Research Paper - Final Submitted December 1, 2010

For this research paper, we were asked to address a theoretical concern central to our practice. Below is the first part that includes my research question, the abstract, as well as the keywords. The end result paper is available on the following link: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0Bz-6Qx7Ge00zYzY4NGYxOGYtNDllNC00M2ZmLTkzMTYtNWE4OGY0YjE0MWEz&hl=en

Research Question:

Transitional digital objects: Fluidity in compositing an autobiography or a failure to create a portrait of the whole?

Abstract:

The paper explores the transitional aspect of digital objects in relation to autobiography. D.W. Winnicott (1971) coined the term ‘transitional objects’; it travels around the theme of object and fantasy. The paper assumes the fluid nature of digital objects, ‘a new media object’ could be ‘variable, mutable, liquid’ as per Manovich’s (2001) definition. Placing autobiography as the aim from transitional digital objects manipulation, the paper questions whether the fluidity will act as a facilitator to autobiographical visual compositing or will it fail to create a portrait of the whole?

The first part is dedicated to looking at the fluidity of digital objects through observing and relating theories and artworks of practitioners who have investigated the theme object. Mark Leckey (2008) exemplifies the dissolved physical into a digital object at the beginning of the century and by its end; Hollis Frampton (1969) doubts the object’s third dimensionality on the screen; Sherry Turkle (2007) emphasizes the emotional in objects; whereas Donna Haraway (1991) rejects the concept of objects being sacred in themselves; the Cult of Less (2009) upload their material lives on external hard drives and online services platforms; and Michael Craig-Martin (1973) challenges belief through a glass of water, a shelf and a printed text in his sculpture An Oak Tree.

The second part is focused on autobiography compositing. Different autobiographical manifestations come together to reach the final conclusion later. Christiane Paul (2008) defines the new nomadic nature; Mark Amerika (2007) speaks of the ‘hyperimprovisational narrative artist’ in Meta/Data; William Burroughs (1970) discusses the viral in the language; and Marcel Proust (1913) gives a lesson in generative autobiographical storytelling and involuntary memory in his book Remembrance of Things Past, specifically the episode of the Madeleine; Lev Manovich (2005) concludes this section with his compositing in the digital realm theory that leads to ‘deep remixability’.

The conclusion is preceded by notes on ‘recollection’ according to Mark Freeman (1995) and the ‘wholistic fictionalization of the past’ by Michel Foucault (1973) as well as Nietzsche’s (1889) statement of ‘the whole’ that ‘no longer lives at all: it is composed, reckoned up, artificial, a fictitious thing’.

The findings of the paper affirm the fluidity of autobiographical compositing through transitional digital objects as well as the failure of creating the portrait of the whole but do not judge the latter conclusion as necessarily inconvenient.

Keywords:

New Media Object – Autobiographical Compositing – Transitional – Fluidity – Wholeness

rheo: 5 Horizons by Ryoichi Kurokawa

This video audiovisual installation is composed of 5 flat-panel displays and five multi-channel speakers, each panel connected to a mono channel sound, audio is synchronizing the video, while each panel acts independently, together the 5 panels create a sort of an ensemble. I was intending to use this work as an example in my research paper, in the paper that speaks about the fluidity of the New Media Object, then again, It was going to be hard to explain both process and the details and then place this work within the context of the paper. Kurokawa's piece is brilliant and the implementations it suggests, the independent yet self-contained units could be hard to imagine otherwise. check out the video, the quality is much better on the DVD, yet, it is an OK option for now.

