What a Difference a Difference Makes.

In a text I’ve been working on titled What is an act of creation? Deleuze addresses a group of filmmakers in 1979 and asks them a number of questions pertinent to the cinema: “What is an act of creation?” “What is the truly cinematic?” and “What is a cinematic idea?” I’d like to share his answer to the third question because I was thinking and writing about Solaris in pretty much the same way but in a more “concrete” manner. The translation of Deleuze’s text is kinda choppy—you can ascribe that to the translator (yours truly) or to the fact that it was based on an audio transcript... I didn’t try to smooth it out any more than this because I wanted to show Deleuze’s formulation of ideas as he presented them.

“It’s in what’s proper to the cinema that one finds cinematographic ideas. To dissociate the visual from the aural, is… why can’t it be done in theatre? Why? It is possible, but when it is done in the theatre, unless the theatre has the means to do it, we say that the theatre has adopted it from the cinema. Which is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is such a cinematographic idea to ensure the dissociation of the seen and the heard and the spoken—of the visual and the aural, that... that it would seem to address the idea of what is it to have a cinematic idea? Everyone knows what that consists of. I will answer in my own terms because... a voice speaks of something, at the same time. Thus, we speak of something, while at the same time, they make us see something else, and finally, that which they speak to us about is underneath what we are being made to see. That third point is really important. You can feel that, and that is a place the theatre cannot follow. The theatre can adopt the first two propositions. They show us something but we are made to see something else. Meanwhile, that which is spoken of lies beneath that which we are made to see—and it is necessary, or else the first two operations would have absolutely no sense, they would be utterly uninteresting. If you prefer, we could say, in other terms more..., the word rises into the air. The word rises into the air at the same time that the earth, which we can see, sinks more and more, or rather at the same time that this word which rises into the air speaks to us, that which it speaks to us about sinks beneath the ground.”

I had been thinking about Solaris (what else is there to think about?)and about what makes it such an engrossing film. From the point of view of the average North-American spectator whose sci-fi expectations have been modelled around Hollywood sci-fi fare such as Bladerunner (1982) or The Terminator (1984), Solaris has no sexiness or pazazz. In comparison to The Matrix (1999), the visual effects are totally unspectacular. As entertainment, Solaris lacks an action-motivated plot that is engaging and easy to hook into like Star Wars (1977) or War of the Worlds (2005). In contrast to Alien (1979) the horrific aspect of the “alien monster” is totally played down and unlike Close Encounters (1977), the alien contact angle is anti-climactic. In comparison to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) or 12 Monkeys (1995) the time-travel aspect is totally downplayed. The narrative itself is intractable and refractory: as a drama, the average viewer would likely have no patience or common-ground with Tarkovsky’s humanistic intellectual vision and would find the whole thing boring. There’s also a disconnect from the alienating and distancing effects of non-North-American cultural artefacts (art direction, unfamiliar wardrobe, foreign language, unhabitual concerns, unfamiliar talent, etc). From a North American perspective and its deeply entrenched generic expectations, we are presented with a film that on all surficial considerations comes up short on every front.

In spite of this, the film is consistently mentioned on the lists of best sci-fi films of all time. What exactly is it about the film that makes it so engrossing? If this cannot be gleaned from the surface aspects of the filmic image, where do we find the value-added content? We have no choice but to look at the film in a different way, not for what’s there on screen but to how it means or to what it points to. But just how does the film mean other than what is on screen? What is it about the image being shown that points us to look at the image in a different way? What exactly constitutes this different way?

