergize, and what sticks out to me is the lunar eclipse sequence. This sequence also involves the second aspect of the sound that I found incredibly interesting. This sequence uses, what I’m assuming, is a bounced back a.m. or f.m. radio signal from decades ago. It gave me this incredible feeling of time passing, but the scope of time is so small compared to the age of the universe and the millions of years the light from the stars has traveled to be captured on that piece of film, and then that is paired with the cyclical nature of eclipses and the time lapse photography. It all combined to from this crazy sense of time travel.
I also want to talk about the sound in Takashi Makino’s Elements of Nothing. The first thing the sound does in this film is progress with the image. It varies at parts, but mostly in the beginning the sound is a sparse, solitary piano and the image is very dark. In the middle the piano has gained in volume and melody and is also accompanied by other instruments while the image has lightened , spotted with color, and the trees are easier to make out. Then at the end the piano gives way to a siren like tone as the image is overtaken by the strange light. Secondly the sound is repetitive. The piano repeats measures of notes, establishing a pattern, but every once in a while there is a flat or sharp or wrong note thrown in to disrupt it. It seemed to me like the soundtrack was trying to develop a melody but it was intentionally denied. This works well with the image because it is equally denied to us by appearing barely long enough to be perceived on a single frame. Thirdly, the sound is also very combative in a passive/aggressive way. Chords are hit that do not mesh together. There are sometimes two notes played that are out of tune. These cause each other to wax and wane as they boost and cancel each other out, creating this disturbing warbling sound. This echoes the combative nature of the images as each frame competes for its fleeting time on screen. Lastly I want to mention how although the pacing of the image never changes, always one image per frame, the sound’s tempo changes dramatically. I found myself experiencing the film according to the tempo of the sound. I think it is a good example of the influence sound can have over the image.

Field Reports Round 3: Journal

For the final journal blog post I will be writing on Alex Gerbaz’s selection Direct Address, Ethical Imagination, and Errol Morris’s Interrotron. This journal questions if the prevalence of screens (television, movies, internet, etc.) in the way we communicate has made it harder to communicate face-to-face or if they have extended our ability to communicate by presenting us with opportunities to perceive social views that without we would never be exposed to. His stance admits that screens can trouble communication because it is mediated, but he believes they overall benefit us because film still provides an ethical relationship. He provides two main points. His first is that film does in fact allow us to see different perspectives of the social world, and the second is that these different perspectives have an ethical relation. His biggest support for his first point comes in the form of direct address. He argues that by using direct address the viewer is put in the place of the subject that is being directed to in the film. We are literally subjected to that subject’s point of view. Gerbaz goes on to illustrate this point with Errol Morris’s Interrotron and the pieces he has filmed with it, namely Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr. (1999) and The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara (2003). The interrotron is like a teleprompter that bounces the image of the interviewer’s face onto glass in front of the camera lens. This effect allows the camera to capture the eye contact between the interviewer and interviewee. Played back, it simulates eye contact between the screen and the viewer. He then moves onto his second point and uses these films to explain how this kind of direct address has an ethical relation to the viewer. He quotes Paul Schrader to begin his argument, “[direct address] inspires an ‘I-Thou’ devotional attitude between the viewer and work of art”. This is transcendent, and this transcendence creates the possibility for ethical relation. He goes on to mention the argument that images and images of faces cannot be ethical because by capturing them they are frozen as caricatures, but he counters this by saying that this cannot be applied to film because film can capture the movement and expression of faces. This then allows for social interaction with the film because it allows us to perceive an ethical consciousness of the film. Lastly he uses Levinas’s philosophy to explain the importance of the moving face. He says, “ethical experience occurs when we encounter a being or phenomenon which cannot be reduced to presence or contained within a field of pure knowledge”. When we look at a face we know we are encountering another being that cannot be fully known by merely looking at it. A face cannot be fully understood, but we understand its otherness. Therefore he argues that direct address is ethical. Although the face is objectified more than anything else in film it defies objectification because it can transcend beyond its form and we perceive subjectively. By extending this to multiple faces we are able to have ethical relations of multiple perspectives.
Gerbaz brings up a lot of interesting debates, in particular whether a face on film can be ethical or not. He suggests the comparison of direct address on film to that of statues and religious paintings. Statues and religious paintings have and ability to appear like they are looking right at you, sometimes it looks like their eyes follow you as you move around them. But he states the effect is much different than when a face on film appears to be looking right at you. And I agree with that statement. Those paintings and statues often creep me out and before I read this article I didn’t have words for why, just that it didn’t feel right. It makes sense that because these faces are frozen that they would feel weird looking at them, but know that he suggests a lack of ethical relation to the image I feel that is a better explanation. There is no social interaction with an image that I am use to interacting with. But because the face on film is able to capture the movement of expression the possibility for ethical relation exists. I think it’s kind of interesting though that because the possibility exists doesn’t necessitates it’s existence. I’d like to see a direct address on film that does not display an ethical relation. That would probably be really creepy.

