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.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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. 

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 ?

Interacting with McLaren

The handling of Norm McLaren's interview in Cinema de Notre Temps was entirely appropriate to what we've been discussing and looking at these past few weeks. It was my first time seeing it and I was really blown away with how they incorporated intervals of McLaren's own imagery and sounds into the piece. The filmmakers decision to abandon the traditional sound format and framing engaged my senses on both a conscious and a subconscious level. For most of the film McLaren's head is framed within a circle that floats around almost as if it is enticing other colors and images to interact with him. In some parts it looked to me like a cell or microorganism under a microscope growing and reacting to the other particles around it. The movement of McLaren's bubble then triggered an exterior action that the viewer is forced to process while still paying attention to the interview within the bubble. Another plateau intersects when little animated circles begin to dance around McLaren's head, and these tiny circles of motion explore the space and playfully interact with McLaren as our levels of perception continue to be challenged. This happens again when the outline of McLaren's shape freezes and the image of the man is replaced by dancing animations and sounds, while the library interview room remains as if to reassure us we haven't completely lost our sense of normality within this spectrum. Suddenly a title will confront us, "CAMERA MAKES WHOOPEE" and its forceful interruption demands we take it seriously (much like a Godard film). I thought the way the filmmakers constantly toyed with our senses was quite effective and engaging. Sound also played an enormous role in this film and it is also worth discussing in its own right. At one point in the interview McLaren says, "emotion has to be expressed through the quality of motion" and I think both Cinema de Notre Temps and McLaren's entire body of work are active representations of this statement. 

La Jetée... some scattered thoughts

Though, Chris Marker's La Jetée (1962) would at first appear to be comprised of still images the amount of movement present within it is quite surprising. Instead of being limited, the "apparent" lack of movement brings the concept into the foreground and opens up the actual range of movement present. Each frame moves slightly even if the image is still, each image vibrates on screen. Each transition from one "shot" to the next is a movement in time and space. The constant play of intervals between each transition creates and redefines time through its movement. I would argue that in removing the most obvious dimension of cinematic movement has in fact opened up the concept to a greater degree. Not that these concepts are absent in more traditional films, but perhaps they are glossed over in favor of the obvious.

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Deleuze states, "no longer coexistence of sheets of past, but the simultaneity of peaks of present." (101) Could we reach and claim, after reading Deleuze, that the protagonist's moments relived in the past could be seen as "peaks of the present" in reference to the time-image?  

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Even Traditional 24 frames per second projected cinema is comprised of still images. Our perception transitions them so quickly that we "perceive" movement. It is a physical perception, perhaps made possible by the limitations of our eyes and mind working together. But, when the fps is reduced, to 1 or 2 frames per second - sometimes even 1 frame per 2 or 3 seconds - in La Jetée, it would seem the mind has to create instead of perceive, or perhaps be more active in the participation that is required to transverse that space-time of the film. Perhaps, creation and perception are the same thing, or elements of the same function? 

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I am not sure how this all works, but the questions opened up by this film on what constitutes cinematic movement make it almost seem like this film was created as an example to be included in the Deleuze's Cinema 1 and 2. I should have watched it before starting this weeks readings!

watching again

I’m still thinking about the object also being an image, a perception, and how this relates to repetition. Ever since I was young I have liked most of all to watch movies that I have already seen. Negotiating the world around the images is such a task and still leaves so much out, that the same movie can be seen again and again, and each time it is something slightly different than what it was before. Maybe this is appealing because watching again allows for habits of perception to form so that new aspects of the encounter may be perceived. But have I ever actually watched the same movie twice? Each time a film is encountered it is in concert with a new constellation of events, and the film I see is only one film of many, subtracted out of the whole of the film through my subjective perception. Watching a film again is not proof that a pre-constituted film exists and is now being presented to me again, but rather that the remembered version of the film is activated by the second showing and through this memory the present film becomes as a new relation. My impulse to watch a movie I have already seen is in fact a desire to revisit a becoming-with the present moment which is activated by residues of the past.

