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“Reading time is free”
-Roland Barthes

The medium of film is a medium of time. Scenes made of stills move in frames per second. In order to extract meaning from a film, we must watch it sequentially – from scene 1 to scene end. What if we could approach film and cinema spatially? Aside from comic strips, the church’s stained glass windows, and the photo-novel, what other forms can this take? What does this mean now?

It didn’t occur to me to ask these questions until reading Roland Barthes’ The Third Meaning. How can a still image take on a cinematic property? How can sculpture be cinematic? What if a map, which is traditionally used to convey information, could be used as a cinematic element?

I imagine a gallery filled with stills from a film, strung about. The film, displayed , but not projected, visible, but not readable, hangs through the gallery. The soundtrack plays, but we see no animation. In an extreme example, the object is literally a cinematic object.
Playful, absurd, pastiche.

While the comic strip is narrative, I have to wonder whether it is cinematic. I now ask – what is the difference between narrative and cinematic?

The properties of cinema:
1. larger than life
2. more real than real
3. durational

It is not only the moving image that separates film and cinema from other narrative forms – it is its presentation and production. It is the largess. The projection. The quality that forces you to watch for more than just 5 minutes. If are to gleam anything from the cinema, you must endure the entire piece. You cannot simply glance at a film like a painting because it is durational.
However, this does not mean it is cinematic. A cinematic form will inherently contain narrative elements – plot, character, spectacle, musicality, and tempo. There are also cinematic techniques – pan, zoom, fade, transition. In defining cinematic, I am looking for the least common denominator. What would it take for something to NOT be cinematic? What would exclude an item from being cinematic? Can anything be cinematic?

An animation is more real than real

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/12/magazine/12hodgman.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=8859dc4eb289d59d&ex=1163566800&pagewanted=all

“Bugs Bunny, imitating the conductor Leopold Stokowski in concert, will violently raise his arms in onetwelfth of a second (two frames of film). Every part of his body will be rock-still — save for Bugs’s quivering hand.

It is impossible for a living being to do this, but not for Bugs. He is truly Stokowski, more Stokowski than Stokowski was himself, because Bugs is the impression of Stokowski: his power, his arrogance, his supreme control over his musicians, perfectly boiled down to its essence. We laugh because it is completely unreal and utterly truthful in the same moment.”

I found this particularly interesting because it creates a parallel truth. Right next to our sensory truth, there is another layer of truth – perceived truth. An impressionistic truth.
Non-linear cinema will begin to have an effect of reality-tv.
That’s all I’ve got on that…

“A wave of anger washed over me, anger against myself, at my age at the time, that stupid lyrically age, when a man is too great a riddle to himself to be interested in the riddles outside himself and when other people are mere walking mirrors in which he is amazed to find his own emotions, his own worth.”

There was a scene in Steve Carell’s movie, 40 year old virgin, raises an interesting point. In his scene with Beth, Andy (the main character) asks only questions. Beth becomes very intrigued because she gets to talk about herself. Andy’s tactic works perfectly and he gets what he wants – Beth’s attention.

People enjoy talking about themselves, sometimes to their own detriment. Consider the moral of Narcissus, who fell in love with his own reflection.

I hope my work allows people to begin from what they know, but encourages to extend beyond what they know/see/feel and have new experiences.

In a museum, we are encouraged to look and understand. Though at the Met it is often tempting to rush from gallery to gallery in an effort to see everything. However, in this mad dash we may see much but remember little.

What would it take to highlight this possible trap and offer an alternative?

In Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman spends many pages considering mortality + immortality. In one particular passage, he considers death while walking:
Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward annihilation?
Pleasantly and well-suited I walk,
Whither I walk I cannot define, but I know it is good,
The whole universe indicates that it is good,
The past and the present indicate that it is good.

In this small passage, we see the resulting pleasure that comes with walking and reflecting. Is this possible in the museum?

