LATE FALL READINGS: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN THE DIGITAL AGES

(Previous Spanish version posted on 12.14.06).

My second bibliographic explanation from late fall (even if I’m traslating it in the bleak midwinter) revolves around Experimental cinema in the digital age (BFI, London, 2001), a compilation of articles published by English experimental filmmaker Malcom LeGrice between 1972 and 1999 about these kind of movies and the structure and aesthetic modifications they are undergoing due to the digitalization processes.

The work can be divided among the historical texts, those about other artists, discussions, general theory and digital theory. This is probably why the most appealing parts for me (and those I have thoroughly been over) are the last two of them. Experimental cinema can be of interest inasmuch as it could constitute one of the possible filiations of digital narrative, although is not that clear how we would define “experimental”, that is to say, if the differences from conventional cinema lay on its ability for abstract representation, on its questioning of linear narrative, or on both aspects.

Despite Le Grice reflects on these two qualities (abstraction and lack of linearity), he is compelled to focus the debate mostly on the second aspect. As a great beliver of antiHollywood ways of creation, the author emphasizes in one text after another (see particularly Towards Temporal Economy, pp. 184-209) the criticism of the required narrativity attributed to cinema, and accuses narrative of becoming an authoritarian voice without any chance of replication (just submission or identification from the viewer) that generates univocal causalities.

Although it is true that most of commercial movies are not precisely characterized by encouraging critical thinking from the viewer, I believe Le Grice goes too far in his statements by assuming that experimental cinema has to be the right alternative. Any questioning of language is desirable because it implies questioning the unidirectional feature of (some kind of) discourse, but the ideas of making visible the role of the director or manipulating the speed, color or editing of the cinematic image do not guarantee a dialogue by themselves that rises consciousness in the viewer (even less if we take into account the ability of current design or advertising to absorb such experiments).

Likewise, the fact that there is commercial narrative cinema doesn’t necessarily imply that all the answers from the viewer stem from a sheer subjugation to what (s)he receives. It doesn’t seem to be no longer in fashion to talk about reception theories, and despite media have changed a lot since the first talks on resistant readings, the fact is that people, no matter how much media saturation they have to stand (or precisely, because of that) still haven’t become empty vessels ready to be filled with contents. They might consume more images, and the might get absorbed by addictive relations with the Internet or their cell phones, but people still give unexpected uses to media, educate each other by sharing music or video files and ask themselves about the reason to have so many television channels if none of them is actually to satisfy their interests.

What I mean is that the overview on experimental cinema provided by Le Grice is enlightening to understand a sociopolitical criticism of the historical notion of narrative whose echos approached me before without being able to give it a specific shape, but I think that his Marxist hint, if it could be considered like that, doesn’t apply for the current context. The old articles by Le Grice actually had a visionary quality, as they went ahead of the definition of abstract subject matters which would later appear on computer art or net art, or of the modular structures presented in digital narrative, but I don’t think that the frame in which those elements are currently developing is that of being able to put branching and interactivy on a level with freedom.

ART, GAME AND NARRATIVE: AT THE END, A QUESTION OF TASTE

(Previous Spanish version posted on 11.19.06. It has been edited to be self-contained).

Beyond the usual attendance to diverse festivals and conference, offering instant information on phenomena allowing me to “carve out” an opinion about the relations between art and technology, my academical studies compel me to think about the narrative specificites in the digital sphere, but no matter how much I think about them, and no matter how much I try to do research on phenomena such as experimental cinema and the rise of videogames, I have the growing feeling that the debate should be focused on different terms.

Where does it really lay the prejudice against interactive narrative, or, to be more specific, against videogames? I already wrote about the divergences between narrative and non narrative digital art, regarding aspects such as historical background and further development in the structure of cultural capitalism. I still endorse what I wrote before, but I’d like to add a complementary dimension to the analysis: that of the question of taste.

The world of art (something that’s often called “the art instution”) assumes a certain taste, a certain aesthetic ground. The same happens with the music and movie industries, and, more recently, with the digital technological industry focused on VR devices, games and so on. There seem to be some predefined aesthetics (not one model, but some coexistent models recognised as belonging to a certain sphere). These are not eternal and can (and must be) transformed, but they constitute starting points working as an (unavoidable?) cerberus, preventing or providing the access to certain spheres.

Taking this idea a little bit (too) far, we could say that there are “erroneous” aesthetics that become accepted when some acceptance mechanisms are built or relaxed. As an example, I have in mind the exhibition cinema. There are some ways of making movies (or video) that make it easy to access the art context (for instance, those records on performance art, or those moving images regarded as experimental because they “join” an aesthetic model which is more abstract than figurative and narrative). There is another obvious way of access which is the passing of time: age allows Dziga Vertov, Nosferatu or even Alfred Hitchock (maybe because of the providential intervention of Douglas Gordon in the last case) to become artistic material.

