More flatness: one big issue is the codec wars beginning under the bonnet of
HTML 5: Google (proud owners of On2 since late 2008) and Mozilla
champiioning open source Ogg etc; the MPEG-LA patent pool led by the once
i=unlikely coalition of Apple and Microsoft declaring that On2 own no
patents, ALL relevant patents belong to the pool for all codecs
Under that bonnet lies anotherr engine: the centrality of vector prediction,
which h is - an argument made in my essay in Video Vortex
http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/inc-readers/videovortex/
- a spatialising aesthetic, which h reads moving images as migration from
keyframe A to keyframe B,
Much aesthetic argument to make there, but to my mind as threateneing as the
flat and the individualised is this potentially universalised (and
commodified) denial of the intrinsic nature of vectors, wh is that they are
time-based and future-oriented geometries. In place of the free unfolding of
image / line in time we get the same process which turned the chronology of
exchange into the space of spreadsheets; the history of internactions into
the space of databases
The glitch is a beautiful and temporary effect - like the "nostalgia for
quicktime" vivian sobchack wrote about. We need both to exploit the internal
contradictions (eg daniel Crooks) and to build the alternatives (eg Adam
Hyde)
S
On 22/10/10 5:26 PM, "Melinda Rackham" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> hi all,
> as a gallery interventionist and a network-taught curator im
> fascinated in whats evolving tangentially in this months discussion
> about space and control.
>
> Ele's comment about the web flattening cinematic space jolted me out
> of lurking..:
> "Forgive me for being old-school, but art museums are 3D collective
> spaces
> and not individually viewed laptops....
> YouTube spatially flattens our viewing of moving images"
>
> Is it even older skool to think that the web is a collective
> sculptural space bursting with multi-dimensional potentiality,
> and that it has been limited, underutilized and conceptually eroded
> since its inception by 2d thinking?
> flattened by the ubiquitous web page, and hijacked by the many
> static and streaming derivatives of cinema..
> and the inability of a brick and mortar mindset to inhabit the
> infinitesimal space that is available?
>
> the emergence of glitch and its parallel discussion this month is
> stupendous--
> - glitch eats into the flattened, clean, cinematic, controlled
> curatorial content and intent,
> revealing layers, codecs, ugly, messy, unresolved, non narratives,
> with no money shot..
> as if youve smashed up plaster board walls, leaving exposed broken
> beams and dangling wires sparking,
> at last - something is about to happen...
>
> youve just got to admit --- it is a little bit exciting !
>
>
> warm regards,
> Melinda
>
> Melinda Rackham (PhD)
> Emerging Artforms Curator
> Adjunct Professor of RMIT University
>
> a P.O. Box 1109
> North Adelaide
> South Australia 5006
>
> e [log in to unmask]
> m +61 410 596 592
> h +61 8 7127 5037
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 22/10/2010, at 10:14 AM, Sarah Cook wrote:
>
>> Hi List
>>
>> thanks to Ele for posting so many good questions about what exactly
>> is going on with the question of video art work online, and making
>> curatorial selection using the online world. I completely agree with
>> her sentiment that jury selection processes feel outmoded online in
>> this way when there is the possibility to exploit social networks,
>> draw in specialist knowledge AND be transparent about how it all
>> works. Can anyone give examples of when curatorial jury processes
>> work well online? I'd like to think we have good models within our
>> community -- RunMe.org? Rhizome commissions? Is curatorial jury
>> transparency just about sharing the voting process with the masses?
