Pour ceux que ça intéresse! Une programmation hors pair conçue par Marco de Blois, conservateur pour le cinéma d'animation à la cinémathèque québécoise, qui regroupe les meilleurs films d'animation de la planète.

If anyone is interest. This is a fabulous selection of the best animation movies of the year. This is at the cinémathèque québécoise next week end. After all, we were in an animation course!

The Close-up bites

Nadine Gordimer

Andrew Wyeth

I just received a link to a site/film/book/process presentation called Wisdom which has some very interesting portraits of "celebrities" at http://www.wisdombook.org/

The director/photographer, Andrew Zuckerman, http://www.andrewzuckerman.com/ comes from the nether-world of advertising where he does some fast-shutter speed pics of animals and of various objects/products exploding. The Grey Goose Vodka video with slo-mo pours and air bubbles through vodka on ice was kinda nice.

Zuckerman gives a good interview in the making-of video of Wisdom and the various portraits are quite interesting. Although most of the celebrities presented are not part of my firmament of star celebrities, the portraits present a stillness that I have not seen in portraits by Avedon, Newman, Bourque-White, Penn, Arbus or Liebowitz. The portraits are the antimatter of Weegee's crowd shots. Not all the portraits have this "still" quality about them, but the ones that seem to exude it (to my eye) would be: Dave Brubeck, Zbeniew Brzezinski (though it is more distant), Dr. Terrence FitzGerald, Frank Gehry, Dr. Jane Goodall, Nadine Gordimer, Henry Kissinger, Willie Nelson, Michael Parkinson, Helen Suzman, Andrew Wyeth.

The portraits seem to be part of a different tradition than what we conceive today as a head shot. They mix Avedon's white background portaits with romanticized 1930's portraiture: the informality of Avedon travels inside while exhibiting a romanticism devoid of passion, as if the face conveyed their individual process of spatializing ideas but without the ideas.

Traditionally, it is contended that the eyes are the mirrors of the soul, but the framing would seem to argue for a different stance: Zuckerman would have it happen on the bridge of the nose and parts of the cheeks! The framing gives undue weight to the lower part of the face--and though usually this means below the nose, in these images it would mean everyting below the eyes. The eyes are relegated to the back-seat as the face is presented as a whole rather than as a association of provileged parts. There is something going on between the nose and eyes that makes you look at the face in its entirety. It's as if Zuckerman tries to decenter the gaze and force you to see the face as a totality. In the way that we would pull out features from the background, i.e. she has a stong chin or he has soft eyes, the face conflates the individual features into a whole that metaphorically exudes their take on life. If I say that metaphor is the process by which concepts are spatialized, it could mean that these images of faces individually impose intervals and duration whose particular time signatures would be stamped on these faces. I don't know what they are thinking, but I feel like I might have an idea as to how they process the world... perhaps this is why I look so puzzled and bewildered in photographs? Peace out. Felix

Anime and Games: transcending style and time in the east

It can be said, that Japanese Anime is a culturally specific form of animation that based its visual style on its early limitations. Budget and time limits ended up defining, what Lamarre calls "limited animation", in which many short-cuts where developed in order to create illusions of movement that where less time intensive to produce. Processes such as repeated loops, sliding figures across backgrounds, segmentation of body parts, and cut and paste facial features,  first developed out of necessity and later became part of the inherent style of this unique form of animation. What was a concession later became a strength. 

What struck me most about this revelation (as I admittedly, have almost no knowledge of the Anime art form) was its very marked similarity to 2D video game animation. All the limited animation processes mentioned in Lamarre's article as well as others mentioned in Mark Stein's lecture where almost identical to the techniques used in sprite animation in video games. 

While this in itself is not a major revelation, it is worth noting that whereas in traditional animation (western) as well as video games, the tendency is often to approach the cinematic whenever possible. With emphasis on techniques such as motion-capture to create realistic movements (animation and video games), removal of looping or sliding to encourage movements based on set fps fixed meter segments, or rotoscoping (drawing the animated cells over captured film or video footage), it seems like in the west we still judge movement according to "reality" which really means the cinematic. As it is commonly thought that cinematic movement is analogous to "real" movement.