feedback on research question and abstract version 4

Tuesday's session was a tutorial, I got feedback and approval on the last version of the research question and abstract.
So to recap, it sounds very good and Andy's advice is simple: keep the boundaries as defined in the abstract and just write
expand definitions etc. 'fluidity' should be defined early on for example.
me: I did include a little paragraph about objects and museum
"The ‘physical’ object in the creative industry was criticized in the museum environment. Museum and objects is a vast topic, the paper’s restriction will not allow giving it justice. However, within the context approached here, and to back up Mark Leckey’s vision of the physicality dissolving, Theodore W. Adorno in his ‘Valéry Proust Museum’ declares the death of the object in the museum when he brings in the German word ‘museal’ and connects it to the word ‘museum’."
so mainly just one example and am skipping the rest of the topic to stay focused
feedback: it sounds like I have worked hard over the past week to really get your idea defined and this is a huge transformation
me: I think i started the whole paper in reverse, that is I read a lot before coming up with the question, should have been the other way around, I would have saved a lot of time
feedback: there is no right way to be honest - sometimes you need to read alot to get inspiration / focus
it offers you poosibilities beyond the immediate imagination
me: is it normal to feel that it's actually combining material to fit the main question? i am barely writing, it's more collecting the notes in a logical way, like introducing what is going to be cited and then leading the way to the next point
feedback: thats the way to do it then you re-write ensuring there is a flow
just make sure your collection of data is following a pattern that will allow for the development fo the argument and discourse
me: I had hard time figuring who worked on the "wholistic" idea, then one day i was able to chase 3 good references that I have read earlier but didn't spot them since i was focusing on the bigger topic. I am happy with this finally
feedback: you sound in good spirits on this, my advice is keep writing while it lasts and enjoy the process, the other issue is really to suggets you just get this going, get it finished asap so you can focus on your practice
do you think this essay will inform your practice much?
me: sure it will, i even have 'notes to self' file on the side
every other note is generating visuals for the practice
like the idea of filming my grandmother's library, with books in the background and all the frames of the whole family (like 3 generations) in the foreground
and the idea of having the show (maybe, if it does fit within the budget), mapped on a building
like a live show on a building, but this requires huge budget for the projector and the structure
so am not thinking about these logistics, but it's definitely paper generated ideas
feedback: ok yes that could be complex and expensive - however a digital recreration of a space could be a very interesting development
it would allow you to be inventive with the recording and recreation of the space
me: but things are making sense out of this, autobiography was not coined earlier, and the idea of trying to get a whole narrative is now rejected in my head, but with a back up argument

Cultural Analytics - Mark Rothko Paintings - on the 287-Megapixel HIPerSpace Wall at Calit2

I was checking a friend's tweets, she has posted the below link, it is a Software Studies initiative (UC San Diego) using Cultural Analytics techniques to develop a software that comes up with a way to turn Mark Rothko's paintings to a set of data that could be graphed and turn those graphs into a collection of paintings.

It is one example of computing that serves adding up new layers to analyzing, or, as Lev Manovich would put it in his book "The Language of New Media", it is the "computer's unique possibilities to generate, organize, manipulate, and distribute data" (while still paying attention to cultural history).

MPR Presentation

My research question ‘A foot kicking a ball: Narrative falling apart in the V.J.ing playground’ portrays the project I am developing: V.J.ing as an eye candy challenged into a narrative form.

Up to this point, I was concerned with realizing what made me decide using V.J.ing as the medium of my project. I was questioning V.J.ing as a form of digital moving image and the restrictions that are natural extensions of this technique, having the scenes extracted to one minute each so that the software does not fail on the performer during practice.

I found out that my past habit of intermittent communication or my inability to tell a story in a shortcut way, played a main role in the decision-making, leading to a higher interest and deeper research in narrative styles in digital moving image, and later on to an appreciation of the idea of narratives’ ‘leftovers’, or the stories that come out and revolve around a theme, but not specifically portray it, this point liberated the way I am looking at my project.

Across the many theoreticians/practitioners I have visited so far, I have came across 4 main influential and inspiring ones:

- Lev Manovich’s ‘Soft Cinema’ project > database as a main essence

- Lev Manovich’s ‘Deep Remixability’ theory > software like species within the common ecology, once released, the start interacting, mutating, and making hybrids

- DJ Spooky in his album ‘The Secret Song’ > sampling as a collage, an art practice based on centuries taking out text out of context...

- Mark Amerika in his ‘Cyberfictions’ > working on expanding the concept of writing to include multimedia formats; starting with a written then trying to locate different kinds of audiences whether through the Internet, in nightclubs, museums, galleries…

- Laura Marks in her ‘Haptic Visuality’ theory > intercultural films and video allow the viewer to experience cinema as a physical and multi-sensory embodiment of culture, not just a visual representation of experience.

At this point of the course I became convinced that theory leads practice, and that ideas come out of theory. With the technical background I have, any software would become accessible.

I wish to explore the concept of fragments further. Being able to construct scenarios from any picture or scene is giving your audience the liberty to imagine instead of spoon-feeding. I should be expanding further the research on performer / audience in relation to participation.

What I will be doing next:

- Continuing the research on the breakdown of narrative in digital moving image.

- Looking more at narrative techniques, and have written narrative sequences as a start that will be the support to build up from.

- Start filming, editing, animating and going back to archives of memorial places.

- Developing loops and get myself a training with a practicing VJ before the middle point of Unit 2.

Raising questions about how will the leftover idea be clarified, what kind of footage will I be taking into consideration, the length of the V.J.ing show, is it too obnoxious for a performer to project herself on the screen, why will I go into a domain that does not fit in the mainstream?

