<nettime> Re: In Search of a Poetics of the Spatialization of the Moving Image, 3

[James Buckhouse <jbuckhouse@yahoo.com>]

I am very impressed with Marc and Lev's exchange regarding the Poetics of
the Spatialization of the Moving Image. Very briefly, I'd like to add a
few ideas.

In trying to differientiate between traditional cinemagraphic montage and
the new possibilities (which, I think Marc is saying are actually very old
possibilities) of the spatialization of the moving image, it might be
useful for a moment to think in terms of architectural practice.

Hitchcock as example - then defining terms:

In addition to constructing the narrative, the sight-lines and camera
angles of Hitchcock's films seem to create an architecture of power
relations; both between the characters and between the audience and the
directed point of interest on the screen.

This idea has been written about by many people - so I will skip right to
what interests me about this; if these sight-lines and shot-assembly
constitute an architectural practice, then what is the "space" that is
created?

In my opinion, three types of space are created: and they overlay easily
into the, also much written about, categories of the real, the actual and
the virtual. It is possible that other readers will disagree with my
defining of these three type of spaces here, none the less, I hope it
won't be too distracting to use these definitions for the moment.

Real, Actual, Virtual:

In the architectual practice of cinematography, the space of the real
would be the illusionistic, depicted space of the setting of the scene
(inside a room, inside a courtyard, alongside a country road, etc).

The space of the actual splits in half - the first is the actual location
of shoot (where props, people, backdrops, staging, etc. were filmed and
also are on occasion, altered, moved, or faked as necessary to create the
image - even to go as far as to create elements digitally that do not
exist - or even to create the entire film digitially with no actual
photographic element). The second is the actual space of the viewer's
environment while viewing - sitting in the theatre, at home in front of
the TV, at a black-box gallery, inside of an elaborate media art
installation...).

Finally, the space of the virtual, which I think is the area that Marc is
most interested in - is the overlay that is generated by the real and the
actual, but exists only as generated in the minds of the viewer through
the process of imaginary construction.

We construct in our minds the space defined by the master, two, ECU, and
reverse shots. We construct in our minds the architectual "program" of the
sequence of shots. We generate connections to past ideas recently
witnessed within the project we are viewing - as well as connections back
to associated ideas from our own more distant memory.

So what would the goal of this program be, as applied to the poetics of
the spatialization of the moving image? I believe it is towards an art
practice where the final medium is memory.

What else do we have? We have only memory and exchange. If all thought can
exist only as memory (even the most immediate thoughts or experiences we
have can only be formed through the construction of memory - as nothing
can exist in the ever-receding now-moment, but must be pushed out by the
next now-moment), and if memory is both a specific and a cumulative
construction, then all thought and all art is a result of past experiences
combined with the near-immediate re-configuration of these experiences.

The poetics of the spatialization of the moving image seem to be in
service of this near-immediate re-configuration. The black-box video
gallery, theatical cinematic apparartus, or elaborate video installation,
all seem crafted towards creating a environment where the re-configuration
can have maximum effect.

The most successful installations, for me, give value to the process of
imaginative construction, and respect and exploit the brain's ability to
create robust and highly personal mental images and ideas in association
to what is being seen in the actual space. Game designer Will Wright calls
the brain "the most powerful graphics rendering device" - and I think he
is right on when reccommending that the most compelling images are the
ones that can somehow trigger this renderer and employ it's power to do
the bulk of the work.

Images that try to replace the mental renderer often feel impoverished.
Personally, it is only recently that I have begun to understand that a
camera can do both - both depict and trigger.

This is where I believe that the spatialization of the moving image
differs from the cinematic apparatus of a movie theatre or even watching a
video at home: the place in which the moving image is presented is crafted
within the specific architectual program and artistic practice of
constructing memory, generated, in in a state of perpetual
near-completion, on the most powerful rendering device in the world.

   



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