Conversely, in Japan, from what I gathered from the Stein's lecture, after having found creative solutions to their limitations, the animators started to embrace these limitations as a unique style or process. They became the seeds to a new way of conceiving animation and movement. And this is strangely similar in the video game world as I mentioned earlier. While technology in video games has grown even more explosively that of film or TV animation, games in the west are still working towards the holy grail of the cinematic experience. Hardware is being pushed to the limit to allow for more polygons (triangles that make up the mesh of modeled 3d Characters), higher resolution textures and more motion-captured key frames for animation. The general feeling is that of a constant struggle to reach "real movement".

In games coming out of Japan, like with anime, this does not seem nearly so important. The concept of movement seems less rigid and more open to experimentation within the limits of the genre. In fact, it sometimes even appears that they exaggerate the limitations purposefully. It feels like a form of self affirmation. They know they are making games and they are not afraid to say so. Examples like the legendary "Street Fighter" series are still animating with sectioned, looped, pixels based character sprites like in the good old days of 8-bit systems, in lieu of more modern 3D motion capture techniques. 

Though I couldn't tell you why this seems to be the case, it is interesting nonetheless to know that culture could play a large part in how we are willing to work with movement and how we judge it in different situations. Of course I am generalizing greatly here as there are many games and animations that transcend these concerns in both cultures. I feel it is worth mentioning that there does seem to be a division in the way movement is generally expressed. I find it interesting that two vehicles (cell animation and video games) separated by over 80 years could still parallel each other so faithfully across time and culture.

expérience = substance

Dans Le Bergsonisme, Gilles Deleuze affirme que, pour Bergson,
la « durée pure » est « changement » qui est la substance même, la
« donnée immédiate » d’un devenir qui dure. Mais de quoi est-elle faite, cette substance ? En cherchant dans mon coffre à trésors jamesien, il me vient à l’esprit que la substance à partir de laquelle tout se compose n’est ni plus ni moins que « l’expérience ».

La « durée pure » est encore une « multiplicité hétérogène », précise-t-il. Et cette multiplicité est virtuelle, et aussi continue, et surtout irréductible au nombre. Le seul nombre pouvant être considéré est l’unicité à laquelle se réfère le multiple, soit l’individualité dans le cadre duquel ce dernier se réalise, me dis-je.

Le multiple doit donc se référer à tout ce qui compose la substance que l’on vient d’appeler expérience, soit toutes les lignes de convergeance qui guident l'expérience vers elle-même, centre de son propre univers.

L’expérience respire : elle inspire affect et expire émotion. Elle est ce vers quoi culmine le multiple et ce qui façonne l’unique.

La durée pure pourrait ainsi être confondue avec ce souffle de vie virtuel : une quantité qualitative qui cadre l'expérience pour la projetter vers l'accomplissement de son plein potentiel.

Abstract Space

Two of Sarah’s films that were screened at the last class made me reflect upon the power of the black color in particular. In this regard, Wassily Kandinsky in his book Concerning the Spiritual in Art underlines that “Black is something burnt out, like the ashes of a funeral pyre, something motionless like a corpse. The silence of black is the silence of death. Outwardly black is the colour with least harmony of all, a kind of neutral background against which the minutest shades of other colors stand clearly forward” (39). The viewer’s sense of space is significantly distorted because a black background erases the feeling of depth. Since Sarah mentioned that those films were related to the death of her close friend, the interplay between the figure of the white dancer and the black mise-en-scène accompanied by strong rhythmic sound brought me somehow closer to experiencing the unknown feeling of space. I think that Sarah brilliantly articulated in these films the space the viewer cannot inhabit – he or she can only slide on the black surface alongside the dancer’s figure without going inside.

