Monthly Archives: May 2012

The ends not near, its here…

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It’s weird, we are nearing the end of the semester already, and it feels like so much has changed. I didn’t really even fully notice the quite profound shifts in thought until we did our participation class yesterday. For once, we didn’t return to our initial ‘criteria’ we wrote for ourselves at the beginning of the semester, because as Adrian noted, to do so would be pointless because our progression through this course should really make those critera obsolete.

One of my main ‘things’ I wanted to achieve this semester was to become ‘better at techincal/nerd stuff” – this concept was quite obviously to do with the content I was aiming to produce. At the start of the semester, I considered my work to inferior to everything, that it could never ‘stack up’ to the work that surrounded me.

I feel so much differently now, and honestly, it’s been one of the most liberating experiences I have had to far as a ‘maker’ – I have felt like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders and have felt so much freer to just go out and ‘be’, even in a world which is based so much on comparison to others. The main thing I have learnt this semester, and I hope to retain for the rest of my working life, is that monument does not define greatness. Working with what you have, making things that you want to make is where the magic happens. I feel I have become much more open to my own ideas and have been able, by sheer will, to produce things that I feel I have permission to be proud of, despite where they stand in relation to other works.

I think my evolution as a maker can be evidenced in this – I became a better content maker not by acquiring a ‘better’ camera or reading the user manual of FCP at night. I became a better maker by going out and doing, by taking risks, and ultimately by letting go, putting stuff out there, and accepting imperfection as  a part of the work, as an element of instability and possibility. I learnt that the less we ‘say’ the more we inspire conversation and the less we imply the more we leave for possibilities in interpretation. This is where the beauty lies, and I think so much can be said for relying on others and not being afraid to loose ownership or ‘copyright’ of your work. Sharing truly is the ultimate act of caring.

I’m at that stage now where I want so badly to wind down, but I’m trying so hard to stay on track and work hard during these last weeks of assessment, procrastination levels are at the highest they ever have been and I’m working on a film project at the moment as well as a social media campaign which are sordidly stealing my attention from the essays I have to write.

Anyway, this is the end of my collage of thoughts and reflection and angst, time for more procrastination I guess…I feel frazzled…

Final Integrated Lecture.

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  • We are making in a cognitive space
  • The Internet is just a whole bunch of stuff, and requires a tacit knowledge to work around the protocols and procedures. We have to work around the edges, but we also have to understand the procedures that define the space.
  • The internet values sharing and contribution, we can now reach across borders, traverse countries and people are inherently connected via the very ‘flatness’ of the hierarchy of the internet. Reality is, if you don’t have Facebook or an email address or the internet you are absent from a plane where most exist.
  • K-Films – you can have both ways, its open and things can happen however you like, they can happen over and over, it grants you permission to listen to things that need to change, bad ideas talk back, they make themselves obvious and you have to recognise these, and listen to them.
  • Things always want to differ from themselves, its not about the repetition of the same, things shouldn’t come off a conveyor belt anymore. This is an Industrial mode of making.
  • We have become enculturated to take ownership of our work, to make it monumental, to perfect it, to work within the project, to respond to briefs, outlines and criteria. The ability to talk back to the ideas is not applicable, we do not see it as a system for making. We invest everything IN the making, everything is invested in the artefact.
  • Instead of thinking about things, think about relationships. We misjudge ‘the thing’ as where the value lies, and as still the site of experience.
  • We are now in an experience economy.
Wrapping up…
  • What exists outside your circle of comfort? What do you want? What experiences can you offer.
  • This subject had attempted to give us an experience of tacit knowledge, of knowing how, and knowing how to be.
  • It has attempted to keep us looking forward – what can we learn about what we make, where do we want to be? We can work within set paradigms or outside them. It’s up to us.

Sheilds’ Sentiments.

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I really liked the Sheilds reading, it’s super accessible and literally exhibits what it preaches – its a collage of thoughts broken up, and each idea can be connected with another and could, if cut up into sections form hundreds of different ‘versions’. This sounds weird, but I found this readings to be oddly sensitive in comparison to the previous, more academic ones of the past – I instantly assumed that Sheilds was a woman (despite the fact in the first line he refers to himself as man) and only just now realised that she, is in fact a he. Odd isn’t it – that because of the style it is written in, because of the focus on aesthetics and more philosophical, metaphysical implications of collage, I instantly jumped to the conclusion that it was written by a female.