If we take our everyday reality as a phenomenological benchmark and compare that to the everyday reality on the space station in Solaris, we see that what happens in outer-space does not happen on Earth the same way. How the characters interact with each other, the various situations depicted, the concerns expressed, the switch from color footage to black-and-white, the way the characters and objects appear and disappear within the drama, are not the way that events usually manifest themselves i.e. would happen, in our shared objective reality. The fact that language exists, that it serves as a common base that enables us to communicate with one another, allows one to postulate that objective reality constitutes a shared basis for consciousness. And although it is impossible to ascertain whether or not this objective reality presents itself in the same way to all individuals participating in a shared consciousness, most of us behave as if it does. If we describe through language or present through moving images a subjective reality which differs from that which we have come to expect as reality, and we compare the differences which emerge from this alternative consciousness or variance with reality to what we usually conceive as consciousness or objective reality, that residuum constitutes abstract meaning. And depending on which aspects of the subjective reality are compared to the common manifestation of these aspects in objective reality we end up with a taxonomy of images that emerges in Deleuze’s Cinema 1—The Movement Image and Cinema 2—The Time Image.

In linguistics, this methodology is known as the analysis of deep structure and allows us to analyse the temporal manifestation of abstract meanings as a narrative whose parts are constituted by what we are seeing on screen but not necessarily a part of it. This kind of analysis allows us to discern narrative structures based on the progression of pictorial stylistics, issues of temporality, the representation of consciousness, the manifestation of the intrusion of memory, individuation, becoming, psychological concerns, etc. i.e. any metaphorical or conceptual process, in terms of its manifest temporal unfolding.

Cognitive science makes use of these elements of abstract meaning based on embodied metaphors as constitutive of sets which can be analysed through set theory or Boolean logic to analyse their constitution and interaction in order to create blocs of conceptual meaning as duration. Set theory in itself provides an interesting metaphor for conceiving the plane of immanence as the open, divergent infinite set of all possible elements of meaning and subsets as durations as presented in the philosophies of Bergson, Bachelard and Deleuze. The process of constituting and deriving meaning in cinema can be looked at in terms of set theory, where the infinite but closed number of cells of manifest and abstract meaning constitute the work. The subsets constituted by these various elements can be dissolved and reconstituted into different sets with different scope, emphasis, scale i.e. a variety of intervals, in order to investigate different concerns or affinities such as auteurism, the evolution of meaning of camera movement within the works of a particular filmmaker, etc. And these affinities do not only manifest themselves at a surficial level but at a hidden or abstract level.

Heidegger in Identity and Difference writes:
“Always and everywhere Being means Being of Existence... In the case of the Being of Existence and the Existence of Being we are concerned every time with a difference. We think of Being, therefore, as object only when we think it as different from Existence and think Existence as different from Being. Thus difference proper emerges. If we attempt to form an image of it, we shall discover that we are immediately tempted to comprehend difference as a relation which our thinking has added to Being and to Existence. As a result, difference is reduced to a distinction, to a product of human intelligence. However, let us assume for once that difference is an addition resulting from our forming of a mental image, the problem arises: An addition of what? And the answer we get is: to Existence. Well and good. But what do we mean by this “Existence”? What else do we mean by it than such as it is? Thus we accommodate the alleged addition, the idea of a difference, under Being. Yet, “Being” itself proclaims: Being which is Existence. Wherever we would introduce difference as an alleged addition, we always meet Existence and Being in their difference... Existence and Being, each in its own way, are to be discovered through and in difference... What we call difference we find everywhere and at all times in the object of thought, in Existence as such, and we come up against it in a manner so free of doubt that we do not pay any particular attention to it... What is the meaning of this oft-mentioned Being? If under these conditions Being exhibits itself as a being of..., in the genitive of difference, then the question just asked would be more to the point if rephrased: What in your opinion is difference if both Being as well as Existence each in their own way appear through difference?

There is something here, except I don't know what it is... equating the process of subtraction as differenciation. It would seem to mean that the parallel in the processes imply that the secondary meanings operate as a state of Being... Interesting...

Perception’s force field

« Le grand William James a été l’objet de nombreuses critiques injustifiées pour avoir suggéré que
chez certaines personnes,
l’inhalation de l’oxyde nitreux conduisait à la manifestation brève
d’un état psychique qui est toujours virtuellement présent. »
Richard P. Marsh, « La signification des drogues mentales »
paru dans Essai sur l’expérience hallucinogène,
Éditions Pierre Belfond, 1969, p. 53.