Journal post #2 response

Before I begin on the next round of field reports I'd like to take the time to respond to the previous round. Mostly I'd like to offer my personal response to the two articles. I have this weird thing about robots. It's not something I've ever really noticed until I began school here, and it's was definitely not anything important to pay attention to until I took the film 319 class on American Science fiction. But since that class themes about robots and cyborgs have really interested me. And it's not because I'm like, a huge mechanical engineering nerd or something (no offense to mechanical engineering nerds). I'm really interested by how films with robots and cyborgs address the question of what it means to be human. It's definitely not a question unique to the scifi genre. It's probably hard to find a genre that doesn't address that question in some form, actually. But scifi provides the opportunity to present the human artifice in a sprectrum form. The robot has a cultural iconography that retains a coherence from film to film. It's my impression that if you take a handful of robots/cyborgs and ask 100 people to rate them on a scale of "most human to least human" you would get similar results from each person. I think that is because everyone quantifies the human condition in a similar way. Thats like, a huge deal to me! I found it really interesting how these two authors discussed these quailfiers with the ideas of philosophers that lived well before the matrix went online or skynet became self aware. (You know, figuratively, as in before the movies were released). I think it is interesting how robots and cyborgs can play a cathartic role in answering questions about humanity, as in being able to question what we are from a safe distance. But also how robots and cyborgs can play a troubling role and make us doubt our place in the universe. I like how these articles provided a more concrete way to discuss human approximation.

Journal Report : Round 2

The two articles from the journal Film Philosophy I have chosen to write about for this round of blog posts are When Robots Would Really be Human Simulacra: Love and the Ethical in Spielberg’s A.I. and Proyas’s I, Robot by Bert Olivier and A Cyborg’s Testimonial: Mourning Blade Runner’s Cryptic Images by R. Pope. I have chosen these two because both of them question what it means to be human. Olivier and Pope both use philosophical arguments and psychological theories to make a critical analysis of each films’ leading cyborg characters. It should be mentioned that within the plot of the films, David, Sonny, and Roy Batty are androids, not cyborgs. Their cyborg statuses are dependent on their blurring of the line between human and technology which exists in the film’s theory.
A.I. is a futuristic Pinocchio. David, the robot on a journey to become a real boy, encounters many challenges to the human/machine boundary. This article collects the philosophical ideas of what makes us human and then applies them to David to establish his cyborg identity. Olivier first describes David’s fear of death or non-being. He references Heidegger’s Death Analysis which states that in order to fear non-being one must have a sense of being. This sense of being, however, is only identified by facing the prospect of one’s own non-being/death. David’s fear of his own death confirms his ability to identify his being as a self. Olivier then addresses David’s love for his ‘mommy’ and his desire for her love in terms of Lacan’s definition of love as love of ones own ego. Lacan declares love is narcissism, and that desiring love is desiring your own ego. Olivier proposes that because David is so desperately seeking his mother’s love that he must have a human ego.
The second half of this article then applies some theories of Kant and Sartre to Sonny, the robot of I,Robot. Kant posits that guilt is a manifestation of ethical capacity, ethics being a human trait. But in order to feel guilt one must have the freedom to choose to do wrong. If one had no choice then one would not feel guilty. Sonny feels the guilt of his ‘father’s’ death, this guilt then necessitates the existence of free will. This free will further blurs the line between human/machine and established Sonny’s cyborg identity.
Lastly, R. Pope’s article discusses Roy Batty, of Blade Runner, and his cyborg identity in a similar way. It discusses his fear of death/non-being and the importance of his memories. It also elaborates on the catch-22 of the human-technology dynamic. In short, Pope argues than technology, as a tool, is under human control. But as a tool it is detached, separate from us and therefore beyond our control. And most importantly, using the crypt concept of Derrida, Pope arrives at the conclusion that humanity has no meaning, that assigning meaning to humanity is impossible. What makes us human, and in the context of the film what makes Batty human, is the appropriation of humanity. It is the act of being human, the striving toward the ideas of humanity, and the belief that we are human is what makes us human.