Len Lye - sculpture animée tangible

«son approche de l'activité artistique tient plus d'une philosophie de la création que d'une simple préoccupation technique.»  - Pierre Hébert sur Len Lye

Encore une fois je reviens sur Len Lye - artiste obsédé par la cinétique - qui prolongea son art du mouvement jusque dans des sculpture animées de matière métallique.  De 1958 jusqu'à sa mort, en 1980, il produisa d'imposantes sculptures cinétiques.  Il avait l'intention de produire des oeuvres d'une immensité impensables pour, entre autres, reproduire les forces de la nature. «Il envisageait un nouveau type, à vivre hors les murs des musées, un art qui susciterait un sentiment physique d'empathie entre le spectateur et l'oeuvre, un art qui jouerait sur les sensations de danger et d'exaltation.» - Hurrel/Webb Danser avec le danger dans le temple de Lye 

Expérience physique, autant visuelle que sonore, ces oeuvres font vivre le mouvement.  En posant ces sculpture en mouvement, on peut voir une partie de l'intervalle.  La mouvance de l'objet se fait ainsi sentir physiquement par son vacarme auditif de certaines oeuvres. 

J'ai eu la chance de vivre l'expérience au musée Len Lye.  Visuellement, mes perceptions étaient amplifiées par l'ajout cinétique du son.  Une oeuvre d'art d'un musée n'a rarement été si physique.

Artiste d'animation, du mouvement, de la cinétique et de la sensation, Len Lye demeure un artiste à (re)découvrir.

Relating to Rhythm

I can't say that I know very much about the concept of rhythm, even though my early high school aspirations where to be a bass payer. I never really developed the sense of rhythm required in order to make that a reality. From the little I managed the acquire, I realized that articulating rhythm is easier said than done. It is something that is felt more than articulated. 

In my humble interpretation, I would say that rhythm is a recursive process in which movements – mechanical, acoustic, or visual –  that reflect and modify each other infinitely. One movement creating or affecting the next one and so on, even across mediums. The interplay of micro-adjustments as each movement informs and redefines the subsequent movements is precisely what makes it so hard to adequately articulate the concept since you can't separate the elements in order to define them. They either co-create rhythm or they don't.

Perhaps that is the reason, that the general trope is that rhythm cannot be learnt. It needs to be felt. Those that teach bass players and dancers to "feel" it, are in fact trying encourage the students into allowing these relationships to form naturally; to open up the possibility without making it formulaic and timed. If that recursive relationship is missing, and the timing (meter) takes precedence, the rhythm is empty and mechanical. 

Perhaps my previous attempts to master rhythm failed due to my adherence to meter and timing over that of movement and relation. Maybe I should try again. I do still have a beautiful 5-string Washburn, sitting in the corner, just waiting to be played. I wonder if philosophy makes better musicians! 

Thought and Cinema//And Readings for Thursday

Hello All,



In case any of you are interested further in thinking about that Deleuze chapter from the Time-Image- I can email you my second chapter of my thesis that directly responds to that concept of thought or thought's outside. Let me know, I would love some feedback.



Also, Stamatia will have photocopies of the readings ready for tomorrow afternoon. Please go by Erin's mail box and pick them up there, like last time, if you're having trouble opening up the attachments.



Nasrin

Opening Ceremonies

Many of the concepts from Erin’s ‘Animation’s Dance’ piece reminded me of how movement was expressed during this year’s Olympic opening ceremonies in Beijing. Thousands of bodies worked in unison to convey a range of thoughts, emotions and symbolism.  Our perception was toyed with and tested by the range of bodies as they manipulated time, rhythm and space, and their movements constructed and deconstructed various positions and forms.  Similar to McLaren’s work, “We do not actually see the interval but we do feel its force as it unfolds into the perception of movement moving” (Manning, 1). During the performances of the opening ceremonies movement was experienced like a ripple in a wave, the viewer was unable to process the meaning in its entirety until every body had contributed to shaping the virtual idea.  Watching these performers was to experience the interval take form, which in turn expressed a thought in motion. Like Pas de Deux, movement in the opening ceremonies, “is felt not in a pose but in its experiential taking form across time and space” (Manning, 2). Often times the amazing part of the performance wasn’t the final position or thought but how they were able to create it through their range of motion. The choreography was simply unfathomable, and despite of its enormous scale I felt they were able to use extremely complex movements to convey an inviting and visually stunning display of beauty and tranquility.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

