Response: Poissant & Berland

 

Firstly, Jody Berland explains how the evolution and implementation of screen-based media (film, video, movie, television) has reduced the need for intricate physical structures. Society can be anywhere anytime thanks to these moving images.  Berland explains that television is a medium where it is difficult to discern who is the actual content creator. The viewer’s perception is changed by past and present events of her or his life. Television, video and film are three very different media, for which the audience is involved on different levels. Video is perceived to be an honest representation. Film is romantic. Television is seductive.

In Video: Writing History, Louise Poissant implies that video can be compared to a time machine. This technology can repeat events at the touch of a button. It is also a relatively easy task to modify footage digitally to reinforce a certain underlying motive. Although video has the ability to break any and all boundaries, advanced technologies have enabled anyone to chose, in a very specific fashion, which piece they want to see. The massive amount of information available creates personal systems of data, which emphasize the differences between each culture, race, religion, population and individual. It is possible for artist to create works, which situate these systems in a geographic manner for the consumption of their audience.

As is suggested by Marshall McLuhan, simply changing the medium, which presents the work in questions, modifies wholly the message. This means that preconceived notions of what is possible with a television instantly communicates significant information to the audience. In this case, a personal voyage with global span. This is the basis for his statement that “the medium is the message”. The medium is this language, which contains the expressions of the artists. Choosing video as medium means making public what is seen to be private. It demolishes the walls, which prevent society from understanding the world they live in.  As events “happen” in our world, video has the ability to capture them and tell their story. What the viewer must be made aware of is that the event no longer exists. Anything viewed on a screen (even live video feeds) are a mechanical recomposition of what actually happened. The event is transformed in digital or other form. Only at the time it actually happened is it “real”, after that moment, it can only be represented

For the research segment, Interiors caught my attention. For this project, Isabell Heimerdinger removes everything but the background from film scenes. She reveals what psychological or horror elements are already imbedded in the set. She explains how, in moving image production, the fast paced changing of scene sequentially erases the last in the viewer’s mind. When this moving is stalled, like in Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, the audience is able to evaluate many other pieces of the visual puzzle. Heimerdinger also agrees with Berland, stating that the viewer often demonstrates difficulty in discerning from actual events and the representation of the latter in screened based format. This artist’s work is mostly composed of extracting subtle but conventional concepts from film. Heimerdinger prefers using analogue methods.

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Sunday, January 20th, 2008. Filed under: Digital Media

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