Le concept « champ de force de la perception » me fait penser à ce que j’ai voulu exprimer par l’expression « situation configurationnelle » en ce qui a trait aux forces qui soutiennent l’expérience psychédélique. Seulement, la configuration situationnelle fait état de toutes les forces autant virtuelles qu’actuelles à l’œuvre dans l’expérience pure. C’est comme une photo instantanée qui serait capable de montrer l’aspect d’ensemble de tous les éléments composant la singularité que l’expérience pure véhicule. Cela dit, la configuration situationnelle incarne l’expérience pure à son niveau le moins abstrait, soit dans l’actuel, mais juste avant l’expérience de registre de cette qualité.

En contre partie, le champ de force de la perception me semble se situer en tant que mouvement qui va de l’expérience pure au registre de l’expérience. Autant que la configuration situationnelle est statique, le champ de force de la perception appelle au mouvement pour se présenter. Alors que la configuration situationnelle peut même se présenter en tant que simple énumération, le champ de force de la perception apporte une perspective de durée aux éléments de la relation. Une surface incorporelle donc, qui est aussi pur mouvement et qui englobe beaucoup plus que ce que la conscience réflexive peut contenir, mais que la conscience affective absorbe pour composer l’expérience.

C’est un peu comme si la conscience affective était composée de milliards d’yeux et pouvait tout voir, alors que la conscience réflexive condense toutes ces données en un seul œil, une seule synthèse : « It’s not just that we see what we’ve already seen – it’s that what we’ve already seen contaminates what we feel we see and re-composes what we’re actually not seeing. » (Erin Manning)

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.  

“The function of the image, as Gogol said, is to express life itself, not ideas or arguments about life. It does not signify life or symbolise it, but embodies it, expressing its uniqueness” (Tarkovsky 11). Borrowing this definition from Gogol, it seems that Tarkovsky attempts at rearticulating the Deleuzian ultimate delineation of cinema from the system of language. That is why I feel always uneasy about interpreting his films. In fact, I always limit myself to a precise summary of the plot and a stylistic analysis while avoiding discussion about meaning. For example, reading Stalker simply in terms of political allegory in the Soviet context of the 1970s will leave so many other themes aside that are, nonetheless, there. Every time I pick up just one meaning from his film, it makes me feel like I deny millions of others because his images “stretches out into infinity, and leads to the absolute” (Tarkovky 104). How can I describe the absolute in this case? My guess is that the essay about Tarkovky’s images should also bring up something that “stretches out into infinity”, so the critic is bound to create something and not criticize or demolish anything in itself. Art cinema at large is a unique chance for film studies scholars to become an artist by leaving behind the bookkeeping of formal analysis.

plan-séquence en animation

«the essential nature of the filmed material comes out in the character of the editing»  Tarkovsky (116)

Cette citation me pousse à revenir au plan-séquence.  Un montage dans la mise-en-scène et dans le choix des cadrages est orchestré dans le plan-séquence.  Bref, par sa composition dans l'espace, le montage est présent dans un tel plan.  Plusieurs théoriciens du cinéma ont prouvé que même à l'époque des frères Lumières, le montage avait lieu, de par certains montage in-caméra.  

Je me demandais ce que serait le plan-séquence en cinéma d'animation.  J'ai tout suite pensé aux performances live de Pierre Hébert.  La gravure en direct faite par Hébert peut s'apparenter au plan-séquence.  Dans la mesure où l'image transmet simultanément le mouvement direct sur la pellicule.  Le rythme est capté à même le présent.  Certes, certains diront que le montage est encore présent de par ses choix du trait et des images dans le cadre, mais reste le seul exemple de plan-séquence en cinéma d'animation qui m'est venu à l'esprit.