Field Report #2

Where’s Waldo? is not considered high art. It is a guy, with questionable fashion sense, hiding in absurd locations swarmed with mobs of people with equally if not even worse fashion sense. As ridiculous as it is, I can’t think of a more interactive 2-D work of art. First, it’s very name is asking something of the viewer. A basic task invites you into the work. Once there however, you immediately realize it will not be easy, as every square inch is covered in activity. So you get closer, lean into the drawing, nose almost touching. He has to be here somewhere You think to yourself. Then a flash of red and white stripes catches your eyes. “Ha! There’s Wal--oh?!?!” You squint closer. It is a girl wearing Waldo’s outfit. “NO! You tricked me, GAR!” You bellow. You’ll pay for that, Waldo, you think to yourself, now even more determined to find him. You think it’s your choice, but really it is only pulling you deeper. You are touching the paper now, tracing out the people, the shapes, the colors. You begin to formulate strategies. I’ll look for the color red But wait Maybe I should search in small sections? As you continue to look you begin to notice the visual jokes hidden inside. You realize that there is much more to find than just Waldo. Before you know it you’ve spent an hour, only inches away, completely engrossed in one work of art. Whether you do or do not find Waldo is entirely dependent on the actions you, as the viewer, take. These actions, this activity over passivity, is what George Fifield uses to define interactivity, “With non-interactive art we are, with interactive art we do.” It was with this quote in mind that visited the Milwaukee Art Museum’s Act/React show.
I found Camille Utterback’s pieces the most immediately striking. First, they were the most aesthetically pleasing to me. They have an organic feel to them. External Measures 2003 in particular felt alive, like vines growing across an old brick wall. The way they moved and crept along produced a sense of it’s own time and lulled me into a near meditative state. But it stood out more than just being one of my favorites. In the other pieces the pleasure came with directly interacting with them and they were encouraging to explore the functions behind the art. But for External Measures 2003 I found that my presence felt like a disturbance. I want to be clear here. I am not trying to negate its interactivity or insinuate that this piece repels interactivity. My point is that with this piece I was content to watch it interact with itself. I didn’t find pleasure in disturbing it rather if found pleasure in watching it recover from my disturbance. This leads to a lot of questions though, the first being, why? For all the other pieces I felt compelled to push their limits. Actually, I felt most of them demanded it, like their interactivity is boundary dependent, prompting the viewer to approach the work with a ‘what if’ attitude. They are approached by the desire to find the boundaries of its causes and effects. So what was it that made External Measures 2003 feel like an exception? To be honest, I haven’t figured that out yet. It wasn’t because it provided negative feedback, my interaction was rewarded positively. Maybe it was because the reward was in the effect and had nothing to do with my ability to create it. The other pieces had a sense of ownership. This is my section of space, that is my cartwheel in that square, I blocked out more blobs than anyone else. These all have elements that can in some way be conquered. But External Measures 2003 erases my marks. I never felt like I owned it, it was more like it acknowledged my presence and then incorporated it into its own algorithmic destiny. I think it must be questioned then what effect this difference has on it’s interactivity. Does it make it less interactive? If so then is a feeling of ownership directly proportional to the interactivity? How, if at all, does more viewer ownership compromise the artist? Does this difference increase the interactivity? These are all questions that I am still working through, but I have a feeling these are questions that this young medium itself is still working through. At this point though, I feel like it is more interactive. I think the future of interactive art won’t rely on testing limits but will rely on a deeper incorporation of the viewers actions. Perhaps one day the viewer will be able to directly influence the algorithm itself, changing the entire dynamic of the work.

Field Report #1

Stan Brakhage’s Mothlight and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Golden Age of Fish are very different films. The first, a 4 minute handmade film, is unconventional in its making and sparse in its subject matter. The latter, however, is diverse in its subject matter, ranging from topics such as geology to product advertisement to kites and to murder suicide just to name a few. Its making is also more conventional, using a camera to fix an image, but the media it incorporates is just as diverse as its topics, using a mix of video and a variety of color and black and white film stocks. As different as these films may be, both are clearly experimental, and, strikingly, both are documentaries.
Mothlight works as a documentary on two levels. The first is as a physical documentation. By affixing wings and leaves and other objects directly to the film the viewer is presented with the subject in it’s raw form. The camera is an intermediary. Films made with them add a degree of separation, but in Mothlight that separation doesn’t exist, allowing the image to be an expression of the truth of the object. Besides presenting the viewer with artifacts, this film works as a documentary on another level by expressing the experience of a moth. The film is frantic, our eyes are drawn to the light of the screen that flickers and flutters before us. Our experience of the film mirrors the experience of a moth.
The Golden Age of Fish operates as a documentary on a similar level to the second I described for Mothlight. Before the screening began, Kevin Jerome Everson spoke to the audience. What struck me about what he said was that despite (and because of) the wide variety of topics it covers and imagery it presents, this film is about Cleveland. Specifically, about the perception of Cleveland from people who do not live there. Even more specifically it is Everson’s perception of the perception of Cleveland from people who do not live there. Thinking this line of thought over while watching the film I began to understand that the truth of Cleveland is how it is perceived, which can be extended to the truth of anything is how we perceive it. I then began to understand the use of the different film stocks and video effects as well at the motifs of layers and gathering of pieces. Just like Mothlight, the truth lies in the experience, so by presenting us with multiple experiences we can put together a greater sense of truth.

Field Reports: round one

The journal I have chose to follow for the semester is Film Philosophy, found at http://www.film-philosophy.com/. I have choosen it because I enjoy readings on film theory, and discussions on theme and motif. This particular site offers a lot of critical writing on science fiction films, which is a favorite genre of mine that can be difficult to find taken seriously. I also think that it will be interesting to see how the experimental material we discuss in class will compare to the themes discussed in this journal.

My field report will be done on The Golden Age of Fish, and will be posted once I have seen that film.