Wednesday 27 February 2008

Hello

Hi everyone, I expect that you are all back to normal life (whatever that may mean). Keep in touch and keep up the good thoughts,
best, b.

Thursday 21 February 2008

from "visual intelligence" (d. hoffman)

to the flat (faces) group:

After his stroke, Mr. P still had outstanding memory and intelligence. He could still read and talk, and mixed well with the other patients on his ward. His vision was in most respects normal---with one notable exception: He couldn't recognize the faces of people or animals. As he put it himself, "I can see the eyes, nose, and mouth quite clearly, but they just don't add up. They all seem chalked in, like on a blackboard ... I have to tell by the clothes or by the voice whether it is a man or a woman ...The hair may help a lot, or if there is a mustache ... ." Even his own face, seen in a mirror, looked to him strange and unfamiliar. Mr. P had lost a critical aspect of his visual intelligence. ...

Wednesday 20 February 2008

cut.n.pasten.paste.npaste

The cut-up from last post remind me that maybe you will like to meet two of my favorite writers (that is, if you don't know them yet).

They are William S.Burroughs and Kathy Acker. Both experts in the techniques of cut and past and change an appropriate.

Make Property History

You can find almost all the texts published by the Situationists and references back to the Lettrist International on Ken Knabb's site here. Check out the idea of detournement in particular. In one aspect this is a very early analysis of remixing but a remix with a very specific point to it. Here's a bit of the essay.

'Any elements, no matter where they are taken from, can be used to make new combinations. The discoveries of modern poetry regarding the analogical structure of images demonstrate that when two objects are brought together, no matter how far apart their original contexts may be, a relationship is always formed. Restricting oneself to a personal arrangement of words is mere convention. The mutual interference of two worlds of feeling, or the juxtaposition of two independent expressions, supersedes the original elements and produces a synthetic organization of greater efficacy. Anything can be used.'

In some respects it's an outline of 'playing connect' relating to montage and 'cut up' techniques. In this case it is often used to reposition or re-appropriate main stream, i.e. capitalisT culture and expose the unstated mechanisms by which it functions.

inspiration

The psychogeography directly corresponded to the project I project lead and one sentence on the wikipedia made me feel so related to this idea that I immediately book marked into my inspiration folder..

Psychogeography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychogeography
"...A more straightforward definition is that it is "a slightly stuffy term that's been applied to a whole toy box full of playful, inventive strategies for exploring cities. Psychogeography includes just about anything that takes pedestrians off their predictable paths and jolts them into a new awareness of the urban landscape."

Well in the project MOVE we are feeding the research with the question "what moves people?" so I also immediately sent the link of the wikipedia page to the people I collaborate with in this project.

"Society of the spectacle" relates to things we've been discussing in the flat group and though having to dig deeper, I found the theories very triggering. An example when reading was that I'd like to try making the face on face projections come from a TV. This is something that would transmit a message we've also been discussing within the flat group. It would also create a nice aesthetics, having the TV between the audience and the performer where the image also acts as light thrown at the performer (free from Michael's words yesterday).

Debord's Psychogeography

Just an interesting paragraph from the wikipedia article on psychogeography and Debord (especially the last part)

Guy Debord's truest intention was to unify two different factors of "ambiance" that, he felt, determined the values of the urban landscape: the soft ambiance – light, sound, time, the association of ideas – with the hard, the actual physical constructions. Debord's vision was a combination of the two realms of opposing ambiance, where the play of the soft ambiance was actively considered in the rendering of the hard. The new space creates a possibility for activity not formerly determined by one besides the individual.

However, it is imperative for one to be aware of a certain amount of humor in the SI's conceptualization of psychogeography. "This apparently serious term ‘psychogeography,'" writes Debord biographer Vincent Kaufman, "comprises an art of conversation and drunkenness, and everything leads us to believe that Debord excelled at both."

Guy Debord, automatism

Sorry that I left so soon today, I am in Gent now to meet Sarah since she was not able to make it to Brussel today.
Anyway, interesting discussion this morning. I was thinking about the automatism where people these days are living in. Like Debord writes, people are beïng lived by the big leaders, media and capitalism. Questions like 'are we individual/are we autonomus?' have pessimistic answers. We are told what is good or bad, what to buy and what not, whe don't have many choices, or at least, that is what they tell ous!
More about this later.

texts box (digital format)

'Temporary Autonomous Zone' by Hakim Bey

'Development of collaborative environments for creation of theoretical texts related to the practices of VJing and realtime performance' by Ana Carvalho to be published soon at Vague Terrain

'Paying VJ: Theory personified' conversation between Mark Amerika and Ana Carvalho

'VJam Theory, Collaborative Writings on Realtime Visual performance' Collaborative writers. Upcoming book by realtime publishers and available online at VJ Theory website

'VJing and Live A/V Practices' by Andrew Bucksbarg. Text published at aminima magazine, special issue on live cinema curated by Solu and also available at VJ Theory.

There are also other books and texts already included in other references posts.

Wednesday morning - discussion

Thank you all for participating by doing the research and sharing your findings.

The importance of ideas that drive art movements and individual projects. Ideas from Situationists can be found in many art projects and is in realtime audiovisual performance a very strong reference.

- Giving up control
- Process
- Play
- Non-specialization

Wednesday morning - references

Film (in two parts) "Society of the spectacle"

Situationinst International online: history, movements and ideas related to Situationist and texts available to download.