In a message dated 1/26/04 10:03:35 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:

<< Subject: transcultural/transnational spectatorship >>

Thanks to Adeline for making me realize that my posting to Wendy was very
incomplete - incoherent in fact. I was responding to her observation: " I'm
specifically zeroing in on the ideas of uncanniness, translation and random
juxtaposition."

Cutting may seem random, but it rarely is. The shots in these films  which
give the impression of randomness, were not placed where they were placed
accidentally, or arbitrarily, it's just that the reasoning behind their ordering is
of a different kind, and that ordering has a different relationship to making
meaning than the order of a traditonal sequence. In montage The meaning gets
extended beyond convention in
order to trigger our sense of the uncanny, sublime, awesome and otherwise
ineffable. The coherence just has more to do with pictoral values than story or
content points.

And... to introduce myself, also as I've just started following the list, and
my first reply to Wendy was t a blurt in transit, attempting to respond to
her before my connection got lost.

I began to make films in the late '60's in response to being deeply absorbed
in post 'Tractatus" Wittgenstein. I taught Philocine in the CInema Dept. at
SUNY Binghampton, then Mass. College of Art,  & U Mass Boston with a couple of
semesters at San Francisco Art Inst & Sch of Art Inst of Chi. Have made several
dozen 'experimental' films (one of which, THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1983), an
essay on pictoral language (pictograms) and cultural styles is owned by the
Australian National Library. ) I have been away from philocinematic thought for
more than ten years attempting to live the academy-free life of an outside
edugandist (see <A HREF="http://www.bepictures.com">www.bepictures.com</A>.) I
recently decided it was time to try to "can my rap", i.e. put into a coherent
stream of discourse the ideas motivating those 25 years of teaching and
experimental filmmaking.  I am happy to say that I am having a delightful time spinning
out a very simple and elegant theory of meaning which will be able to adress
the very different meaning styles of words, pictures, music and movies with
some equivalence and insight.  I hope in a while to be able to share it in this
or some other journal and heartily welcome any offers to help me sharpen my
ideas en route.
Thanks in advance.

Also  - to Adeline. just as it was fortuitous, almost seredipitous that I saw
Wendy's post at the same time as I was working out some ideas about
distinctions between sequences and montages, I saw your post - at a time when I have
some expectation of being in SIngapore, perhaps repeatedly or continuously.  A
coincidence for sure, but I don't know yet whether it's just part of a
sequence, or it has the uncanny quality of a montage. With your permission I'd like to
be able to swap emails with you outside the list to ask some questions about
"the scene" in Singapore, and what one such as I might have to expect.

Thanks, fer yer indulgence.
Dan Barnett
Executive Producer
www.bepictures.com
San Rafael, CA 94901

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