solipsist

L'idée que les lieux ou choses n'existent qu'en fonction de notre présence est un concept particulier. Voici un extrait de la pièce Insignificance de Terry Johnson, dont la référence à cette philosophie est poussée plus loin (j'inclut seulement le dialogue):
Ballplayer: What's a solipsist, remind me.
Senator: I believe that only I exist. All the rest of you exist only in my imagination.
Ballplayer: (laughs) That's stupid. I exist.
Senator: Sure you do, but only in my head.
Ballplayer: OK, if we only exist in your head then how come we were here last night without you?
Senator: You weren't.
Ballplayer: Bullshit. We were here before you arrived even.
Senator: Prove it.
Ballplayer: If I don't exist how come I'm arguing?
Senator: I like to argue.
Ballplayer: [...] Right, let me tell you something. I ain't with you and I still exist!
Senator: Prove it. [...] You're nothing!
Ballplayer: [...] I do thousand of things when you ain't around. I drink coffee, I screw around, I go to movies...
Senator: No you don't, I only think you do.
Ballplayer: What about everyone else?
Senator: All in here.
Ballplayer: What about everyone who lived before you, everyone who's dead?
Senator: I killed 'em.

Alors, pensez-vous n'être qu'une fiction imaginé par autrui ou, êtes-vous le créateur de ce que vous voyez ou, vous ne croyez pas qu'une personne seule peut être responsable de l'existence du monde? Après tout, si l'on peut croire que les choses existent seulement lorsqu'on est en contact avec elles, pourquoi les gens qui nous entourent ne feraient-ils pas partie de cette grande illusion?

Past can't be touch, but memory can touch you...

The film In the mood for love by Wong Kar Wai work on a level of temporality and movement that is not limited to a tangibility or objectivity. One technical particularity of the film make this element visible easily: the use of step-printing images. Different than the slow-motion, the step-printing give a sense of raw emotion to what we see on screen. The movements of the characters in the image became a bit jerky but keep a natural gracefulness. In example; when Mrs. Chang and Mr. Chow are in the alley, rehearsing their break-up, Mr. Chow take her hand for a moment and slowly leave her there. When we see the detail of this gesture, the step-printing is used. At that moment, the idea of time is an issue of impression and perception (from her part) of the emotion link to the act but also to the meaning of what happen. The jerky movement of her abandonned hand moving up her arm and squeezing it, show the pain of the moment. It could also be thought as her memory of this pain or emotion. It is how she'll remember (or how she is remembering -- depending on how you interprete the narrative) the feeling and impression that she felt at that moment. It is not a memory of the moment itself but of a subjective 'souvenir' of her inside emotion.

If I link this particularity of this film to our blog, it is because I believe that the thinker that we have seen don't talk about physical temporality or movement. They are using those terms in a much larger meaning. For me, Wong Kar Wai push the meaning of time and movement further than a lot of director in In the mood for love -- he don't want us to remember what is happening but to remember the feeling of it; the feeling that we have felt while watching it, and the feeling we sees been felt by the characters of the film.

«La distance qui sépare notre corps d'un objet perçu mesure donc véritablement la plus ou moins grande imminence d'un danger, la plus ou moins prochaine échéance d'une promesse. Et par suite, notre perception d'un objet distinct de notre corps par un intervalle, n'exprime jamais qu'une action virtuelle. Mais plus la distance décroît entre cet objet et notre corps, plus, en d'autres termes, le danger devient urgent ou la promesse immédiate, plus l'action virtuelle tend à se transformer en action réelle. Passez maintenant à la limite, supposez que la distance devienne nulle, c'est-à-dire que l'objet à percevoir coïncide avec notre corps, c'est-à-dire enfin que notre propre corps soit l'objet à percevoir. Alors ce n'est plus une action virtuelle, mais une action réelle que cette perception toute spéciale exprimera: l'affection consiste en cela même.» (Bergson, Matière et mémoire, 57-58)