I love the way that Sheilds discusses Collage and Briocolage, and it’s something I’m really intrigued by, especially as a future media maker.

  • “Collage is a demonstration of the many becoming the one, with the one never fully resolved because of the many that continue to impinge upon it” – I think this relates to the idea that our Korsakov films are ‘never ending’, they continue to propose, to question and to make noise, they are effervescent and beguiling and impose and can be imposed upon by things from outside.
  • Life is not coherent, we cannot control it or that it throws at us, so why should our stories seek to make sense and calm where there is none – narrative is always fiction, grand narratives work against the real. Not everything happens for a pre-determined reason.
  • “The absence of a plot leaves the reader room to think about other things” – This idea is partcicularly important when crafting our Korsakov works, because a plot implies a predetermined pathway, which is really just a closed/fixed narrative without allowing the user any agency. We need to understand that the magic happens in our absence, and in the gaps we leave.
  • “Meaning and emotion were created not by the content of the individual images, but by the relationship of the images to one another” – I think that this relates to the idea of pattern making, we are meaning making beings, we immediately join fragments to make patterns and connections, and it’s the way we join content, not the content in itself that generates meaning.
  • “Tantalise by being simultaneously daring and elusive” – I think this means take risks and be daring, flirt with your audience, be suggestive and promiscuous, allude to the ever impending nature of the work, but don’t give it all away at the start.
  • “a mosaic, made out of broken dishes, makes no attempt to hide the fact that its made out of broken dishes, it in fact, flaunts it” – This is my favourite proposition in the readings, I think it addresses the self conscious nature of student media making, its as if we have to conceal the fact that we are ‘making do’ with a lack of materials or skill. Mosaic liberates itself from the age old idea that something worthwhile always rises from something that is already concrete or grand. It reminds me of the Garbage lyric “nothing ever smells of roses, that rises out of mud” – I think Shirley Manson was taking on that idea that the notion of what is worthy or beautiful is so fixed in social capital and appearences that we assume something’s merit or worth based on where it has come from rather than what it is or what it has to say.
  • “The very nature of collage demands fragmented materials, or at least materials yanked out of context. Collage is, in a way, only an accentuated act of editing: picking through options and presenting a new arrangement” – Shields acknowledges that this post modern style of editing can never result in the same smooth, traditionally holistic ‘piece’ of fiction that editing often culminates in. However, this is exciting, and mosaic is paving the way for a new style of fiction, a new way of thinking about story.  The way she describes mosaic editing is almost an exact description of the way we should be thinking about building our K-Films, because they are out of context, they are fragmented and they ask audiences to wade through.
  • “The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. Art exists so that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things” – recovering a sensation of life is something I would really like to discuss in my part of the essay, as I think it’s the crux of what IM is ‘all about’, going back to grassroots values in order to pave a way for the new.
  • “By incorporating materials that are inextricably liked to the realities of daily life, the collage artists establishes an immediate identification, both real and imagined between the viewer and the work of art” – I think this idea really relates to our proposition;

Our K-film proposes that relationships can never be pre-determined, they grow larger as a result of doing, we’re friends because we simply continued on with what we found interesting. Of course there are patterns to our relationships, but that’s what caused us to continue exploring. Our work is about exploring patterns of likeness and difference.

Thanks Shields, your work is a IM bible.

 

 

 

Scott’s Wise Words of Wisdom.

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I just read a blog post from Ian that reminded me of something I meant to blog about a couple of weeks back. When we got the latest K-Film Assignment, I think we all felt a bit kind of – ‘where the heck so we start’, but after a few long and quite philosophical chats with Adrian, our group managed to come up with a pretty sound proposition which I think will bring us to quite a nice end, and express a lot of the ideas we have been asked to grapple with over the semester.

Among the hype of discussion in our group, Scott made one of the most insightful comments on the assignment, he said that we shouldn’t think of the assignment as a typical assignment but as an artistic depiction of our uni lives. This just took the academia out of the equation and allowed me to view the assignment as a possibility to create something without borders or boundaries, it can be whatever I want it to be and say whatever I want it to say, it can be beautiful and ugly at the same time, it can coalesce with other things, it can be noisy and hard to handle – because thats my life, and I wouldn’t dream of ever trying to turn my life into a set of rules or formulas.

Thanks Scott. 

