From: owen (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Sep 06 2005 - 06:43:31 PDT
Hi Arturo,
Thanks. Something I have felt for some time. Jargon sucks ! Why do
critics curators and some artists seem to use jargon to such a
maddening degree? Do grant writers use it too?
owen
On Sep 6, 2005, at 4:28 AM, Arturo Menchaca wrote:
>
> The second has to do with the language video artists and the
> critical writers on video art use: it is utterly incoherent,
> nonsensical, and rambling. It seems to me that one thing video
> artists (and most artists today) love to do is hide behind words,
> especially words that sound "academic." They like to spout phrases
> like "haptical modulation" and "digital convergence" without
> ultimately saying anything concrete about their work they made. As
> far as I'm concerned, this is never the case with any good
> experimental filmmaker. A-g filmmakers seem a lot more practical
> (though not in terms of their vocation of course). A good
> filmmaker like Ernie Gehr or Peter Kubelka won't hand you a lot of
> vague b.s. when you ask what their film is about. They'll tell it
> to you straight. The film in question may be motivated by complex
> ideas/philosophies, but they won't attempt to cloak these with
> ambiguous phrases. They *want* you to know what their film is
> doing - or at least trying to do. Video artists seem intent on
> trying to obscure meaning with linguistic haziness, intentionally
> trying to make you feel like you couldn't possibly understand the
> aesthetic significance of their work (and implicitly, attempting to
> make their work seem more profound than it actually is).
>
> Film comes down to a darkened room, a blank screen, a projector,
> and some celluloid. Video art is an empty white room where you can
> do whatever the hell you want to, worthwhile or not. Maybe that's
> why filmmakers are more lucid: because everything has to be right
> there on-screen.
>
> Despite the abundance of light, the empty white room ends up being
> a hell of a lot murkier... -Arturo Menchaca
>
> On Sep 5, 2005, at 7:23 PM, owen wrote:
>
>> On Sep 5, 2005, at 5:28 PM, Matt Teichman wrote:
>>
>> >>>the televisual aesthetic and its mode of address <<<
>>
>> now that's the kind of language that get folks a'wantin' to see
>> avant garde film ! - owen
>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________
>> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>>
>>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.