Readings for Last Two Weeks of November

Re-visiting Tarkovsky

I am re-visiting Tarkovsky after many years and I am reminded of the reasons I appreciated him as much as I did. He is not just an  artist, or just a cinematographer, or just a poet, or just a theologian. He is someone who is very concerned with the "big" questions regarding the human predicament and uses film to articulate his philosophical and spiritual musings. I am moved by his tender look at the human condition in all its expressions, and his attention to the quest for meaning, beauty, integrity, wholesomeness. 

To that effect, he challenges orthodox cinema by introducing his own rhythmic, poetic sculpting of time (against the logic of linear unfolding) which, he thinks, does greater justice to the complexity of conscious life and,by the same token, engages his audiences in a more constructive and involved way, so much so that they are " on a par with the artist in their perception of the film".

Nier le concret

Comme l’a souligné Charlie, L’Année Dernière à Marienbad est un très bon exemple pour illustrer la puissance du faux.

« La passion devient l’élément essentiel de ce cinéma parce que, à l’inverse de l’action, elle noue des narrations falsifiantes à des descriptions pures » (Deleuze, p.177).

Cette phrase de Deleuze énonce un paradoxe cinématographique: comment tromper le concret d’une image? D’un coté, l’image est concrète, elle est ce qu’elle est. Nous voyons des couleurs, des formes, des mouvements, de l’espace, le temps passer, etc. En ce sens, le cinéma est très fréquemment constitué de descriptions pures. Par contre, cette image visuelle n’est pas uniquement ce qui forme l’image cinématographique. La narration (autant le développement de l’histoire que la voix off) peut confronter ces images, nier le concret, ce que l’on voit. Je crois que c’est ce que Resnais et Robbe-Grillet ont réussit à accomplir avec le film. Nous voyons des descriptions pures après d’autres descriptions pures et chacune nie la précédente. Dans chaque plan, il y a de l’addition et/ou de la soustraction qui change le souvenir d’une image. Cette image, qui est vraie parce qu’elle est elle-même, devient alors fausse dans un contexte narratif. Toutefois, je crois que ce qui est exprimé dans le film de Resnais n’est pas unique à ce film, mais bien une exagération de ce qui se trouve dans la grande majorité des films (avec l’apport du montage, etc.). C’est peut-être aussi contre cela que Tarkovski se rebelle dans Le temps scellé, lorsqu’il veut retrouver la vérité de l’image ou lorsqu’il privilégie le plan-séquence au montage.

Still Orang-Outans

Au risque de casser un peu le rythme des dernières posts, j'aimerais revenir à l'essentiel du discours de Deleuze -le mouvement et le temps. J'ai récemment vu un film brésilien intitulé Still Orang-Outans, dont la prouesse était de tenir en un seul plan-séquence de 80 minutes. Jamais au cinéma n'avons-nous vu pareille relation entre temps et mouvement: alors que la caméra bouge -avance- continuellement, le temps se déroule dans le réel, et les deux concepts se joignent de façon parallèle. Tel un train qui avance sur ses rails, le temps et le mouvement vont dans la même direction, se déroulent, et l'un et l'autre semblent concorder.
Mais concordent-ils vraiment?
Lorsqu'il m'arrive de réfléchir à la temporalité au cinéma, il est automatique pour moi de penser au plan-séquence. Pourquoi en est-ce ainsi? J'imagine que pour moi, c'est dans ces moments si fluides que le temps devient important, que j'y prête alors une grande attention. Le concept du plan-séquence au cinéma m'obsède, je vais donc essayer d'y dédier mes prochaines posts, étant en retard de quelques-unes.

