From: gregg biermann (email suppressed)
Date: Tue Sep 06 2005 - 08:35:29 PDT
Steven,
Of course we are free to work in any medium we wish. I'm not out here
telling you or anyone else what medium to work in. I'm only asking for
some awareness about where we are in the tradition and what that
tradition means in 2005 and beyond. Take Morton Feldman's "String
Quartet #2" -- in many respects it is about as far from the quartets of
Haydn and Mozart as you can get. But still if you are writing for string
quartet you cannot get entirely away from western Europe. If you listen
to Morton Subotnick's electronic "Silver Apples of the Moon" you do.
That is because the development of musical instruments determines the
aesthetic developments in musical composition itself and it also
determines the links to various traditions. So if you are going to make
an oil painting now you are in a sense right there with Rembrandt. And
if you are painting in his style it is nostalgia. The same goes for
avant-garde cinema. Could it have developed the way it did without the
bolex? The JK optical printer? Using those tools and working in the
same style as Baillie, Gehr, Conner, Jacobs, etc. has the same problems.
It doesn't mean you cannot do it successfully now but it does require an
extra awareness because much of its aesthetic territory has been
thoroughly fleshed out during earlier periods. Listening to the
criticism of gallery and museum based video art and its aesthetic
weaknesses relative to avant-garde film confirms my suspicion (and I
think Michael's also) that we (avant-garde filmmakers) might still have
something major to offer by linking our tradition to digital electronic
media. Of course it is not enough to simply say it -the answer has to
come from the work itself.
Gregg
Steven Budden wrote:
> Who's this we? As artists we are free to make what we wish to make in
> the medium that suits us? Are we caught up in nostalgia? I am. Are you?
>
> There are more artists working in video than film in the world at this
> moment. Film "purists" are a rare breed. So who is pushing what where?
> I agree that the medium does matter. Did painting survive oil paint? I
> don't know what that analogy means. Yes? The nature of painting didn't
> change by using oil as a binder instead of tempera or casein or wax.
> Same pigments. Same brushes. Same tradition.
>
> Is the nature of cinema changing by these shifts in media? What
> tradition(s) are we working in? Is anyone advocating a sweeping
> renaissance?
>
> I think many contemporary artists are revisiting modernist ideologies.
> In grad school many of my colleagues were picking up dangling threads
> left by artists who burned through movements during the twentieth
> century. Many interesting lines of artistic thought were abandoned as
> artists scrambled for the "new." Fifteen isms in ten years.
>
> The "new" has lost its lustre. Back to the drawing board.
>
> Steven
>
> In a message dated 9/4/2005 11:29:06 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
> email suppressed writes:
>
> . My
> question about 16mm avant-garde film is: have the great works been
> created already? Is Sam correct when he points out, the door has been
> opened and opened wide for a good long time? If so what does that
> mean
> for the avant-garde? Are we simply caught up in nostalgia for a
> utopian
> modernism? C'mon -- push it!
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________ For
> info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.