Une Variété de perceptions

Chacun extrait un élément précis face à une œuvre d’art. En discutant de Solaris, j’ai du réfléchir plusieurs instants avant de me remémorer quelle était la scène de l’autoroute. Pourtant, cette scène m’avait profondément émue. J’ai réalisé par la suite que l’autoroute n’a jamais été ce qui avait le plus d’importance à mes yeux dans cette scène. Cette voie n’est pour moi qu’un élément de décor présenté entre les gros plans de l’homme dans la voiture. À mes yeux, cette scène est un exemple parfait d’image-affection en raison des plans chargés d’émotion qu’elle contient. C’est avant tout l’intensité émotive véhiculée par le visage du personnage qui me foudroie.

La perception d’une œuvre d’art ne varie pas seulement d’un individu à l’autre, mais aussi selon notre propre expérience. En écoutant le documentaire sur Norman McLaren, je suis parvenue à avoir une toute nouvelle vision d’un film que je connaissais pourtant très bien. Jusqu’à aujourd’hui, le mouvement des formes dans Mosaïque était pour moi un agencement de carrés se rapprochant et se repoussant continuellement. Pourtant, après avoir écouté McLaren expliquer qu’il s’agissait de points entre les intersections de lignes verticales et horizontales, le film semble désormais prendre à mes yeux une forme nouvelle. Ce ne sont plus les points qui s’animent, mais plutôt les lignes invisibles que je perçois. Ce qui est fascinant avec une œuvre d’art aussi captivante, c’est qu’il semblerait possible de la regarder indéfiniment et en comprendre une signification nouvelle et plus profonde à chaque fois. J'en déduis aussi que notre perception naturelle se renouvelle selon l'évolution de notre mode de pensée.

Reawakening Perception

In looking at Le Jetee I could not help but feel like I was experiencing a sensory overload as the images flashed by on the screen. Intervals play into each other as the viewer is consistently confronted with a metamorphosis of lightness and darkness, in addition to words, noises, and silence. Depth and perception are distorted by shadows that clearly constitute an example of Deleuze's any-space-whatevers. "Depth is the location of the struggle, which sometimes draws space into the bottomlessness of a black hole, and sometimes draws it towards a light" (p.111) The characters emerge from and disappear into shadows while the protagonist emerges in and out of consciousness. Our own perception is effected as we must use both the diegetic and non-diegetic clues to piece together the relationships between movement and images. The sounds can be broken down into parts that work to either guide us as the narration does, or distort our perception (which is the reaction I had to the unintelligible whispering sounds).  

The powerful scene where the girl comes alive was what challenged me the most. At this point my perception was more relaxed, my brain had figured out what was going on... in the foreground still images were dissolving into one another on the screen, and I had become accustom to hearing the words spoken by the narrator (as well as sounds from other sources) in the background. I was busy processing these frozen images as individual moments and as part of the whole. The scene is comprised of several close-ups of the girl sleeping which dissolve into each other, each image is slightly different then the previous, creating the effect of movement.  The interplay of light and shadow dance together to reinforce the sense of movement.  There is a subtle shift in the lighting  and suddenly the girl begins to move within the image and by simply blinking her eyes a few times she throws our sense of perception into complete chaos. I immediately questioned whether or not what I saw was real. I think this scene really encapsulates many of Deleuze's ideas and it really helped me to understand the meaning of the affective-image as well as several other Deleuzian concepts (there are obviously an infinite amount of relevant examples in Le Jetee). I'd be curious to hear what the rest of you thought about this film in relation to our class. 

Sets and Domains

"We may therefor say that the plane of immanence or the plane of matter is: a set of movement-images; a collection of lines or figures of light; a series of blocs of space-time" (Deleuze, 61)

This formulation put forth by Delueze in order to clarify the relations between light, image and space-time could perhaps be seen as paralleling (or being derivations of) Einstein's concept of relativity, which originally lead to the definition of the space-time model. 

Einstein's theory allows that nothing can be considered to exist outside of an event's (observer's) future or past light cone as defined by the expanding light energy traveling from said event (observer). This is due to the limit of all moving phenomena as being necessarily slower than the speed of light. And, if nothing can move faster than light then reality needs to be contained within a light-event. What can potentially exist outside the light cones can not affect or be affected by the event; they for all intents and purposes do not exist.

Is it possible that the "set movement-images" referred to by Delueze and contained within its domain, as defined by the plane of immanence, is synonymous with the "set of all perception and matter" as contained in the future and past light cones of an event? And, if so, in how many ways can the event be defined?