Le Souvenir des illusions

Dans son chapitre sur la puissance du faux, Deleuze décrit l’existence d’une narration falsifiante. Dans certains films, la narration ne fait qu’unir des présents incompossibles, des potentiels de réalités qui ne s’actualisent jamais concrètement. L’image se retient de laisser transparaître sa réalité et son origine, elle n’est que représentation picturale ne pouvant être totalement décodée puisque la fausseté qui la constitue ne peut se détacher de ses composantes véritables.
C’est ce type de narration qui constitue L’Année Dernière à Marienbad d’Alain Resnais. Les deux principaux personnages de ce film s’y contredisent, l’un mentionnant des souvenirs de moments vécus à Marienbad l’année précédente, l’autre affirmant n’avoir aucune réminiscence de ces instants. Chaque personnage devient faussaire et jamais la narration ne permet au spectateur de déceler la vérité. Les images de souvenirs sont introduites par le personnage masculin, puis reniées par la femme. Les contradictions s’affichant à l’intérieur de chaque image telles que les ombres infidèles soulignent l’impossibilité des souvenirs décrits et la défaillance de la mémoire de chaque personnage, mais suggèrent aussi l’irréalité de leur présent. Le film parvient à reconstituer un amas de souvenirs falsifiés par la mémoire, proposant par le fait même que la vérité s’est effacée avec le temps et qu’elle ne pourra jamais être vécue à nouveau. Les défauts de la mémoire trahissent chaque personnage en lui-même.
Deleuze mentionne également que « la passion devient l’élément essentiel de ce cinéma parce que, à l’inverse de l’action, elle noue des narrations falsifiantes à des descriptions pures » (Deleuze, p.177). Dans L’Année Dernière à Marienbad, les personnages sont animés par un désir de faire resurgir une passion éteinte, qu’elle soit véritable ou qu’elle n’ait été que rêvée. Ils ont le désir de ramener à la surface des souvenirs purs, mais l’inconstance de leur mémoire les retient de se faire confiance à eux-mêmes et empêche le spectateur de déceler toute forme de vérité.

digital>analog>digital>analog>digital...ad infinitum

Continuing the discussion of the analog and the digital, I figured I would raise a few questions that could perhaps allow us to see the creative process that exists within the translation of one to the other.

It easy to imagine that the digital is a weak and limiting impression of the infinity of qualitative phenomena inherent in the analog. The traditional way of seeing this relationship is that the digital samples the analog and creates an approximation of the real "object" in bits, 1's and 0's, on and off. But in this has always been the case in the way perception works, and is especially true of the film.

In effect, the process of filming has been traditionally seen as analog because it translates light (electro-magnetic energy) through a chemical process into an image that then uses light to project it. It would appear that the analog is preserved and not sampled in the way a computer will take light and sample it at a pre-defined degree and store an approximation of the continuous light into a grid of pixels. but, this is if we only consider the material aspect of light and ignore the temporal.

Film can capture light continuously, but doesn't treat time the same way. In this case it samples at 24 frames per second; the same way a digital interpretation of a sound wave (electro-acoustic energy) is sampled at 44,100 times a second (common sampling rate for CD quality sound). The time element of a film requires the limits of human perception to re-interpret the sampled images into an analog continuum. 24 frames a second passes the threshold of our visual digital perception well enough that we see continuos movement where there isn't really one. If we where to film at 2 frames a second and play it back at that speed we would notice the lack of interstitial movement.

In the digital capture of light the same phenomena is present, but now it samples the materiality of the light as well as the time. Again, a high sampling rate (high-resolution) will not be obvious to us since it may pass the threshold – due to the mechanism of light-perception in the cone-cells of our eyes, the light diffraction due to the humidity in the air between the projector-screen or screen-eyes – we would see continuous light. Whereas a low-resolution image would make it appear as though we are seeing the digital sample. This is just an illusion as the requirement of light in order to see, is always analog. What you would be seeing are little squares (pixels). But the little squares are perceived as analog image.

