From: Roddy, Bernard P. (email suppressed)
Date: Wed Mar 04 2009 - 07:06:35 PST
If Tony's work has raised questions about the significance of frame rate or projection for film, I am asking about the value of the delivery metaphor for net art. Is there a point A or B? Is there a message, does something travel? What are the parameters of the work? What is the "it" of this work, a video? What is its significance? Is it most constructively conceived of in the context of moving images? What makes it interesting? The use of ephemeral suggests material decay, but suppose we use the biological metaphor of a virus. What is the significance of imagery? Is there a location of reception? What significance does the work present for a politics of media? Is it important in understanding social control? Is it liberating, radical . . ?
Bernie
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From: Experimental Film Discussion List [email suppressed]
Sent: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 7:26 PM
To: email suppressed
Subject: Re: Ephermal filmworks? History?
On Mar 3, 2009, at 7:01 PM, Roddy, Bernard P. wrote:
> Terranova's book Network Culture undertakes to replace the discourse
> of representation with that of information (I approximate), and to
> get beyond the terms of cultural criticism (traced from Marx through
> the Frankfurt School to British emphasis on identity). Walley's
> reliance on the language of distribution ("from point A to point B,"
> "institutions through which these things are brought to us") seems
> ill-suited for examining the nature of the practice Anders has
> going, particularly given that we can constructively examine the
> project without seeing the work (right?).
But the work still has to travel, and it must do so through some
means. A network is precisely such a means, and that's all it is,
whether it is an "old-fashioned" distribution network of film/video
coop's sending prints through the mail to people who want to screen
them or "new-fashioned" electronic networks that allow us to transmit
and see works via the internet. It seems to me that Anders's project
is, in part, about the nature of this latter "network," about
something that makes it distinct from other modes of distribution (and
the potential consequences of these). This is all I mean by
"distribution."
I'm not sure why the language of distribution is less relevant to this
project on the grounds that "we can constructively examine the project
without seeing the work." Indeed, this seems to make the nature of its
distribution all the more relevant. In this case, the nature of the
"distribution" format Anders has chosen for his work may NOT bring the
work to a viewer - it may FAIL. But this doesn't make it NOT a form of
distribution, does it?
Again, I suppose it comes down to how one defines "distribution." I'm
not sure I'm really relying on a "language of distribution." That
sounds pretty systematic. Simply pointing out that works of art, under
most circumstances, travel from their maker to a viewer (or group of
viewers), often through some more or less formalized system, and that
this has consequences for who sees the work (and how, and when, and
if) isn't the same as invoking a systematized discourse, which is what
I take the first sentence of your post to be suggesting.
Jonathan
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.