In relation to games, art games have managed to build bridges between art world and commercial games up to this day, often resorting to the critical strategy of reverse engineering. But reappropriation shouldn’t be the only means to generate art. And maybe, in this same sense, aesthetics are still an obvious obstacle. Because, from an aesthetical viewpoint, Scarface the game can’t be compared to the movie it’s based on, 1983’s Scarface (needless to say it doesn’t stand up to the original film). Am I saying this because I’m not exactly a fan of polygon aesthetics? But taste is something you can educate. Should we educate our taste to include more mass culture phenomena, the same as we gladly accept tacky movie aesthetics because we’re used to them? Should we put some limits to this?

The answer is so complex that still scholars start by quoting Kant to analyse it, but I’d like to start to sow some dobut with a question: why we have been able to accept art as ugliness, completely awful works, and nonetheless we are sometimes reluctant to other uglinessess because apparently they are way too commercial?

SECOND EDITION OF THE CATALAN ASSOCIATION OF ART CRITICS SYMPOSIUM: MEDIA BIENNALES

(Previous Spanish version posted on 11.14.06. It has been partially edited to be self-contained).

The second edition of the local symposium (with an international focus) on art criticism was devoted to the biennale phenomenon: what are they, what are they for and why do they exist. Generally speaking, as it happened in the previous edition, most of the presentations of the keynote speakers featured a highly intelectualized (academical?) discourse, the round table of local curators and critics added some fresh air to the event (maybe those three speakers where the ones most able to understand the intention behind biennales), and there was a minimal, but significant intervention halfway between contemporary and digital art.

That presentation was given by curator and critic Gunalan Nadarajan, who has specialized in “media biennales” and who’s going to work as the artistic director for ISEA 2008. After presenting the features of biennales in general, Nadarajan went further on his analysis of the specific traits of media biennales.

The proposed criticism turned out to be very suggestive: institutionalized indifference towards media arts, exclusive focus on video, technofobia and lack of infrastructure and adequate technical resources, among others, and of course the prime category (at least according to my analysis up to date), existence of parallel communities (the curator put a very understable exemple: why a media artist and a painter both working on minmalism can’t communicate with each other?)

Nadarajan talked about his experience in the recent Ogaki biennale and the Perth biennale (whose next edition is to be held in 2007): following the speaker’s ideas, these biennales share the basic features of any other biennale (the exhibition ones) but have an additional feature (the ability to become platforms of research and production).

The presentation ended by highlighting the size, time, distribution and relation with technology divides separating the two kinds of biennales, and stressing that technological fetishism does not only belong to the biennales that make it explicit, but to any art having an instrumental and uncritical relation with the materials is working with.

To the criticism of Nadarajan I would like to add a couple of ideas in both directions, to balance things up:

-When someone is talking about media art, there tends to be an explanation of how things work often because is necessary, because the work is interactive). That’s not so usual with contemporary art works. A discourse has to be articulated in all circumstances to explain what is being presented, no matter its nature. “Throwing” the work at the audience with a defiant attitude which seems to say “I dare you to understand this!” doesn’t suffice.

-The problem of the content happens with any kind of biennale. Not only because there could be technofilia (actually, there is), but precisely because biennales show too much content. It’s something similar to the syndrome of festivals of any kind: there are many things, but, will I be able to see them all?

WHAT IS THIS BLOG ABOUT?

Tempus Fugit is a blog about the intersection between art and technology. The Spanish version started in March 2005 as trilingual tryout of writings in Spanish, Catalan and English, but soon I dropped the last two options because it was much easier to focus on a single language.

Nevertheless, I always missed the chance of addressing to the English speaking community. This is why I am going to try to write some of my posts in English, specially those regarding international issues.

In time, the Spanish version tended to revolve allowing the following subjects:

The relations between contemporary art and digital art. Why can’t they be together? Why should they be separate? I read about both fields in order to try to create paths of communication between them. To read a sample of previous posts on that, I translated SECOND EDITION OF THE CATALAN ART CRITICS SYMPOSIUM: MEDIA BIENNALES.

The relations between digital narrative and digital art in general. My main research interest is digital narrative understood as the whole of creations analyzing non-linear, interactive (or not) art. I am currently preparing my PhD on that, and I am also the author of an essay about it Tempus Fugit, interactive storytelling (Fundació Espais d’Art Contemporani, Girona, 2004). To read a sample of previous posts on that, I translated ART, GAME AND NARRATIVE: IN THE END, A QUESTION OF TASTE.

My readings on contemporary digital culture, divided by the season in which I am reading them. My last post on readings is translated as LATE FALLS READINGS: EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN THE DIGITAL AGE.

My reflections on digital events and what is going on outside the Internet, entitled URBAN SCENES. This scenes will be further developed in English as soon as I have something interesting to write about (I don’t want to make it too local).

So, I hope you enjoy my attempts at trying to make English my second writing language, please be patient with the mistakes and feel free to add any comments you wish to make.