If we say that the digital image is not a true copy it is because we are pre-supposing an objective original model of which we are trying to replace with a copy. But, instead we could use the term simulacrum to represent a copy that does not stand in for its object, but exists as an object on its own. As Brian Massumi states, "The terms copy and model bind us to the world of representation and objective (re)production"(The Simulacrum According to Deleuze and Guattari, 1987). And, he mentions in an interpretation of a simulacrum;

The thrust of the process is not to become the equivalent of the "model" but to turn against it and its world in order to open up a new space for the simulacrum's own mad proliferation. The simulacrum affirms its own difference. (ibid.)

Can all art not be seen as a simulacrum instead of a copy? Do people really still think that a photograph (analog or digital)  captures "true" reality?

The process of translating from the analog to the digital creates new "objects"every time and it when we try to equate them to the "original" object that we end up in a process of judgment. Can we still speak in these terms without reverting to outdated notions of objective reality and absolute truths? Shall we go back to a Platonic world view where the artist is seen as a mere copier of reality?

The Digital Passion of Resolution

I felt compelled to rent and watch Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc after reading everyone's comments and Deleuze's references to it and it was fun to feel the close-ups in a new way. It's great how Dreyer lets the subtleties of expression run the full course of their complexities as they cross the actors' faces like slow motion lightning forcing a retracing of the rethinking of the sequence that has just transpired. It's 1928 and it shows... Silent film has fully developed its story-telling potential and is now ready to go beyond the action-image. It's now ready to accept the dimension of the "internal", except that it gets hijacked by sound for another 20 years. Dreyer's Joan of Arc seems to go that extra push into the inside by giving time to allow the full modulation of feeling on each face as expression of feeling-thought in motion. And even if we can't see the forces that generate the thought, we can definitely see the results as cues as to how to read and summarize what precedes it while colouring our intuition and expectations as to that which is coming. We could call the beautiful b&w images hyper-real due to the overall look of the film created by superior optics, incredible amounts of light, a super-fine grain stock, the filtration of the light to offer preferential treatment to select parts of the light spectrum during shooting and the colour palette used in the art-direction to keep everything within grey midtones. But in contrast to the hyper-reality of HD TV, I wonder if the heightened sense of reality and the crispness of the resolution of the image in HD is not because there is more but because there is less, a "subtraction" of sorts, the contrast between the fine-grain resolution of the retina vs. the fine coarseness (or the coarse fineness?) of the HD chips. What I mean by this is a sampling/representation that lacks continuity in the spectrum of representation (or a too coarse a sampling to define the spectrum of presentation) and we feel that it is hyper-real because there is not as much fuzziness to figure out in the making sense of the image. We feel the choppiness of digital sampling as crispness and the smooth continuity of the analog as fuzzy and out of focus. The "fattiness" of listening to vinyl is so much more satisfying than the lack of presence and dry crispness of a CD and as Brian Massumi says it's perhaps because fat (gras) indiscriminately affects all your taste buds--it provides broad-band satisfaction to the full-spectrum resolution of your (gustatory) sensoria. Perhaps the sensorial pleasure of roundness and smoothness of film lies in the continuous full-spectrum depth and complexity of the analog? Perhaps we are being sold on the super-crispness of the digital as a positive when in fact it is a negative and a shortcoming dictated by the imperatives or limitations of the technology and their marketing strategies? 0 or 1 vs 0>x<1? Bonjour Zeno, comment tu vas?

Deleuze's Cinema 1 & 2

Hi all,

You can download a zipped file of Deleuze's Cinema 1 & 2 at the following link.
Simply click on the link and press on the button that says download.