We believe the answer is a resounding yes!

http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2000/10/25/27622.html

http://www.allofus.org/

Lev Manovich asks WHAT IS DIGITAL CINEMA? His answers are almost too McLuhan for me. However, since I like McLuhan, I like his answers.
1. Digital cinema is NOT live-action film. Live-action film (a 20th century construction) consists of what we see in front of our eyes – the stuff of the real world. What the camera captures, then, is live-action. Lev raises yet another interesting point – 20th century cinema is the stuff of a mechanical heart (motor) and mechanical eye (photography). Simply said, 20th century cinema is a child of the industrial revolution – 21st century cinema (digital cinema) is a child of the digital revolution. One of Lev’s more interesting moves is to frame Apple’s Quicktime, non-linear editing, and other video tools as revolutionary as Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope. For those of us who use it everyday to compress, watch, and edit video, it is quite disorienting to think of it as a revolution – yet it is.

Not only is digital video revolutionary, it is quite literally changing the way we see and experience cinema. Once you have an image, you have pixels. And because everything can be reduced down the pixel level, there is very little to distinguish one image from another (aside from resolution). Assuming we have the same resolution, the act of compositing images and pixels once again flattens the image. So, pixelating and digitizing actually have a flattening effect on images. However, the net effect is actually very layered. What was once a group of men with a green screen is now a scene in Lord of the Rings.

2. In essence, anything – as long as it can take the form of pixels – can become digital cinema. Digital cinema, then, is animated pixels. The “real world” is no longer the source of Lev’s digital cinema. Virtual 3D worlds crafted by a digital animator now have the same value as a scene directed by a David Lynch, Spielberg, or NYU film student.

The implication of Lev’s work, here, is essentially this – digital cinema does not favor any kind of content, whether it is “real” or “virtual.” As McLuhan predicted, digital cinema (new media) has freed itself of the constraints that film and cinema (old media) used to have – realism. We can now film and animate anything we may imagine.

Through the creation of imaginative universes, we now begin to visualize virtual utopias. More importantly, we communicate them dynamically, visually. Like in architecture, digital cinema can create, design, and animate virtual worlds to build real-life physical worlds. With cinema moving into animation, even experimental
non-linear cinema will begin to have an effect of reality-tv.

Lev’s work is sweeping. Yet, I find it slightly reductiveTo say that digital film is animation reduces the work to a previous work. The truly revolutionary claim would be that digital film is expanding the role, definition, and discourse of animation.
Traditionally, animation creates associations with cartoons.

Many blogs, writers, and critics (Steven Johnson and Janet Murray, among others) dump video games into the discourse. As a $30 billion industry, it’s no wonder video games are getting this kind of attention. Janet Murray, though, is more apt to call these video games non-linear narratives. Where Lev’s explanation of digital cinema falls short, Janet Murray’s explanation does not. As video games are expanding the definition of narrative, digital cinema should be expanding the definition of animation.

A great LINK to info on the park from Google Answers

A Brief history of Washington Square Park:
In 1797 the Common Council acquired the land for use as a Potter’s Field or common burial ground. The field was also used for public executions, giving rise to the tale of the Hangman’s Elm which stands in the northwest corner of the park.

The site was used as the Washington Military Parade Ground in 1826, and became a public park in 1827. Following this designation, a number of wealthy and prominent families, escaping the disease and congestion of downtown Manhattan, moved into the area and built the distinguished Greek Revival mansions that still line the square’s north side.

Notable events in 1797:
Mary Shelley is Born.
John Adams succeeds George Washington as President of the US
The storyline of the video game, Castlevania, takes place in 1797.

A few resources and links for library research in NYC

http://www.bobcat.nyu.edu/WebZ/html/bookmarkfull.html?sessionid=01-45522-612105667

http://www.nyc.gov/html/records/html/collections.html

http://www.nyhistory.org

https://www.nyhistory.org/web/

We believe sound is a medium for mediums.

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) is the practice of using radios, tape recorders or other electronic audio devices in an attempt to pick up communications from ghosts or spirits. – source Wikipedia

This is channeling in the most literal sense – looking for spirits on actual radio channels.

Here is an EXAMPLE:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Our project simulates EVP in Washington Square Park, and will actually attempt to source sources.

We picked Washington Square because it was once the site of hangings, and gruesome deaths. It became a potter’s field, or the site of a burial ground for paupers. The hangings occurred on an elm tree on the northwest corner of the park. According to Stonewall by David Carter, “Perhaps the city chose the tree because of its proximity to the paupers’ graves, which allowed the city authorities to dispatch its least valued citizens without bothering to haul the bodies away.”