Team Two – Room with a View

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Blake and Lena introduced their broadcast of RWAV in a highly informative and professional fashion. It set up what was to come and gave listeners a really good sense of what was coming up on the show. It was a great addition to mention RRR online, it functioned as both a clever station ID and as a reminder that all the content from the show can be found online, which encourages listeners to interact and follow up on the show after its initial broadcast. The music was very appropriate for RRR and appealed to me as a listener, there was an eclectic mix and each song complemented the next with an appropriate amount of Australian content. The interview relating to the art exhibition and social project Alone Together In Conversation and In Thought was really well done, the levels were great and the relaxed nature of the conversation made it really easy to listen to. The content was relevant to listeners; I think loneliness is a ubiquitous sensation and something that everyone can relate to. By discussing this emotion via the paradigm of art, I think the team really imbued the topic with an interesting angle that promoted the project and it’s intention for social awareness and acknowledgment in a non-commercial and sensitive way.

 Blake and Lena did a sterling job of back announcing all their songs and segments with contextual detail which is greatly appreciated by listeners; there’s nothing more frustrating than hearing about a fantastic exhibition but not being told where it is or how to get involved. Blake and Lena did a really good job of keeping listeners informed about what they were hearing and ways they could pursue areas that took their interest outside of the program.

 The segment ‘Around Melbourne in 80 seconds’ provided the most informal part of the show and gave listeners recommendations for things they could do in Melbourne that night. These kind of fast facts are great for radio because they capture the attention of people who are listening (despite the fact they are often doing something else while listening) because they are crafted for them, to enhance their experiences and enrich their lives. Segments like this are what I would describe as ‘oh!’ segments, people hear about interesting things going on close to them and think ‘oh!’ I should go to that, it’s tonight!’ and are instantly intrigued, and listen more closely. The levels were a little bit jumpy and the delivery was a little bit scripted, but overall, I think the segment was worthwhile and really gave something to listeners that they could walk away with and enjoy outside of the program.

 Having a phone interview gave the show really good sonic texture, and go team two for taking the plunge of a live interview that relied on using the phone, scary stuff! The interview provided a comprehensive overview of the emerging sport ‘Roller Derby’, which is a sport I don’t think a lot of Melburnians would be particularly well versed in. However, having the focus on Adeleide made the whole interview a little bit abstract and hard to idenify with as a Melbourne based listener. However, the interview definitely provided me with informative facts about something I would otherwise have been ignorant of. I think an interview like this would inspire a lot of people to perhaps get involved in the sport, or research it further. As a listener, hearing the interviewee describe the rules conjured images of a fun and unique sport, and hearing his own personal stories gave the interview nice texture, but overall,  it was the information in this interview that gave it its strength, it just would have been nice to perhaps provide some information on how to get involved in Melbourne, as hearing about Adelaide doesn’t provide the immediate audience with an easy opportunity to get involved. Also, RRR is a very Melbourne based station which is why the story about Degraves street worked so well, this segment could let down the Melbourne focus of the station.

There was a bit of an awkward silence after the Bear in Heaven song, but the guys picked it up well by throwing in another reference to the RRR Website. The addition of Sonja into the show gave the show nice texture, and she was obviously very informed on the subject she was discussing – as a RRR listener, the discussion of search engines was a little bit abstract, and quite specific, I got a bit lost as to how the discussion related to me and my experience of the web, but as a student of the media, I understood why they were discussing the topic as an ‘issue’. I think a better description of the way these ‘online curators’ are affecting the general public would have been more appropriate for the ‘everyday’ RRR listener. I feel like the segment went a bit long, and was perhaps not relevant enough to warrant the amount of time spent on it.

The interview with Sticky Institute director was one of the stronger segments, it was extremely relevant to the development of self-published works being recognised as a genuine art form and would have intrigued a lot of listeners via its discussion of an ‘underground community’.  Again, the locality of the community made it accessible and exciting for listeners, and potentially made them feel more involved in the discussion as the movement is literally occurring around them.  It was interesting to hear the comparison between Melbourne culture and London culture gave the interview great dynamic, and the interview subject really good authority on the topic and gave his personal insights a lot more relevance and strength.