Enjoy,
Felix

https://www.yousendit.com/download/Y2o5UXVqVEhiR0kwTVE9PQ

Fabulation

«Jamais le mot de Nietzsche, ‘supprimez vos vénérations’, n’a été aussi bien entendu que par Perrault. Quand Perrault s’adresse à ses personnages réels du Québec, ce n’est pas seulement pour éliminer la fiction, mais pour la libérer d’un modèle de vérité qui la pénètre, et retrouver au contraire la pure et simple fonction de fabulation qui s’oppose à ce modèle.» (Deleuze, L’image-temps, 196)
Deleuze réussit ici encore une fois à briser une dichotomie facile, celle entre cinéma de fiction et cinéma documentaire, une séparation dont tout le monde reconnaît les apories et problèmes fondamentaux mais qui est quand même persistante et dont il est difficile de se défaire complètement. Le cinéma de Perrault, dont on a si souvent dit qu’il était un cinéma du réel, devient ainsi sous la plume de Deleuze un cinéma de fabulation; un des grands maîtres du documentaire devient l’artisan exemplaire portant les puissances du faux au cœur du récit cinématographique. Pour la suite du monde : Nietzsche aurait probablement dit pour la suite de la vie. Ce film nous offre bel et bien, non pas un regard nostalgique sur des fragments d’une réalité en voie de disparition, mais une véritable ode sur le pouvoir de fabulation et de création qui peut jaillir de la parole et de l’action de gens simples. Nietzsche n’aurait peut-être pas cherché, ni espéré trouver, son surhomme à l’Ile-Aux-Coudres, mais je ne peux m’empêcher de voir en Alexis un de ces généreux personnages, un «bon [qui] se laisse épuiser par la vie plutôt qu’il ne l’épuise, se mettant toujours au service de ce qui renaît de la vie, de ce qui métamorphose et crée.» (Deleuze, 185)

An experiment with time

Anyone can experience the linearity of time break down. This comes from the fact that our subconscious often leaves our physical dependency on linear time behind when our minds meander in a thoughtful way.

This simple experiment allows anyone with patience to experience how objective time can be momentarily replaced with subjective time.

You will need a clock with a second hand to try this for yourselves.

1/ Place the clock on a table in front of you so you can clearly see the second moving without any effort, through half closed eyes.

2/ Look at the clock and follow the movement and rhythm of the second hand in a thoughtful way. Continue this until you feel completely absorbed by this movement.

3/ Close your eyes and visualize yourself in a place you are familiar with and would like to be.
Fill this visualization with as much sensation as possible.
A good example would be lying on a familiar beach, the sun warming your skin, the sand soft beneath your back, the sound of the tide lapping the shore in the background.

4/ When you feel that you are fully immersed in this visualization, fully relaxed, slowly open your eyes halfway. Don't focus. Just let your eyes find the clock that you had placed on the table in front of you.

- This is the point where the second hand on the clock will appear to stick or hover. If you are used to meditating, you can see the second hand stop completely, especially during that instant before you break out of this semi-meditative state.

Paraphrased from
Stalking the Wild Pendulum by Itzhak Bentov. pages 60-61

If we were to ask the brain how it would like to be treated, whether shaken at a random, irregular rate, or in a rhythmic, harmonious fashion, we can be sure that the brain, or for that matter the whole body, would prefer the latter. -Bentov

Silent train...

Just one more comment about the senses and sound and image in films. About Steven Woloshen's  film, in particular, I know how important the roll of sound is to him and how he starts by listening over and over again to a musical piece, while in his car, playing the rhythm with his fingers, trying to understand and feel the sound before starting visualizing and animating it... 

Do the sound-train and image-train go together? How different an experience would be looking at a train coming towards us without its sound?

Any small change in image or sound bring out a totally different result. I remember Erin's comment when she showed in class a short video I made -Movements II- (trying different ways to show it I made a version with one screen and another one with two): How different the one with the two screens was because the eye would concentrate on the  in-between black space created by the two screens one next to the other and how the ominous and rhythmic sound specifies the experience...

I guess that  the senses collaborate and they "lend" their specificities to one another even when some of them are absent.