Après avoir distingué deux systèmes d'images, les images invariables dans l'univers et les images variables dans la perception, ou en d'autres termes les images actuelles de la matière et les images virtuelles de la perception, Bergson ajoute un troisième terme au problème du passage entre la matière et la perception: l'affection. Notre corps ne pouvant être confondu à un point mathématique dans l'espace, la perception ne peut être uniquement comprise comme relevant d'une action virtuelle soustrayant et isolant des aspects particuliers à partir des images-matière (Bergson, 59). À cette perception se mêle l'affection, aux actions virtuelles se mêlent des actions réelles. Et cette affection survient, nous dit Bergson, lorsque l'objet et le corps coïncide, lorsque le corps devient lui-même l'objet à percevoir et l'objet perçu.

Le passage de Bergson sur la distance entre le corps et l'objet, sur l'intervalle entre la matière et la perception et sur l'affection comme une «perception toute spéciale» survenant lorsque cette distance ou cet intervalle est effacé m'a fait penser au film d'Antonioni Le désert rouge. J'ai vu ce film il y a déjà un certain temps mais j'ai un souvenir précis d'une scène où le personnage jouée par Monica Vitti est comme prise au piège dans une pièce, où les murs semblent vouloir se refermer sur elle. L'atténuation progressive de la distance entre l'objet et le corps du personnage représente ici clairement l'imminence d'un danger et lorsque Monica Vitti est finalement acculé dans un coin de la pièce, surgit un moment où la perception n'est plus simplement une soustraction du monde, un moment où une certaine puissance se dégage de la perception. Si, tout au long du film, le personnage de Monica Vitti est souvent comme en aplat par rapport au monde qui l'entoure, incapable de s'y fondre, soudainement, dans cette scène, la désolation de ce monde l'atteint dans son corps même.

Relation and Truth: Marey, then and now

Though there is much to say about the incredible work of Etiene-Jules Marais as well as of Erin Manning's interpretations and reflections thereof, there is one particular aspect of this text that has been foregrounded in my mind above all the others; that of relation in perception. 

Though, in the scientific community, as well as in the social sphere in general, this view would seem obvious and banal, I am always frustrated at the self-imposed perceptual limitations that the scientific paradigm promotes. Generalities are stated as obvious and unquestioned givens accepted as fact. 

For example, considering the "defective capacity of our senses for discovering truths" (Marey in Braun 1992: 12-13) would seem to suggest as a given that a camera lens or microscope is superior to our senses. The fact that we can't "see" as effectively as a camera, makes me wonder if the camera thinks it is inferior due to it's inability to autonomously decide when or where to shut its eye. I understand that it is difficult to think outside the dominant paradigm of the times, but sometimes also wonder if it is even possible.

In the times (or places) where the religious paradigm (as opposed the scientific of today) ruled and all knowledge was measured up against concepts of God it was similar. In fact we still have the moral remnants of those paradigms even though the dominant mode of thought is now a scientific one. Just the concepts of good and evil are enough to show us that with or without the ageless battle between God and Satan, we could still believe in the anthropomorphic spirit of their essence.

What is interesting in Erin Manning's piece is what is afforded due to the change in times and shift in dominant paradigm. Being able to see Marey's work in a new light doesn't change what what was done, but allows a new creation to be born of it. This would seem implausible (or perhaps undesirable) if the scientific view was strictly upheld. If there where truths that needed discovering, divorced from their relations to "imperfect" tools for measurement (human senses) then it would stand that something could be true or not. There would be nothing to learn from the various inter-relations that we start to discover in Marey's work and which take expanded importance when viewed in new contexts, such as those Manning proposes. 

