Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 11:14:14 -0500
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Subject: [ meme-digest ] V1 #17
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[ meme-digest ]        Friday, August 24 2001        Volume 01 : Number 017


[meme] abstraction, narrative & instrument design
[meme] Re: what is live, what is abstract, what is narrative, what is video performance?
[meme] "doing it because it's just easier?"

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Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 11:03:37 -0400
From: Fred Collopy <collopy@po.cwru.edu>
Subject: [meme] abstraction, narrative & instrument design

I became interested in abstract moving visuals when I was a 
film-maker considering the question "Why are there so few films that 
we watch over and over again, in the way that we listen to music?"

I eventually learned that this was a version a fairly old question. 
Music had been the envy of artists for centuries; most especially 
perhaps, the abstract painters. In my work, I don't worry much about 
whether there is narrative or not, but I do worry about the extent to 
which the work is formal, because that seems one of the most powerful 
"tricks" that musicians have found to create an experience that 
benefits from repeated experiencing. The great constructivists Max 
Bill and Karl Gerstner have been interested in this same thing, from 
the point of view of fixed images. Their works are pure abstractions, 
adhering strictly to formal principles that they identify while 
constructing the piece. But pure abstraction is not the only way. 
Escher eschewed pure abstraction ("No Moorish artist has, as far as I 
know, ever dared--or didn't he hit on the idea?--to use as building 
components concrete, recognizable figures borrowed from nature, such 
as fishes, birds, reptiles, or human beings. This is hardly 
believable, for *recognizability* is so important to *me* that I 
never could to without it."...emphases his). Most of us consider 
Escher an abstract artist...his lithographs certainly don't recreate 
existing structures and forms. There can be no doubt that they are 
formal. And yet, he uses, indeed demands, recognizable components.

On 8/23/01, Jeremy wrote:
>how do we eliminate it? do we all learn to code, and build our own tools
>from scratch? or do we simply attend to it as much as possible, and try to
>misuse our tools wherever we can? or maybe we abandon computers and return
>to concrete media. questions, questions, questions...

I think the answer to this one is that we develop a language. That is 
what music has done. My own hunch is that the language will have 
formalisms that gravitate around three key dimensions--color, form, 
and motion (actually this is not an original idea...it has recurred 
in the history of thinking about abstract film, since it was first 
articulated by Leopold Survage in 1914). I have written on this, and 
would be happy to send copies of a Leonardo article to anyone who's 
interested.

Fred

Fred Collopy
Professor and Chair, Case Western Reserve University
Occasional visiting scholar at IBM's T.J. Watson Research Lab
http://RhythmicLight.com


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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 10:02:14 +0200
From: marko kosnik <march@kud-fp.si>
Subject: [meme] Re: what is live, what is abstract, what is narrative, what is video performance?

> From: Jeremy Bernstein <jeremy@bootsquad.com>

> why music + image always seems to go together (if you perform, how many
> times have you heard: 'is the music controlling the video somehow? it looks
> like it goes so well together...' or even if you just write music for dance
> or theater -- it's the same). it's why even the most disjointed, fragmented
> sound can make sense, and why sequences of images seem to indicate a
> progression of thought.

different levels of human perceptive influence do exhibit somehow specific
qualities of biocomputer behaviour.

a) pure parasimpaticus action on the level of neuron biochemical
transmissions function by relatively common spec, not varying so much from
one subject to another. example: the recognition quality of the sound is
defined in the first 30 - 50 milliseconds of the incoming trigger. approx.
same time is needed for recharging the neuron after it had performed short
time continuos biochemoelectrical transmition.

b) decoding on the side of data configured structure, the sound impulse will
cross the small brain level before crossing the hemispheres for the further
analysis in the computing centres involved. this is automatised, culturaly,
enviromentaly as well as genetically coded level.

c) the main event, so claims the author of this writing, is the reflection
of the icoming signal. this will depend on various investments of the owner
of biocomputer - and even if merely computational, it depends on the quality
and richness of connections of association matrix and the quality and speed
of access to the the archives of experiences somebody is embodying.

theoretically, this last category could vary from 0 (when somebody would
still perfectly hear and recognize the sound, but nothing else - the only
level you need to repeat an emotional low stress sequence when watching one
of some hundred possible variations of the "classical" movie) to infinite,
what would mean a conscious feedback to the lower levels of perceptional
instrument and it's permanent cultivation.

you can consider the above writing as a pure storytelling - various
researchers would explain it different ways. and, the visual part has it's
own properties. would anybody mind to tell some story about how it is
supposed to work?

with this stories i try to point to the tragedy of a modern multimedia
artists lives in. with all the tools available, instead of cultivating it's
own perception, s/he will try to meditate on art market, audiance and "who
sees what, wants what, and who understands what"...

the largest part of early art video works were mostly perception oriented,
aimed to extend author's self observation with a goal to reprogram someone's
self.

today it seems like the only goal of video/audio navigators is to influence
the other. here comes the false question of "what people like".
people like what they are drugged with. the role/gole of a drug dealer and
the role of the auto-reprogramer leads to a completely different way of
approach, work,... and consequences at some final stage. ("you ain't seen
nothing yet"). 

> 
>> a question to jeremy: can you please define what are the components in the
>> flow of images you find relating to music, and, where does the musical
>> abstraction touch the abstraction as known in the fine arts?
> 
> i talked about this last week some. what do you mean when you ask where the
> music and fine arts abstractions touch? do you mean comparing time-based v.
> non-time-based work?

i mean:

pitch - colour
meter - framerate
loudness - presence
rhythm - time cut
...
and so on. i aks for definition of what does interect, connect or oppose
from both sides - music, and what is called "visual music".

regards,

marko kosnik


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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 17:58:26 -0700
From: falk@mac.com
Subject: [meme] "doing it because it's just easier?"

At 8:24 Uhr -0500 23.08.2001, memegarden wrote:
>  > (ps, are you sure you're not doing it because it's just easier?
>
>Ouch. But he may be right. It's sometimes difficult to tell why you've made
>the decisions that you have. I firmly believe that abstract visuals are
>expressive and relevant to both the maker and the receiver. But, right now,
>it seems like my responsibility to try some other ways of working, and see
>if he's correct, after all.
>
>j

I have some people doing the "VJ" thing that have no knowleadge about 
film/video/art all together. People just saw the latest greatest 
technology and used it. Well all they have shown was that "abstrakt 
wallpaper art" or totally distorted vacation videos. Yes its easier 
and you do not really have to think about it. Just push some buttons 
here and there and you go. But what if (in a dream I had this happen 
to me which made me start think about all this in the first place) 
someone out of the audience walks up to you in the middle of your 
performance and asks you if the things you are "playing" have meaning 
and what that meaning for me the creator is. Would you have an answer 
that you could shout out right away for your personal installations?

I think you should have. Otherwise its just random imagery.

falk

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End of [ meme-digest ] V1 #17
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