strange eyes

on
Experimental filmmaking seems like its only referred to as a formalist category of film, something that only relates to the material of film. So few people are looking for a way of communicating images of different qualities seen in a sequence over time that transcends narrative language. It is higher and lower than narrative at the same time. It is like intuition versus thinking. The camera can be used to look at what is below the surface. Turn the camera on without setting it and focussing it. It is a mode of seeing, by being fixed in its mechanics, that enables our perception to stretch and seek. As in individuals that are in trouble or insane, the frame is not lined up or focussed, but it is still the frame of reference. The art of experimentation is to give value to the world outside the conventional mode of expectation.
Improvised video cameras give us a shifting perception of the room we are all in. We see something abstract and then may realise that it is simply part of something familiar. But that is not the total aim, familiarity. Familiarity is when the mind stops seeking for itself, the soul is not stimulated, it dies.

Comments

Sam James said…
Well I forgot about Raul Ruiz and his 'Poetics of Cinema'. Still, he doesn't talk about optics much because he's a film guy not a video guy. Deleuze is concerned with the time image and the movement image, montage and our perceptions of the end product. It still seems rare to hear philosphy about the camera as live-streaming, the camera as an entity in itself, its presence tapping another perspectival view, whether we are looking or not. Bogard's 'Simulation of Surveillence' still refers to the end product - the human being 'simulated' by telepresence. I'll re-read Bill Viola's 'Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House'. Interpretation of art philosophy is very subjective and multi-valent
11:46
Sam James said…
There is an interesting article http://re.cont3xt.net/pdf/Re_003.pdf on vjing vs 'Live Cinema' by Mia Makela. Again many of the references are to the use of computers and software to create more or less ambient visuals. No mention of the camera as mediator of space or psyche. Her background is in Shamanism before she came to video projections which is interesting.
16:26
Sam James said…
"I want to make the camera become the air itself. To become the substance of time and the mind." -
Bill Viola
16:31
Sam James said…
THE CINEMA VERITE CAMERA: Cinema verite, a type of filming that first became popular in the 1960's, was a step toward this changing relationship with cameras we have been experiencing. The cinema verite camera, however, is never a hidden camera. Instead, a fascinating relationship exists between the people who have given permission to be filmed and the always-present film-makers. It is the omnipresence of the cinema verite camera that leads us down the road to where we are today. Technology changes (video, tiny hideable and portable cameras), differing views of privacy, desire for attention, now make the black-and-white 16mm films of the 60's seem quaint in their intentions of immediacy. It is, though, a key signpost from the past. It is the sense of voyeurism, of privacy invaded (even with permission), the "how can I be seeing this" feeling, and the absolute fascination of non-fiction footage produced unscripted and spontaneously, that makes cinema-verite an important predecessor to the varieties of hidden cameras we find today.
- from www.cinema.ucla.edu
19:03
Sam James said…
This is a great find on prepared and improvised audio visual experimentation using 3d and camera abstraction

http://www.users.bigpond.com/tstex/Time_Space_Texture.pdf

A thesis by Andrew Lyons in 2003 in Sydney
12:07
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