To check the beginnings of written narrative along with a mood board experiment please check the below presentation:

Soft Cinema: Navigating the database

Soft Cinema, the DVD by Lev Manovich and Andreas Kratky encloses 3 ‘films’: ‘Mission to Earth’, ‘Absences’, and ‘Texas’. The films are based on database of videos, visuals, soundscapes, music, narratives, voice overs…

Then a software in real time was created enabling two major factors to manipulate the database: human subjectivity and the variable choices made by this custom software. As a consequence, the films can run infinitely without ever exactly repeating the same sequences, layouts of the screen and narratives. The result is Soft Cinema, or a cinema that fits the information age. Twentieth century cinema was too reflective of the industrial age since in form it consists of an engine that drives movement and the electricity that powers it. The role of the database and the digital computer is not visible in twentieth century cinema, so this is where this project intervenes.

Lev Manovich, in the catalog accompanying the DVD, asks how can new media narrative take into account that its elements are organized in a database? How can new abilities to store vast amounts of data, to automatically classify, index, link, search and instantly retrieve, lead to new kinds of narratives?

The Soft Cinema software is not to be praised as the main achievement of this project. The narrative in the films were inspiring, reflective of the current world of layering, traveling, instant messaging, the sentences are detail oriented, you would hear the voiceover saying ‘the woman kept eating, she did not take off her sunglasses, so the pieces of chicken looked purple, almost violet, but they tasted ok, after she poured some soya sauce on them’ and others like ‘the car wash was her favorite scene in the world, she did not remember when this passion started exactly, the brushes attacking the front window of the car like the legs of a giant octopus’.

To navigate the actual database, visit the website: http://softcinema.net/?reload

Remixing ‘Deep Remixability’: trying to get it right

INTRODUCTION:

I was pretty much amused by the political aspect of the essay ‘Deep Remixability’, if we fail to perceive it this way then we might face a problem understanding the social aspect of media today.

After having mentioned DJ Spooky’s vision of sampling and its importance as an art practice in one of the chat sessions, Andy pointed out that I should be looking at the concept of ‘deep remixability’ by Lev Manovich as the next development on the form of sampling.

Having read the essay, I decided that it would require another reading to really grasp the essence, so the next time I read the article, I decided to take notes for myself in order to follow the thread of the author’s thoughts.

‘Deep remixability’, the essay, mainly discusses the new hybrid language of moving image that emerged during the period of 1993-1998. 1993 is the year Adobe launched their software After Effects, the application that enabled people (from all levels) working in media to produce commercials, music videos, motion graphics, TV graphics and other types of short non-narrative films and moving image sequences in a hybrid form.

Hybrid has become the norm, Manovich argues since with After Effects one can do a lot of things: editing, designing, compositing, creating special effects, animating… all on a desktop computer or a laptop.

BRIEF HISTORY:

Manovich refers to the ‘Velvet Revolution’ that happened when Central and Eastern Europe peacefully liberated themselves from the Soviet Union. ‘Velvet Revolution’ the term came to express the smoothness of the transformation, that of the velvet smoothness.

He uses this metaphor to explain the aesthetics resulting from the transformation in moving image.

NEW CULTURAL LANGUAGE:

Different media met within the same digital environment, they interacted in a new way that did not exist before and that could not be imagined or predicted ahead before the invention of the algorithmic language. Now with algorithms, all the data became digital, so the different file formats became compatible with every other software, and this is where the new language of the hybrid emerged based on the logic of remixability.

Having set that the logic of the new hybrid language is that of ‘remixability’, not only of the content of different media or simply their aesthetics, but their fundamental techniques, working methods, languages, and assumptions. All the moving image categories, when united under the common software environment, they create a new metamedium.

The work produced in this new metamedium cannot be referred to as ‘remediation’, since what the computer does is simulate all media, not only its surface appearance, but also the techniques used for their production and the methods of viewing and interacting with the work in these media.

The author argues that After Effects constituted a new stage in the history of media, with new aesthetics and the production of new media species, based on the interaction of the different media in the same software environment (typography with 2D animation and cinematography for instance in the same melting pot being After Effects). The end result is ‘new cultural species’ in Manovich’s words.

TECHNIQUES AND PARAMETERS CHANGE:

Digital compositing was essential in enabling the development of the new hybrid visual language of moving images. Its original mission was to support the aesthetics of cinematic realism; instead it liberated the many media from the fake (or fluent) flow and enhanced the visibility of the mixes. This is how it enabled media ‘remixability’ and soon became a ‘universal media integrator’.

Its importance lies in the fact that it transformed the basic unit from ‘frame’ to ‘visual elements’. Manovich uses the After Effects’ interface again to argument the shift from ‘time-based’ to ‘composition-based’. In this software, visual elements are placed in the composition windows, these elements can be manipulated and conceptualized as independents objects that could be accessed, revisited and edited back endlessly. Therefore, the main issue that this software is suggesting is space as opposed to time, in the author’s words.

