Author: Jade Anthony

After experimenting with text to speech voice narration in my film:

I felt the addition of voices took away from the film’s visuals, and i wanted to shift the focus back to them. I tried leaving the film silent, but felt an ambient, simple track might better suit the tone.

I decided to take inspiration from Ryoji Ikeda once again, specifically his album Dataplex, and try to make a simple soundtrack myself. Ikeda typically works with the highest and lowest registers of human hearning, and while this isnt something i want to do myself, a subtle, quiet track would be ideal.

I used FruityLoops Studio, software recommended to me by a friend, and experimented with what i could do using audio clips from the footage and the narration alongside virtual instruments. This was a completely new process for me but one i think became a fascinating learning experience, and i believe the result will much better match the tone and concept of the film.

Ian Cheng’s work centres on simulations which are often turned into video. In this music video for the band Liars, Cheng has exploited the 3D models virtually fragility- their tendency to clip through each other and distort, exposing the elements of 3D animation that are typically a detriment. The camera is also not fixed but swings wildly around a space with no real indication of size or orientation. Exposing these elements of digital practice sets the video inside the computer itself, not entirely dissimilar to The Man with the Movie Camera’s inclusion of the filming and editing process.

 

Similarly, the opening to Push Pulk/ Spinning Plates dir. Johnny Hardstaff features a 3D CAD model to generate abstract visuals whilst alluding to the form of machinery. It retains a distinctly digital aesthetic by exposing the wireframe mesh of the model, which, when coloured and edited during post processing becomes almost sculptural, a subject in and of itself.

Stan Brakhage was an American non narrative filmmaker often credited with being one of the most influential 2th century experimental film makers.

Brakhage’s film often utilized hand painted frames, all manner of cutting techniques, superimposition, scratching at the surface of the film itself, and even taping found objects such as plants to the film, as he did to produce Mothlight (1963)

This experimentation with material and inventive approach to generating image is something i want to explore in relation to current digital technology, and processes of editing.

 

Ryoji Ikeda is a musician and visual artist working with installation. His process centres around numbers- the link between music and mathematics. Transfinite is composed of two projections, binary code and infinite numbers pulled from the human genome and astronomical coordinates, as well as a sound piece composed by Ikeda, to which the projections respond.

For me, Ikeda is an artist who is extremely adept at turning very abstract concepts and visuals into experiences that don’t patronise or confuse the audience, but stand stubbornly on their own, devoid of explanation. Infact, Ikeda is notorious for his refusal to talk about the concepts in his work (as he makes abundantly clear in his ‘interview’ for the observer: http://observer.com/2011/05/infinite-quest-ryoji-ikeda-wants-to-disappear/ ) insisting that his approach is more pragmatic. He would rather not focus on his ideas or concepts, so as not to influence or over complicate the experience the work generates, and this approach seems to make his highly technical, abstract compositions surprisingly accessible.

Though for most viewers, the strobing of binary code appears as merely a maze of flashing lines, the atmosphere they conjure in conjunction with Ikeda’s composition is undeniable. His ability to utilise projection to construct an environment in which this can be experienced is impressive.  This approach to abstraction may seem obtuse to some, but personally I can’t help but be inspired by Ikeda’s determination to wilfully disregard his authorship, and allow the work to be what the work IS. Like Tarkovsky insisting, in responce to allegations from the Soviet State Committee for Cinematography that Stalker was too dull and slow, “The film needs to be slower and duller.”

I hope that in my film, despite absence of narrative i can focus on atmosphere through attention to composition and colour choices, the relationship between form & meaning (digital processes to critique problems inherently digital in nature), in order to be as direct yet fluid in concept as Ikeda.

I developed a rough cut for my film based around the idea of an artificial sun, inspired by a news article about LCD screens displaying the sunrise in cities with air pollution and smog too dense to see through- a story that turned out to be sensationalised and false, yet swept the web as truth. It is interesting to consider that technology allows for the spread of false information so quickly and easily, but also that possible, our hyper awareness of climate change made the story, despite being untrue, so emotive. Perhaps we need to confront the plausibility of such an event and our attitudes towards it.

I decided that, given the subject matter, projection would be the most appropriate way t display it in a gallery ( to tie in with the idea of artificial light, and also give me the freedom of different formats, ie. circular or site- specific.) I made a version of the film in a circular format, inspired by Olafur Elliason’s Weather Project, and also the circular motifs in many of Andy Warhol’s experimental screen tests. I then projected this onto and into various spaces using mapping software. Here i produced another video using the footage from the experiments, and some glitch methods/ overlays i have been working on. At this point i may want to include this footage in the film itself, though I haven’t yet decided.

I have chosen to make a film for a fine art gallery setting, one that builds on my current practice as an artist. As a painter and digital artist, i’m drawn to the similarities in image construction between art and painting, and films potential for abstraction over a time based medium, and so in my initial research i came across stills from a piece by Cory Arcangel entitled ‘Video Painting’ (2008)

The piece is a two hour long improvisation using various image generation technology, notably final cut, an amiga toaster, vidicon cameras, etc. It was then recorded onto a VHS tape, giving it a distinctly Lo Fi feel, complementary to the more complex visuals produced via a multitude of methods. It is essentially a series of compositions, a painting morphing over time, entirely abstract and devoid of narrative. But unfortunately the video isn’t available to view, the only copy held by the smithsonian american art museum, so when looking for similar works, i found Toshio Matsumoto.

Matsumoto has produced various feature films but two of his experimental shorts, Relation , and in particular, Shift, caught my interest.  Produced in 1982 and utilizing cutting edge technology at the time, Shift deconstructs a building into geometric architectural form producing a series of puzzle like graphics that reduce the residential building to an off-kilter array of horizontal blocks shifting to the accompaniment of collaborator Yasuke Inagaki’s electronic drones, the result a somewhat eerie and somber film, it’s deliberate destruction of symmetry, cool toned greys and blues combined with occasional graphics,  the ambient drones, and its acknowledgement of the medium (the production is clear, the technological aspects of the film are not hidden we are confronted with what is clearly manipulated footage) producing a dreamlike, hypnotic experience.