Dirty Video Mixer links

Hey guys. Since there seemed to be interest in the dirty video mixer I demonstrated in class, here is a link to a basic schematic for how to build one of these things. You may need some knowledge of soldering to make a permanent piece of hardware, but this sort of thing is not hard to learn. If you're curious about this, maybe take a look at some of Nicholas Collins' tutorials on youtube: How to Solder by Nic Collins.

Here are a few other links:
Hardware Video Glitch Art
Get Lo Fi

Metaphors on Vision

"We have art lest we perish from the truth." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

Stan Brakhage has a contextually timely love of humanity's garden state. The excerpt "Metaphors on Vision" is a ponderous, longing ode to the purity and unbounded freedom of ignorance. Brakhage bristles with Rousseau-like wonder at the possibilities of human experience without socialized categorization. This native innocence of labels and names is purported to be a lost Eden of art and childlike wonder, tainted through the introspective lens of an adult's socially organized consciousness, the very memory of this unbound state divorced from the concept of language. We have torn ourselves from pure experience through labeling the natural world, and then further ruined our connection with the natural order through performing much of our personhood through technology.

While Brakhage's Romantic biases may come from a lengthy intellectual tradition, his claims' veracity concerning his two-fold disgust with humanity's interactions with language and technology is debatable.  People experience the world through labels and metaphor because they are wired to perceive, love, and remember patterns. Labels and categories give the natural world the order and logic necessary for human comprehension; the human mind is no more bound by labels than a molecule is limited through the necessity of containing atoms. Language, profuse and adaptable, continuously provides new ways to record and create experience in all nuance and color. Indeed, decades after Brakhage's "Metaphors on Vision", scientists discovered that distinctions in language enhance the ability to perceive subtle differences in color. Labels grow to fill the entirety of human experience, forming additional perceptions of the world that would otherwise be lost.

Brakhage's second issue, the loss of the natural world through technological interference, is  a less straightforward case than language. Brakhage deals in art, truth, and the perception of both. Abstraction of the real, both in language and technology, distills and intensifies the essence of the subject matter. Language categories, while capable of generalization from the particular, create  and preserve meaning.  A life lived through technology is similar in many ways. While there are additional lenses of filtration from the "natural state",  an abstraction and reinterpretation of base reality, there are records of a life lived, and these records have meaning. Art is reality, but it is also, possibly more importantly, the human interpretation of reality and a record of experience. Nietzsche  considered art to be a palatable abstraction from reality, something meaningful and necessary, forming human understanding of reality in a way they could bear.

Surrealist art, through stylization and abstractions of reality, records  the debatable realities humans experience exceptionally well. Jan van Eyck, a Belgian painter, used intense detail, vivid hues, and bizarre fantasy to describe religious settings that seem more real and vivid  than reality itself. This interpreted fervor and shared memory bleeding into myth is exactly the subject matter the assigned essay brought to memory.  Below is an excellent article concerning Van Eyck's Magical Realism themes with large, full color plates of some of my favorite pieces  of his work.  It's definitely worth the read.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3795460?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=van&searchText=eyck&searchText=magical&searchText=realism&searchText=art&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dvan%2Beyck%2Bmagical%2Brealism%2Bart%26amp%3Bprq%3Dvan%2Beyck%2Bsurrealism%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bhp%3D25%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bso%3Drel&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Color Study Link:
http://m.pnas.org/content/104/19/7780.full

Metaphors on Vision 

It was very intriguing reading Brakhage’s “Metaphors on Vision” as it made me think about the influences society has had throughout our entires lives. Brakhage’s statements made me wonder what life would be like if we perceived the world around us without labeling or defining objects and materials. Perceiving and knowing too much in the way society wants us to might not be a good thing. In a way, we can lose our ability to imagine and think beyond our limits. It’s sad really, and we see so many things in our lives and just pass by them like they’re nothing when in reality they offer so much more. 

One section of Brahkhage’s text that really caught my attention was the discussion of the infant’s eye. While it’s impossible for us to regain our innocent child-like vision, visuals, especially videos, can help us experience journeys that provide us the state of vision that we all had as children. Artists use countless techniques to create that experience of the world that we knew before we were molded by society’s ways. In addition, visual communication is a universal language that everyone understands and therefore can provoke emotions. It reminds me of the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but a video is worth millions. 