Already we can intuitively understand that everything is based on relations to other things; that nothing exists in a vacuum. Yet, when discussing just about any subject, from religion to politics, art or television, we seem to always revert to a simple subject-object machine that allows for simple communication and closed systems which in turn lend themselves to the formation of easy truths. 

"We see not an object but its activity of relation" (Manning). One can't help but wonder if observations or concepts such as this are the result or the cause of investigations such as those undertaken by Marey. One, also can't help but wonder what would come if we took this paradigm of "relations" to heart when observing the so-called givens of our social, moral and political world? Easy answers that just feel "true" might give way to the type of creative discoveries that Marrey's experiments have concerning movement and perception. 

Duration Actualized

There is other without there being several; number exists only potentially. In other words, the subjective, or duration, is the virtual. To be more precise, it is the virtual insofar as it is actualized, in the course of being actualized is inseparable from the moment of actualization.” (Deleuze 42).

After yesterday’s discussion about duration I found myself wondering about the various components of the concept (multiplicity, possibility vs. potential, intuition etc.) and how these topics can be applied cinematically.  Would it be wrong to say that duration might be a part of the documentary filmmaking process? For example, if a director had more or less shaped an idea about what they wanted the film to be about without actually pinning down the specifics? He or she would have rented the equipment, assembled the crew, and traveled to the location where they would hope to capture some footage that co aligned with an idea that had not yet actualized. It would be possible for them to record something (whatever happened to spring up) but the potential of what might happen could not begin to be imagined. Hypothetically the filmmaker’s intuition could play a role in what they filmed and how they locate their subject matter. Is this analogy too simplistic? Can duration be realized in a classical narrative sense (or is the concept bigger then that)?  I think I understand how duration works in a cosmic/virtual sense… I am just curious about exploring more concrete examples that can better illustrate what Bergson and Deleuze were talking about. 

Éric Rohmer et Faust

«Que Murnau chérisse le mouvement, pour un cinéaste cela va de soi: l'important est qu'il l'aime en peintre, que dans la représentation de celui-ci il accède à la beauté picturale beaucoup plus aisément que dans celle de l'immobilité.  C'est le mouvement surtout chez lui, qui fait le dessin.»  Rohmer, L'organisation de l'espace dans le Faust de Murau, p.21.

Rohmer affirme dans ce livre que chaque images du film de Murnau est une oeuvre picturale comparable à de grandes toiles.  Il compare longuement l'éclairage clair-obscur à celui de Rembrandt.  

Cette citation est bien intéressante si on le compare au cinéma d'animation.  Chez Murnau le mouvement fait le dessin, pourtant un cinéaste d'animation crée le mouvement par le dessin.  

«Contrairement à ce qui se passe chez le peintre, il semble que ce n'est pas la ligne qui crée l'expression, mais l'expression la ligne» Rohmer (22-23)

À travers un éclairage et un soucis pictural Murnau met en relief la peinture dans le septième art.  L'ouvrage de Rohmer réoriente la question proposé antérieurement sur le blog entre Tarkovsky et Eisenstein.

En lisant ce merveilleux bouquin, un film d'animation me vient en tête : L'homme qui plantait des arbres par Frédéric Bach.

the evolution of montage

(above stills from Ivan the Terrible by S. Eisenstein)

Sergi Eisenstein once wrote: "Cinematography is, first and foremost, montage", while Tarkovsky writes: "Nor can I accept the notion that editing is the main formative element of film...as if film was made on the editing table."


As a still photographer my initial attraction to the work of Eisenstein is strong framing and composition. A constant reminder of the edge of the frame.
Stark and gothic, born more of the evolution of still photography than cinema.

Tarkovsky identified this difference and tried to break the frame, extend it outside the edges and place the anticipation of the unseen into the consciousness of the viewer. In other words, Tarkovsky identified framing as only one element in cinema that needed to evolve from his early Russian predecessors. Tarkovsky achieves this via the use of rhythm, which is not possible with the still image. In another sense Tarkovsky hoped to heighten the sensibilities of the viewer so that we become acutely aware that there is always something seething at the edge. And at that edge, before what comes next is fully revealed, is the movement-image and time-image merged.

