The group’s concept has been confirmed, roles allocated, statement selected and meetings prepared. We have decided to retain our concept, “Fire” but adopted a new persona, “Femme Fatale”. Our videos will be reminiscent of the film noir and neo-noir genre using techniques such as venetian blinds, hard lighting, German Expressionist shots eg dutch angle & skewed shots, jazz, staircases, voice over narration, flashbacks, era specific, cigarettes, smoke, fog, frosted glass that are evident in these films. Drawing upon these elements our k-film will immediately establish a pattern, rhythm and understandable form. Moreover, each of our clips will be shot in black and white, attempting to use long takes and a stable camera to reflect nature of our sleek and attractive persona.

The group will hold two meetings each week. Monday will be a somewhat serious meeting where minutes will be taken whereas Thursday’s meeting will take place over coffee. We have also established a Facebook group to document visual ideas and changes to meeting plans. A Dropbox folder has been created to share videos and thumbnails whilst Google docs will hold the group’s essay contributions.

As for our statement, we have decided to write on the first option: “The concept of ‘work’ and ‘text’ provides a way to think about the possible differences between traditional film and video, and the possibilities that a k-film offers’. Given we are drawing upon a traditional Classical Hollywood genre of film (film noir) we thought that this statement would be most applicable to draw on the differences between classical narrative and the k-film. Obviously this needs further looking into but there is no doubt a connection here.

Our collaboration is primarily group based however three specific tasks have been allocated to individual group members but overall all work needs to be brought to the group’s attention to discuss.

The lecture last week formed as a reading annotation of Barthes From Work to Text. My reading looks like a copy of Jane Eyre after a literature class so I’ll attempt to write my findings in fully fledged sentences.

Barthes distinguishes the text from the work suggesting that text is the new object and work is the old. What differentiates the two is the thought that the “text cannot be an object that is computed”. Whilst the work forms as a “fragment of substance” measured by a mathematical process whereby the amount of copies sold of a particular work indicates its success, the text is merely making do in language. The text “cannot be contained in a hierarchy,” it works outside of traditional institutions such as in the form of blogs. Indeed a text also performs it’s content, working outside that of traditional academic essay conventions to illustrate what it says by simultaneously enacting it.

Another interesting point translated by Adrian surrounds the notion that text dissolves the self and other relationship. In particular, the plurality of text in its ability to support multiple voices, its off centred structure and lack of closure emphasises this dissolution. A text’s openness and none hierarchical nature cannot create dominance over inferiority.

Adrian noted that from a feminist perspective text can be interpreted as being purely feminine whilst the work is male. A feminist reading of the text corresponds to female sexual experience, whilst males seek closure females do not require orgasm for closure but rather constant fluidity in their experience. This interpretation accentuates the fluidity of text, its ability to transcend the confinements of genre and other forms of traditional oppositional and hierarchical structure formed by traditional institutions of knowledge.

Another point concerning the “intertextual in which every text is held, it itself being the text-between of another text” was particularly interesting. This point further illustrates text’s fluidity in that it exemplifies that all texts are woven from other texts through references that apply additional layers of meaning to texts. For example, in a text such as Kill Bill by Quentin Tarantino the film itself forms as an intertextual reference to Lady Snowblood by Toshiya Fujita. Moreover, when looking at the texts of Jean-Luc Godard we not only are exposed to self-referentiality in his texts but also references to other texts, particularly French New Wave films that inform an understanding of his own films.

More to come in week 8.

In class I enquired further into how text is performative. Barthes reveals how a text is a process of demonstration. From this I inferred that text is performative in that it displays how the writer learnt what they’re writing about. The process of writing becomes inherent in the text, enacted in the doing. For example, Scott McCloud a graphic novelist studied in Editing Media Texts last year explores the notion of gaps between text by performing the text as a comic book. The text’s main character reveals the importance of gaps in text as he moves from panel to panel illustrating McCloud’s argument, quite literally enacting the text.

Furthermore, in Baudrillard’s text The Ecstasy of Communication a similar performance is present through his use of seductive language. Baudrillard draws upon language that is both poetic, lyrical and romantic to discuss seduction. His sentence structures work to seduce the reader, assisting us in understanding his process of writing and how this correlates to the seduction theory he writes about.

There is no denying that both of my sketch videos for this week are terribly awful. It makes it difficult to choose one but I have decided that Notice is my favourite as opposed to Quicken. Notice reveals my own obsession with self-reflexivity in films. Additionally, the sketch demonstrates my curiosity as to how they filmed this scene in American Beauty. My own attempts at re-enacting this scene were incredibly difficult and I feel I have somehow exposed the director as having contrived the fluidity of the scene. The plastic bag definitely needs a thin clear piece of string attached to it.

Quicken from Georgina Wills on Vimeo.

Notice. from Georgina Wills on Vimeo.

http://raws.adc.rmit.edu.au/~s3238111/assessment1/#/?snu=4633

Official link to my Korsakow film. Knock yourselves out.