----------
>From: Ronald Evitts <revitts@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>the Lehman Brothers building here in Manhattan
>(which I've already posted some photos of) is a very interesting case in
>point. one is not really "immersed" in the environment of the screens here,
>but the screens are more "transportive" and environment-creating than they
>are architectural or spatially-enclosing. and the two worlds are moving
>towards each other: the interior, media world is re-creating the "real"
>world more and more accurately, and the exterior world is incorporating
>media and communication in ways that make the exterior more and more like
>the interior world.
Pre-cinematics. Without perspective, in a single frame, as in a child's
flat
disproportional depiction, a narrative sequence incorporating the flow of
time with allegorical figures standing about, clearly medieval. The
Renaissance and perspective freezing time into a single instant and crowding
perception into a single point of view. The narrative now conveyed through
symbolism, drama, allusions, titles; the viewers prior knowledge. The
perspective painting, like the photograph, always refering to what is not
captured, not seen.
Cinematics. Truly surreality. Beyond reality, incorporating as it does (a
form of) motion and sound though still without smell and except for deep
bass vibration, any tactile sensation. Visual literacy becomes moving
visuals literacy and at this we have become selectively sophisticated.
Awkward concept. Annie Dillard using Rene Magritte's The Elective
Affinities depicting an egg in a bird cage to point out that certain
combinations of images are "right" or "wrong". Magritte creates interest
(meaning) not by showing something arbitrary in a cage such as a shoe, or a
fish, and certainly not the banality of a "still life" bird. Magritte knows
we know this. The egg is clever because we understand its cognitive
context. We begin to have a willing suspension of belief in time.
In all modes of communication its possible to make a distinction between two
complementary sources of meaning: the code and the context. The fact that
interpretation can be based on context alone is probably the reason that
both verbal and visual narratives have been able to dispense with explicit
explanatory devices for certain kinds of transitions.
Could be that the atrophying of codes coupled with ambiguous (because
engendered by need for profit) context in telecasts and movies
results in the viewer experiencing a compulsion to believe, an obedience to
the message. In its benign or positive form this results in the screen
being "transportive" because meaning in the message acknowledges our
understanding of cognitive context and engages our powers of analysis. The
most benign form is when it becomes environment and the message we "analyse"
is no more or less compelling than the clouds in the sky or the traffic in
the street. In its negative form it is "immersive", coercive as propaganda
because our power to analyse (our abilitiy to engage abstractions) is
short-circuited by the descriptive visual force of the message which
inherently lacks of a means to show causality or contingency.
The fact that in industrial societies the production of images is routinely
done by a relatively small number of individuals and organizations produces
a state in which time is made unreal in that nothing "happens" until life is
validated and motivated by the "nightly news" or the next box office "hit".
Post-cinematics, absent a ubiquitous ability to publish (produce?), remains
cinema by more sophisticated means. The simultaneity of time made concrete
by your ability to publish and mine, and everyone else's would create a
dilution effect on concentrated power of the likes of Disney, TV news, etc.
while at the same time eliminating narrative except as we are all part of
it. A deliberate attempt to sidestep the cinematic is a positive one. Is
this what you intend by studying renga and reading as an absorbtive
activity, Samantha?
Post-cinematics. Nourishing food for thought. Thanks for the meal. Home
cooking.
//Van
>From: Ronald Evitts <revitts@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>the Lehman Brothers building here in Manhattan
>(which I've already posted some photos of) is a very interesting case in
>point. one is not really "immersed" in the environment of the screens here,
>but the screens are more "transportive" and environment-creating than they
>are architectural or spatially-enclosing. and the two worlds are moving
>towards each other: the interior, media world is re-creating the "real"
>world more and more accurately, and the exterior world is incorporating
>media and communication in ways that make the exterior more and more like
>the interior world.
Pre-cinematics. Without perspective, in a single frame, as in a child's
flat
disproportional depiction, a narrative sequence incorporating the flow of
time with allegorical figures standing about, clearly medieval. The
Renaissance and perspective freezing time into a single instant and crowding
perception into a single point of view. The narrative now conveyed through
symbolism, drama, allusions, titles; the viewers prior knowledge. The
perspective painting, like the photograph, always refering to what is not
captured, not seen.
Cinematics. Truly surreality. Beyond reality, incorporating as it does (a
form of) motion and sound though still without smell and except for deep
bass vibration, any tactile sensation. Visual literacy becomes moving
visuals literacy and at this we have become selectively sophisticated.
Awkward concept. Annie Dillard using Rene Magritte's The Elective
Affinities depicting an egg in a bird cage to point out that certain
combinations of images are "right" or "wrong". Magritte creates interest
(meaning) not by showing something arbitrary in a cage such as a shoe, or a
fish, and certainly not the banality of a "still life" bird. Magritte knows
we know this. The egg is clever because we understand its cognitive
context. We begin to have a willing suspension of belief in time.
In all modes of communication its possible to make a distinction between two
complementary sources of meaning: the code and the context. The fact that
interpretation can be based on context alone is probably the reason that
both verbal and visual narratives have been able to dispense with explicit
explanatory devices for certain kinds of transitions.
Could be that the atrophying of codes coupled with ambiguous (because
engendered by need for profit) context in telecasts and movies
results in the viewer experiencing a compulsion to believe, an obedience to
the message. In its benign or positive form this results in the screen
being "transportive" because meaning in the message acknowledges our
understanding of cognitive context and engages our powers of analysis. The
most benign form is when it becomes environment and the message we "analyse"
is no more or less compelling than the clouds in the sky or the traffic in
the street. In its negative form it is "immersive", coercive as propaganda
because our power to analyse (our abilitiy to engage abstractions) is
short-circuited by the descriptive visual force of the message which
inherently lacks of a means to show causality or contingency.
The fact that in industrial societies the production of images is routinely
done by a relatively small number of individuals and organizations produces
a state in which time is made unreal in that nothing "happens" until life is
validated and motivated by the "nightly news" or the next box office "hit".
Post-cinematics, absent a ubiquitous ability to publish (produce?), remains
cinema by more sophisticated means. The simultaneity of time made concrete
by your ability to publish and mine, and everyone else's would create a
dilution effect on concentrated power of the likes of Disney, TV news, etc.
while at the same time eliminating narrative except as we are all part of
it. A deliberate attempt to sidestep the cinematic is a positive one. Is
this what you intend by studying renga and reading as an absorbtive
activity, Samantha?
Post-cinematics. Nourishing food for thought. Thanks for the meal. Home
cooking.
//Van