Le Réalisme de Tarkovski

Pour en revenir à l’écoulement du temps dans chaque plan, je voudrais souligner l’exemple d’un passage du temps très ambigu dans L’Enfance d’Ivan (1962) de Tarkovski. Il s’agit d’une scène dans laquelle le jeune Ivan s’endort en rêvant à certains souvenirs de son enfance. La caméra présente d’abord la main du garçon pendant entre les barreaux du lit, puis elle se tourne vers le haut pour présenter ce qui devrait être le plafond de la chambre dans laquelle se trouve l’enfant. Pourtant, ce que nous voyons au-dessus d’Ivan n’est pas l’intérieur de sa chambre, mais plutôt l’image de ses souvenirs. Ivan n’est plus dans une pièce fermée; il se trouve à présent dans un puits et semble se regarder dormir au fond du gouffre. À l’intérieur d’un même plan, Tarkovski nous permet ainsi d’effectuer un passage entre deux mondes et d’abandonner le présent pour revenir au passé.
André Bazin voyait l’utilisation de longs plans comme étant plus réaliste que la tradition du montage puisqu’elle offre une représentation du temps conforme à notre réalité. Elle ne manipule pas le temps entre chaque plan par la coupure apportée par le montage. Néanmoins, cette scène de L’Enfance d’Ivan remet nettement en question cette notion de réalisme. Le plan décrit ici ne dure que quelques secondes pour le spectateur, mais il permet à Tarkovski de sauter dans un autre lieu et de revenir à une autre époque. Lorsque Tarkovski affirme que ce qui compte au cinéma est la façon dont le temps s’écoule dans chaque plan, c’est que pour lui, le temps tel que nous le percevons chaque jour, la chronologie et la succession des minutes n’ont tout simplement pas d’importance au cinéma. C'est une toute autre temporalité qui s'y déploie.

Two Questions on Bergson's definition of the "objective"

In Bergsonism, Deleuze posits, in Bergson's place, "that the objective is that which has no virtuality – whether realized or or not, whether possible or or real, everything is actual in the objective." (41) He then goes on to state, "'object' and 'objective' denote not only what is divided, but what in dividing, does not change in kind." (41) 

On the same page, both of these points are used to speak of the lack of virtuality in matter, and if the above statements are accepted , then outcome seems easy enough to accept as well. But, then when using the example of mathematical number as being "divisible without changing in kind," and therefor being considered extended (42), things start to get a bit more confused and abstract for me. 

On these points I have two questions. Firstly, if the objective has no virtuality and that it is always what is actual, then how do we associate it to matter? Is it not that our perception of matter is always dependent on our actualizing in relation to it? Is this considering that matter is actual independently of all perception?

Secondly, How can we use this argument to claim that number has extension just because it is "divisible without changing in kind" as is matter? I can potentially see number being considered as objective, but have a hard time reconciling it to matter and having extension. 

Perhaps I will rue having written this passage five minutes after the lecture this afternoon, where the simple elegance and genius of Bergson's thought will be made explicit (to a simple mind such as my own). But, until then, I will try and understand how matter can can have no virtuality and number can be extended.

Light Painting 2

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Light Painting

Here are your masterpieces...

Objectiver le temps subjectif

“If one compares cinema with such time-based arts as, say, ballet or music,
cinema stands out as giving time visible, real form.
Once recorded on film, the phenomenon is there, given and immutable,
even when the time is intensely subjective.”
Andrey Tarkovsky, Sculpting Time (Knopf, 1986), p.118.

Voici un instant. Quelconque. Des bulles de savon qui se promènent au gré du vent, immortalisées sur bande vidéo. Plan-séquence qui part du néant vers l’infini. Lors du visionnement, qu’est-ce qui ressortira du cadre pour venir chercher le spectateur?