>>
>> Apologies for these jetlagged thoughts - I am in Toronto today and
>> earlier this afternoon I sat in and listened to a panel about
>> Curatorial Consciousness at the ImagineNATIVE festival -- a film
>> festival which is increasingly incorporating new media art, both
>> 'programmed' and 'curated' in separate strands. While the panel was
>> stacked with some absolutely excellent curators I was still
>> disheartened to discover that we are still talking about the same
>> things as 20 years ago - how video art changed to fit the gallery -
>> but now, because of the plurality and affordability of technology we
>> are celebrating and lauding that very variability. An esteemed
>> museum curator (who fought for the acquisition of media art into
>> national art collections, and so is very well versed in formats) who
>> is now running a commercial gallery, commented that because her
>> gallery space is small she and her artists come up with creative
>> solutions, showing works on 'exquisite' little screens or even 'old
>> style' monitors, even when the exact same work is projected large
>> scale in concurrent museum shows. Of course this is the choice of
>> the artist, but surely curatorial suggestion is at play here too -
>> video wouldn't have been projected if there weren't big rooms to
>> fill with art, and if museums weren't better placed to afford bigger
>> projectors. now that anyone can afford many types of presentation
>> technology, and we're all used to seeing thumbnails of works online,
>> it doesn't matter if the work changes again - scaled for the space
>> in which it is presented, with no concern for which is the 'real'
>> version? This of course relates to the great letter from Kenneth
>> Goldsmith which Charles posted about the role of Ubuweb.
>>
>> I suppose I'm left with the question of how online filesharing and
>> the necessary compromises/compression isn't helping our argument
>> about maintaining best possible quality for the artists when
>> curating media work.
>>
>> But all that aside, the live stream from the Guggenheim starts in 15
>> minutes! Set your browsers to full screen!
>> sarah
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 21 Oct 2010, at 11:52, Ele Carpenter wrote:
>>
>>> YouTube spatially flattens our viewing of moving images, which is
>>> why it's
>>> great for selecting thumbnails, but useless for making final
>>> curatorial
>>> decisions unless your presentation format is YouTube itself. And if
>>> that is
>>> the case - then the spatial networked potential of YouTube could
>>> offer a
>>> number of selection and exhibition models. What seems clear - is
>>> that the
>>> work has been selected for a YouTube audience without challenging
>>> the medium
>>> or expectations of YouTube itself (except perhaps the film calling
>>> us to
>>> unplug). This uncritical approach and lack of knowingness about the
>>> medium
>>> seems incongruous with the level of critical expertise of the
>>> selection
>>> panel. But most importantly, the open-submission and jury selection
>>> is an
>>> outmoded curatorial model loathed by most curators as a token fop to
>>> pseudo-democratic transparency. It's a model which ignores the
>>> strength of
>>> social networks and specialist knowledge, it ignores the
>>> impossibility of
>>> viewing thousands of artworks, and denies the opportunity to really
>>> be
>>> transparent about the selection process at all.
>>>
>>> Has anyone seem the presentation of the films at the Guggenheim(s)
>>> - I'm
>>> very curious to know how they were installed and accessed. I guess
>>> many of
>>> the works were shown in their full 'feature' length at a higher
>>> resolution?
>>>
>>> Bestest,
>>> Ele
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 20 October 2010 14:19, Charles Turner <[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Oct 18, 2010, at 8:24 AM, Sarah Cook wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> ... can I request that the conversation come back to the practice
>>>>> of
>>>> curating?
>>>>
>>>> In case y'all didn't catch this:
>>>>
>>>> <http://ubu.com/resources/frameworks.html>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Ele Carpenter
>>> Curator
>>>
>>> Lecturer, MFA Curating, Dept of Art, Goldsmiths College,
>>> University of London. New Cross, London SE14 6NW
>>>
>>> m: +44 (0)7989 502 191
>>> www.elecarpenter.org.uk
>>> www.eleweekend.blogspot.com
Prof Sean Cubitt
[log in to unmask]
Media and Communications Program
Faculty of Arts
Room 127 John Medley East
The University of Melbourne
Parkville VIC 3010
Australia
Tel: + 61 3 8344 3667
Fax:+ 61 3 8344 5494
M: 0448 304 004
Skype: seancubitt
http://www.culture-communication.unimelb.edu.au/media-communications/
http://www.digital-light.net.au/
http://homepage.mac.com/waikatoscreen/
http://seancubitt.blogspot.com/
http://del.icio.us/seancubitt
Editor-in-Chief Leonardo Book Series
http://leonardo.info
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