I would have liked to hear a bit more conversational interaction from Blake and Lena, they often alternated speaking which made the presentation a little bit stilted and self conscious, I think by relaxing a bit, the show would have been a bit more playful and engaging. Technically, the transitions between songs and presenting could have been tighter, and although the panel operator did manage to fade the songs out, there was often still silence before the presenters came in. This is obviously a small criticism, and impacted only slightly on the overall show, but even a short silence seems so long on radio! The show was really well structured and provided a good range of segments which catered to an eclectic audience which is vital when catering to the tastes of RRR listeners, the focus on artistic and underground communities would have again appealed to RRR listeners as research shows these alternative communities and lifestyles are common areas of interest in listeners.  I think the show could have benefited from some more pre-recorded content perhaps with a layered sound bed, just to liven it up a bit and give the show some light and shade as it felt like alternatives to talking were only found in the RRR recorded themes.  Anyway, congratulations to team two, I hope your experience of being on air was as fun and uplifting as ours!

Just incase you didn’t know, RRR now has a ‘Radio on Demand’ site which archives everything put to air every day! No excuses for not listening in now kiddies!

Lecture # 11

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Collage, Lego & Appearances//

  • Consider duration & viewing – complexity does not come from building complex shapes, the text itself never changes.
  • The less something narrates the more connections and possibilities it creates. Describing things implies causal logic, consequences and sequence. This is not something that belongs in a Korsakow film.
  • When we blog, we connect our fragments of writing to other fragments, nothing is self contained. This is the kind of premise we should be basing our Korsakov work on.
  • Deep architectural logic of the network – a small fragment that is already whole but can be joined to anything else. However, the forms we are using to express these fragments are becoming increasingly fixed.
  • Korsakov allows the looseness of the form to remain after the publication. It can always be addressed, spoken to and reinvented.
  • Crystal line structure –  crystal structure is composed of a pattern, a set of atoms arranged in a particular way, and a lattice exhibiting long-range order and symmetry. Patterns are located upon the points of a lattice, which is an array of points repeating periodically in three dimensions.
  • Users have more agency. To decide what to do, what it means, what particular connections and patterns might mean, even what patterns exist. Users define how long your film is. Not you. There is no reasonable answer to the question – “How long is it?”. So, what is the role of the viewer in a generative work? Do they terminate the text when they become bored, or engage when they are beguiled?
  • Soft Media –its not tangible, you cant ‘export it’, there is no final version, it remains constantly open and re-workable. What would it mean to keep a projects ability in the final object? Video is no longer a moving image with sound over the top.
So, when working in Korsakov we have to consider where the meaning and structure is coming from, because it’s not from us, the author is separate, we provide the frameworks for the patterns to begin. We need to think about this in a way which does not confine our viewers, we want their experience to be organic, we want them to be able to feel at home in the work, to challenge it and play with it. We want them to change the experience of the work.
  • What is the difference between the user and the author?
New directions to potentially take//
  • Think about using QuickTime Player 7 as an editing device which allows users to literally interact with the videos – this is a form of soft media because users can click on the work to change it.
  • What proposition do you think your own K-Film is making? How would you describe this?
Take these two things from this subject, they are threshold concepts;
1. have a sense and some understanding about what it means and feels like to make and be inside of multilinear media. Think like it thinks, really understand what it means to work differently inside the form.
2. Think about what your making, it has propositions and concepts which are outside its framework, you don’t know them, its not the ‘storyline’. What do I want to make? Things make propositions about themselves and about the world, it has agency and engagement outside itself, it asks questions outside itself.

Small things make a difference.

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Note the difference is these descriptions, I thought it was super interesting.

Bricolage//

is a term used in several disciplines to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process.

The term is borrowed from the French word bricolage, from the verb bricoler, the core meaning in French being, “fiddle, tinker” and, by extension, “to make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand regardless of their original purpose”.

So, Bricolage is the ultimate act of a tactical ‘making do’ with what we have on hand. 

Collage//

A collage  is a work of formal art, primarily in thevisual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. The concept is namedf rom the French word: à coller which means to glue. To me, this makes the whole concept seem more stable and fixed as something we can control. 

So whats collage and whats bricolage? From what I can tell, bricolage is all about putting things together from what surrounds you, you don’t need to seek out ‘appropriate materials’ you gather things around you and put them together and the art comes out of the differences, it’s incoherent and doesn’t carry a unified message. Collage is more strategic, it collects appropriate parts to form a new whole which has a meaning, and creates implications out of assemblage.

KORSAKOV IS BRICOLAGE!