Une image est une porte. Un passage vers un monde. Une fois en contact avec le spectateur, l’auteur s’efface et l’image acquiert vie propre, devient véhicule d’un sentiment. Objectif, l’appellerait Suzanne Langer. Déjà Tarkovski, c’est de « vérité absolue » qu’il parle. Pour lui, l’image exprime et incarne la vie elle-même ; c’est dans la mesure que l’image s’étend au-delà du film pour atteindre multiples aspects de la vie, qu’elle est vraie, qu'elle rayonne et vibre de son propre temps, son rythme. Dans la façon dont le temps est exprimé, l’auteur vient chercher le spectateur pour l’allier à ce sentiment objectivé à travers le rythme inculqué dans le plan.

Mais chaque fois que la même image est jouée, elle sera différente pour moi car chaque fois elle résonnera dans un espace différent. Le mien. Son rythme vibrera dans mon intérieur dans un instant différent. Alors, si un temps subjectif peut être objectivé à travers l’art cinématographique, le sentiment objectif exprimé, lui, s’élance vers l’infiniment possible.

Plans-séquence, suite...

Pour en revenir à mon questionnement sur les plans-séquence… En fait, je crois que la question que l'on se pose (en tout cas, que je me pose) lors d'un tel visionnage est la suivante : "est-ce vraiment qu'un seul plan?" ou plutôt "y a-t-il tricherie, ce plan est-il simulé?". Ce qui me fascine est qu'on n'est jamais sûr de la réponse. Car tout de même, rappelons qu'un plan-séquence implique une absolue maîtrise du temps et du mouvement, une parfaite concordance (nous y reviendrons).
Dans Still Orang-Outans, je crois avoir perçu la coupure, la pause de la caméra. Si je crois l’avoir perçu, c’est que je n’en ai pas la certitude, en tout cas du côté du mouvement de la caméra. Ce qui me met la puce à l’oreille est la question du temps, car la première moitié du film se déroule le jour, et que soudainement, au sortir d’un personnage, il fait nuit dehors. Ma vision offre alors une preuve irréfutable, mais ma perception, elle, cherche en vain à se remémorer le mouvement qui pourrait expliquer le bris. Si l’on me demande si je l’ai perçu, je me dois de dire oui, ayant eu la preuve du bris dans le temps. Mais l’ais-je vraiment perçu , au niveau du mouvement? L’ais-je plutôt imaginé, ou vu ? Ainsi, je me demande : notre perception concorde-t-elle avec la réalité ? La dépasse-t-elle ? La devance-t-elle ?

Bergsonism

Hi all,

Here's the link to a pdf of Bergsonism by GD. Enjoy!

Regards, Felix

Deleuze_-_Bergsonism.pdf
File will remain active for: 7 days until 08.11.10


Link to file:
https://rcpt.yousendit.com/621503603/b8fc07c469b3dd20db0e9de3cc0788bd

Tarkovsky's Rhythm

I think that Tarkovsky’s discussion of time, rhythm and editing is really invaluable especially for filmmakers and artists who have ever attempted to edit or shape something into a final work of art. “Editing has to do with stretches of time, and the degree of intensity with which these exist, as recorded by the camera; not with abstract symbols… but with the diversity of life perceived” (Tarkovsky 119).  His emphasis on the intensity of time is something he clearly perfected in his own films. The eerie feeling that the temporality in Solaris instills (as Erin said the‘on the edge of your seatness’) works to not only alter our perception but to resituate our notion of reality. When I re-watched the film recently I became more aware of the effect the rhythm had on my perception and the organization of the imagery.  Little nuances of sound also work to grab your attention and pull you in further to Tarkovsky’s world. For instance during the deposition scene we watched in class there is an intermittent beeping sound as the pilot gives his deposition which heightens the intensity of the man’s nervous testimony. A moment later, the clinking of a glass almost completely unravels him.  Erin has often said that perception “is a matter of foregrounding and back grounding” and I think that Solaris is a perfect example of a film where our level of total perception (the plane of imminence) is constantly being tested. Tarkovsky’s subtle methods work to shape a vivid and complete feeling of wholeness which is bound together and continuously reformulating by rhythm itself.