If you walk on Washington Sq. North and Macdougal, you will see the tree. There is a plaque on the tree. There are still over 15,000 bodies buried in Washington Square park. The parks division removed the branch where the hangings supposedly took place.

There is a monument in this park that resembles a tombstone. J.Q.A. Ward’s bust of steel manufacturer Alexander Lyman Holley (1890) is located in the west side of the park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lyman_Holley

CREATIVE TIME did an exhibit on techno-mysticism (thank to xin croft for the link) called STRANGE POWERS. You can read about the piece Vital Psigns in the NYTimes review of the show

RESEARCH on Wash Sq. Park:
The property was once a marsh fed by Minetta Brook. It was located near a Native American village known as Sapokanikan or “Tobacco Field.” In 1797, in the midst of a yellow fever epidemic, the Common Council purchased 90 lots for a new potter’s field, or public burial ground. The field was also used for public executions, giving rise to the tale of the 350 year old Hangman’s Elm [3] (http://www.pbase.com/hjsteed/image/56061976/medium) which stands in the northwest corner of the park. The cemetery was eventually closed in 1823 and designated as a public park. To this day, the remains of more than 20,000 bodies rest under Washington Square.

1640: What is now Greenwich Village, NY, is known to Native Americans as (var.) Sapponckanican– “tobacco fields,” or “land where the tobacco grows.” Washington Square Park was essentially marshland, fed by the Minetta Creek.

In 1629, Niewu Amsterdam’s Gov. Wouter Van Twiller appropriated a farm belonging to the Dutch West India Company in the Bossen Bouwery (“Farm in the woods”) area of Manhattan island, and began growing tobacco. The first Dutch references to the Indians’ name for the area appear around 1640. As the city developed, both sides of what is now Christopher St. were lined with tobacco farms.

this is a MAP OF THE WEST VILLAGE that’s very old, but still interesting…

THIS article is very informative and contains lots of history tidbits.

People claim to have seen ghosts at locations throughout New York City
Check this ABOUT article for some more info about haunted spots.

In Ten Dreams of Technology, Steven Dietz covers the many directions in which
new media can go.

Here are some of my thoughts on his thoughts:
When Deitz covered emergence, it occured to me that the very topic neglects the input of an individual and favors the observance of an entire system – the system becomes the individual.

He also mentioned Char Davies’ work, Osmose. The main focus was to create an immersion that is independent of cartesian (absolute) space. Will we see non-cartesian space developed and explored more in new media ? I have no idea what this would look like, but thought gives me a rush. Woosh!

Transparency was another key idea he brings up…Transparency in coding, usually known as opensource is not the same as transparency in artistic technique. Jackson Pollock is one of the figures who is more interested in reifying the process of a work – the process is the work itself.

In performance, Bertolt Brecht sought out to make his theater completely exposed. The immersive escapism we were once able to experience in theater is no longer possible with Brecht’s introduction of Alientation. This immersiveness is now relegated to the cinema. However, cinema has already approached the very same Brechtian point.

Of all his ideas, I found the introduction of Borges’ fable of a 1:1 map the most fascinating. I have been thinking quite a bit on what a 1:1 map would like and feel like. With GPS and ubiquitous computing, I believe that it is now possible to create a virtual reality inside an actual reality, which is what a 1:1 map would be.

With a multitude of expression, we create more opportunity for understanding – while we also create more opportunity for miscommunication.

With more languages and more cultures, we are more spread out.

The web is our 1:1 map of human gloabl consciousness. In a few decades, all we have ever known and will continue to know will be accessible through this web of knowledge and fact. Borges’ impossible library, in which every piece of human knowledge that existed and will exist is contained is now quickly becoming a reality.

During the dawn of consciousness, man created filters to make sense of things. This is covered in Julian Jaynes’ massive work – The Origins of Consciousness. Now, during the dawn of consciousness on the web,this web-library is now developing filters in place of searches.

Just as we create our own behavioural filters over time, we will create filters for our own personalized web to mimic and complement our psychological filter.

This is already in process through amazon.com’s “I know where you’ve been” search & rss aggregators…We are moving from searching to filtering…