Reply to Robert Koehler Mon, 3 Jun 2002 22:44:35 -0700
RK:
This has rather profound ramifications for the way we all absorb ideas off
the movie screen. As I noted in my previous post on Tarr, I'm still
absorbing what I took in the past week or two from this astounding artist.
I'll break off my thoughts on that into a separate posting. Arfur's post
also referred to films as texts, the usual structuralist terminology for any
created artefact. I prefer not to view films as texts, even though I'm
currently writing a screenplay. Films are, above all, image with sound. I
understand the underlying foundation of the textaul position, but I would
always want to stress the ``seeing'' of a film above its ``reading.''
DS:
I think this an important point. There is a broad tendency to think of text
as the meaning in movies. People think from what they are familiar with.
Whereas as you say movies are visual and sound. In order for one to counter
the textual approach one has to understand and emphasize the 'language like'
use of movies. In particular how exchange (interactivity) is understood.
There is a tendency for movies to be understood in relation to the
entertainment industry. That is practical in many ways, but the
philosophical meaning of using movies in a language like way can't be
confined to what one sees on movie screens. One has to address the issues
of the language like use of movies in two ways, theoretically how does one
use movies in that way, and two how does the present system of movies work
to strengthen the use of movies as a philosophical vehicle. Here I am
saying we all philosophize in order to understand the world. The theory
emerges in facilitating the ordinary person using movies to construct their
world view. The philosophical use of movies is where exchange takes place.
When we see a movie on a screen the properties of the exchange are quite
different than what could happen on the internet. No doubt there is an
exchange process in movie theatres but that process is quite different from
what could be done on the internet.
Philosophical approaches may be quite a visual range, but the necessary
point to make is if the visual is used to express philosophy the form has
very different properties than writing systems. These different properties
determine the philosophical content of expression. That is why it is
important to have a filmosophy apart from a textual approach.
Concretely for vision as I have referenced in messages earlier to this list
there are two channels of vision, the ventral and dorsal channels.
Essentially starting at the retina, one sheet is rod cell (dorsal system)
which 'sees' motion, and at the fovea, cone cell which sees 'stillness'.
This center/periphery system is a deep issue in terms of human cognition.
The distinction between us and other primates and from the primates and
other animals is about the movement toward language in human beings as
developed in vision during evolution.
The retinal system consisting of two parallel sheets of visual information
that define the basic grammar of speech, that is the division into nouns
(subjects) and verbs (motion related cognition). From a technical point of
view each sheet attaches to the other sheet in complex ways which are
related to being in the world.
With writing systems information is presented in a linear fashion, but
visual images are non linear. That non-linear property can be expressed via
either from the neurons and their axons and dendrites, or mathematically the
factorial property of a point in a sheet in a computer. Usually the average
factorial property is 3000 if we are considering cell projections like
axons, and perhaps a factor of 10 or greater for dendrites touching any
given neuron.
What remains hidden in commercial cinema is the exchange process of
language. The exchange process in a movie is the grammatization of the
visual image so that one can use stillness apart from motion. The linkage
of those two then is always related to the body in human beings and all
communication arises from that process.
Thanks,
Doyle Saylor
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