It seems that some artists have some ideas on how the world really is from their point of view, like Brakhage. The artists display their view onto their work and offer something that not many people appreciate. Brakhage’s challenge to society’s influence brings me back to this video series known as Don’t Hug I’m Scared. The series takes on topics like creativity, time, technology, etc, in a very unusual way. A friend of mine introduced me to this other video that has always made felt awestruck. The images, sound, and camera work are superb and makes you believe that you’re on some sort of journey. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ

https://vimeo.com/51584025

Metaphors on Vision

     From an early age we are taught what is beautiful, what is normal, what is right, and what is wrong. In a way we become the reflection of our own society. Brakhage writes about seeing with the unprejudiced eye, and that is something very new for me to grasp. As an ATEC student, the product we produce for class is very straight forward. There really is no need for deep interpretation, as things are more black and white.  'Art' is a three letter word, so simple yet, so broad. What is now 'normal' or 'mainstream' was once something new and undiscovered. 

     Brakhage writes that "one can never go back...after the loss of innocence," and I don't know if I fully agree with that. In a way I am trying to unlearn what have been taught to me, and open up to something new which is allowing me to let my emotion flow freely. With abstract art, I must approach it differently. I approach a piece as if it's an open canvas, and I allow my emotion and feeling interpret the piece before my mind. It's similar to the way I interpret classical music, you have to lose yourself in the piece to really appreciate it.

Seers and Vision

"You're only here for a short visit, don't hurry, don't worry, and be sure to smell the flowers along the way"- Walter Hagen 

Brakhage's "Metaphors on Vision" reminds me that perspective can change everything. Stan says to imagine a world with an "endless variety of movement and innumerable gradations of color".  Do we really have to imagine it? Isn't that the world we live in? I hope that no one would have to imagine it. When you are taught what to look for in life according to what some might think, it's easy to see why some people may see much more in life.

Some may see the world around them and be numb to it. If you see a tree in your daily schedule of life, is all you see the brown wood and the green leaves? Or do you see something telling you that you are alive this very second? We are all severely distracted by the rat race. Are we more than "birth, sex, death, and the search for God"? Some try to be, call them artists. Brakage knows that artists use a "new language" to show others what they might not see or receive from life. One of these many new languages is experimental film.

Vision

Imagination is a strong tool and it is hard to keep it sharp as we grow older. As we grow up life we don't always get to discover things for ourselves but instead things start to become defined for us. This starts to take away our imagination and how we look at things. Stan Brakage wrote "One can never go back- not even in imagination". As artist we have to look past these definitions in life and look at it new ways and its not an easy thing to do.
While reading this I thought of a famous piece most of us have encountered some time in our life by Rene Magritte -The Treachery of Images. If you don't recognize the title you may know it has this is not a pipe. Surrealism paintings are good examples of looking at everyday life and objects differently. In this surrealist piece you see a pipe but its not really a pipe if you really think about it but a painting. A pipe is something you can hold to your mouth and smoke out of but this painting you can not do that so technically it is not a pipe. If the artist did not write underneath this pieces that this is not a pipe most people would look at this and define it as a pipe because that is what they were taught but that does not mean that is correct.

                                              

Response to "Metaphors on Vision" by Stan Brakhage

“Words, no matter whether they are vocalized and made into sounds or remain unspoken as thoughts, can cast an almost hypnotic spell upon you. You easily lose yourself in them, become hypnotized into implicitly believing that when you have attached a word to something, you know what it is. The fact is: You don’t know what it is. You have only covered up the mystery with a label. Everything, a bird, a tree, even a simple stone, and certainly a human being, is ultimately unknowable. This is because it has unfathomable depth. All we can perceive, experience, think about, is the surface layer of reality, less than the tip of an iceberg.  Underneath the surface appearance, everything is not only connected with everything else, but also with the Source of all life out of which it came. Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself. When you look at it or hold it and let it be without imposing a word or mental label on it, a sense of awe, of wonder, arises within you. Its essence silently communicates itself to you and reflects your own essence back to you.”

-        Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Humans like to label everything in an effort to better understand the world around them. We like to simplify and categorize things in order to feel more comfortable. Words and verbal language dominate our thinking and this has both its advantages and disadvantages. Expressing ourselves verbally, labelling our emotions and what we see can be liberating and exciting. However we can also speak too much.

In the age of information, we are bombarded with words, everywhere. We are also bombarded with images. An overload of visual and text combinations makes us take our rudimentary senses for granted, and we forget to look at the world with an “innocent” eye.

We have forgotten that there are other languages other than spoken and written word. We forget that it is not necessary to label every experience and every emotion with words. It is important to pay attention to nonverbal languages. Multimedia is useful, but sometimes the simplicity of a silent film, a movement in isolation, is what we need to bring us back into our unique human experience.