The Powers of the False and Malkovich

As I was going over the section in Deleuze about the powers of the false a film came to mind and I couldn't shake the feeling that the writer/director had to have been at least vaguely familiar with this philosophy when creating it. The film is Being John Malkovich in which I would say the role of the forger is played by John Cusack. In the film he transcends time through a portal which takes him into the body of another man (John Malkovich) where he proceeds to experience this other man's life in fifteen minute intervals before again traveling back through time to the present and his own existence.  As the narrative progresses Cusack and others begin to interfere with Malkovich's actions and emotions all the while manipulating time and truths in both the present and the future. Deleuze's discussion of the power of the false seems more than relevant... "It is the power of the false which replaces and supersedes the form of the true, because it poses the simultaneity of incompossible presents, or the coexistence of not-necessarily true pasts" (131). Not only does Cusack's character infiltrate the body and the mind of another man but he embarks on a temporal and spatial journey that is established on a lie. He soon shares this forgery with coworkers and his wife and the forgery in  turn multiplies to others etc. and it soon becomes clear that, "the powers of the false cannot be separated from an irreducible multiplicity" (133). In this regard the forgery gains momentum (which reaches a melting point when John Malkovich enters the portal into himself) until there is a complete malfunction between the true present and the false past. Ultimately I think that Being John Malkovich has a lot do with what Deleuze is discussing (but maybe I'm thinking too literally). I know some people have expressed frustration with Deleuze's classical/outdated film references and associating his concepts with this recent film helped me to better understand what he meant in this chapter. 

Les situations pures

« Maintenant suposez qu'un personnage se trouve dans une situation, quotidienne ou extraordinaire, qui déborde toute action possible ou le laisse sans réaction. C'est trop fort, ou trop douloureux, trop beau. Le lien sensori-moteur est brisé. Il n'est plus dans une situation sensori-motrice, mais dans une situation optique et sonore pure. C'est un autre type d'image. Soit l'étrangère dans Stromboli : elle passe par la pêche au thon, l'agonie du thon, puis l'éruption du volcan.
Elle n'a pas de réaction pour cela, pas de réponse, c'est trop intense :

"Je suis finie, j'ai peur, quel mystère, quelle beauté, mon Dieu..." (...)

C'est cela, je crois, la grande invention du néo-réalisme : on ne croit plus tellement aux possibilités d'agir sur des situations, ou de réagir à des situations, et pourtant on n'est pas du tout passif, on saisit ou on révèle quelque chose d'intolérable, d'insupportable, même dans la vie la plus quotidienne.

C'est un cinéma de Voyant. »

Gilles Deleuze, Pourparlers, Éd. de Minuit, Paris, 1990, p. 74.

L’expression « cinéma de voyant » dont parle Deleuze est intéressante compte tenu du fait qu’elle s'appuie sur une modalité du « sentir » que le cinéma pose par une esthétique de l'événement. Ce qu’elle permet est d’abord de repérer une alternative à la perception du temps calquée sur la juxtaposition. Ainsi, l’accent est mis non pas sur le défilement des plans, mais plutôt sur des des plans spécifiques desquelles le mouvement découle : des « images-temps directes », présentations directes du temps. Le mouvement va alors non seulement dans une seule direction, mais plutôt tous azimuts à partir du plan, à travers celui-ci.

Cette conception est utile pour nous faire pénétrer les dimensions profondes de notre « être dans le temps » car cette esthétique de l'événement dévoile subtilement des ramifications virtuelles du possible. Alors que dans le présent tout est possible, le futur ne peut marcher que sur une seule voie. Contrairement au déterminisme de la logique de la juxtaposition, dans l’immédiateté de l’événement se dévoile un spectre relationnel illimité, le virtuel étant essentiellement infini. Le présent ne va plus alors vers une résolution de conflit, mais se suffit à lui-même par l'absence de réaction. L'action devient implosive plutôt qu'expansive. Elle rentre toute dans le présent.

Si le présent ne rend visiblement compte que d’une partie de la réalité pour laisser inaperçu tout plein d’autres possibilités, c’est dans la « sensation » de l’événement que crient et sautillent et sommeillent tout plein de relations non localisables.