As Brakhage describes (using words), there is so much more to what we see than what we label it as. What if we were to consider what we saw as “incomprehensible,” and avoid the desire to categorize it immediately? Silent contemplation may allow us to understand what we see before us with a new depth. Maybe if we stop trying to classify everything, we will find the things we are looking for. What if we were to envision things that have no obvious label, things never seen before in this representational world? It is the role of the artist to move beyond tropes and icons, dig deeply into his or her personal vision, and push his or herself to broadcast it to the public in the most genuine. By seeking and creating a “new language,” the artist can help others to understand themselves and the world around themselves more deeply.

Experimental film, a relatively new media that heavily utilizes the visual language, is the perfect avenue for this pursuit.

Stan Brakhage – Metaphors on Vision

"Metaphors on vision" is very much the literary equivalent of what Stan brackage is all
about in his works, what i interpret as hyper abstraction and non-objective subject matter. It
reminds me of why I seek to keep an open mind about different art forms especially the non-
traditional fields; contemporary art, experimental film, video and media art. While it true
that , we live in an age of media and digital or video artists or experimental film artists are
more respected, abstract video art tends to not be as widely recieved, is that because of the
non-objective subject matter or because of the newer medium that is being used that these forms
of art are not more widely accepted?
I used to be one to look at these forms of art and not understand or comprehend them;
like some pieces I've seen at the DMA that consist of some kind of video projection onto a bare
wall of the exhibit room. There is a process to them. There is just as much thought put into
these works as there would be for a more traditional art piece. "Metaphors on Vision" proves as
much. Works like what Brakhage and other contemporary media artists make invite us to think
harder. Or maybe the viewer doesn't think about it at all, but there is no denying that there is
an emotional response elicited from the piece. Because there is no clear subject in such works,
we as the viewer are forced to deepen our perception, like the way Brakhage encourages us to
consider that the imagery of hallucination has entered into the world of reality. That's the
beauty of these works, that artists seek to create a different mode of seeing and interpreting.
While I read this article I thought of an artist I was introduced to last semester.
This is a particular animation of his came to mind; Though it is stop motion pin screen
animation, I think in a way is a good representation of a facet of the ideas of moving
image/media art.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/imprints

"Metaphors on Vision"

"Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth." 

~Simone de Beauvoir~

With his essay "Metaphors on Vision" Stan Brakhage attempts to articulate the unspeakable, intangible nature of creativity and the burden of the artist.  He is writing of that mysterious zone that anyone who assigns himself or herself the title "artist" has inevitably entered into while lost in the throes of artistic indulgence.  Where we operate not on logic and obligation, but on a vague notion of an indefinable, beautiful truth. 

This strange land is all but alien to anyone who has lost their creative drive, whether through willful destruction or careless inattention.  Even for us strange creatures known as artists, this place may not be the default land on which we place our feet every morning.  We are far too often assaulted with the weight and responsibility of ascribing pragmatic meanings to the things that surround us.  All the while we ignore the absurdity inherent in asserting our small, insignificant will on such abstract ideas as color, emotion, and God. 

Brakhage says even our symbols are weak representations of the chaotic phantasmagoria that lies beyond the veil of our perceived existence.  Skulls and phalluses replace death and sex in a childish attempt to explain our existence.  Brakhage seeks the space between these concrete ideas of ungraspable concepts.  Where clarity is never guaranteed, but always pursued.  Where the simple act of defying a perceived fact gives way to an even purer fact.

Ultimately, he comments on experimental filmmakers being charged with carrying the tradition of challenging reality.  The same charge that has been carried by visual artists for centuries.  But in narrowing the scope to the relatively new territory of the cinematic artist, he writes as a pioneer on the edge of barely charted grounds.  He makes us aware of how new this art form is, and creates an excitement that the reader, if they take on the challenge presented, could stumble into a truly new form of artistic representation.  That he or she could give new meaning to the beautiful, obscure abyss of being.

"Paularay" by Dominic Hailstone

Welcome!

This blog is where we will discuss theoretical and historical readings assigned in class. Whenever the syllabus reads Blog Post Due:, it means you are to create a new post here with your response. What I'm looking for in your responses is for you to show me how you're thinking about and integrating the reading. Don't tell me what it says, I already know. I want you to tell me, or show me, what it made you think about. This will be an aid to our conversation about the text in class. If you are having trouble thinking about what to make in your projects, these readings are meant to get you thinking about how other people have approached the subjects we will be covering. Please take these readings seriously! Looking forward to a great semester with all of you.