He also refers to cinema in the modern times, how it was perceived as a series of photos placed in a sequence, when projected create the effect of motion. This is where the term ‘moving pictures’ or ‘moving image’ come from. Since today all media are conceived differently (being created in either a 2D or 3D worlds), contemporary terminology that defines moving image would become: ‘modular media composition’.

To recap, hybridization is not:

- A simple mechanical sum of the previously existing parts, it is new species being generated

- Simply adding the content of different media or adding together their techniques and languages

- A simple remix as it is commonly understood in contemporary culture

This is where the term ‘deep remixability’ emerges.

Effect is simulated and removed from its original physical media (that of fluent realistic effect in cinema realism) >> manipulation could be happening in many ways (since it’s now based on visual elements instead of a frame) >> parameters are independently animated (one could change an animation for instance over time) >> numbers are controlling the algorithm >> simulated depth of field maintain the memory of the particular physical media which it came from >> it becomes a new technique which functions as a character in its own right >> it has fluidity and versatility that did not exist previously >> ambiguous relation to the physical world.

SOCIAL FACTORS THAT LEAD TO ‘DEEP REMIXABILITY’:

The author names the following factors:

- The rise of branding

- The experience of economy

- Youth markets

- Web as a global communication platform

These factors are not enough to lead to the new aesthetics, instead he would mention a fact being ‘softwares used in production environments are not set out to create a revolution; they are created to fit in already existing procedures, job roles and familiar tasks.’ This is were the result to ‘deep remixability’ shapes:

‘Software are like species within the common ecology, once released, the start interacting, mutating, and making hybrids.’

CONCLUSION:

The essay is beautifully ended by the conclusion below:

‘Following the Velvet Revolution, the aesthetic charge of many media designs is often derived from more ‘simple’ remix operations - juxtaposing different media in what can be called ‘media montage.’ However, for me the essence of this Revolution is the more fundamental ‘deep remixability’ (...). Computerization virtualized practically all media creation and modification techniques, ‘extracting’ them from their particular physical media and turning them into algorithms. This means that in most cases, we will no longer find any of these techniques in their pure original state.’

The article could be found on the following link:

http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/manovichessay/

notes from Christiane Paul's Digital Art

Databases, data visualization, and mapping

In the digital age, the concept of ‘disembodiment’ does not only apply to our physical body but also to notions of the object and materiality in general. Information itself to a large extent seems to have lost its ‘body’, becoming an abstract ‘quality’ that can make a fluid transition between different states of materiality. While the ultimate ‘substance’ o information remains arguable, it is safe to say that data are not necessarily attached to a specific form of manifestation. Information and data sets are intrinsically virtual, that is, they exist as processes and are not necessarily visible or graspable, such as the transferral and transmission of data via networks. The meaningfulness of data relies on possibilities of filtering the information and creating some form of organizing structure or ‘map’ – be it mental or visual – that can allow for orientation. Static methods of representing data-charting, graphing, sorting, etc., have been established over centuries. Since the advent of digital technologies, ‘information spaces’ and the creation of visual models that allow for a dynamic visualization of any kind of data flow have become a broad field of experimentation and research, be it science, statistics, architecture, design, digital art, or any combination of these. p.174

Using postcards as a readymade expression and trace of cultural memory, (George) Legrady creates a narrative evironment that transcends the sum of its parts, reflecting both on the construction of narration and mediated memory. Legrady’s ‘Pockets Full of Memories’, an installation with an accompanying website, which was shown at the Centre Pompidou 2001, invites visitors to digitally scan an object in their possession at a scanning station and answer a set of questions regarding the object. An algorithm classifies the scanned objects in a two-dimensional map based on similarities in their descriptions. Users can review each object’s data and add their own personal comments and stories. The result of the project is a growing map of possible relations between items that range from the merely functional to a signifier of personal value. The mapping of these objects points to the potentiality and absurdities of classifying objects endowed with personal meaning. The project operates on the threshold between logical classification and meanings that are not quantifiable.

On the inherent characteristics of digital art is the tension between the strictly linear and hierarchical structure of instructions, data sets, databases and the Internet’s territory (as a multitude of servers with hierarchical directories) and the seemingly infinite possibilities for reproducing and reconfiguring the information contained within these structures. p.178-179

A number of locative media projects have focused on mapping existing physical spaces and architectures. PDPal (2003) by Marina Zurkow, Scott Paterson, and Julian Bleecker, for example, is a mapping tool (a Web interface and application downloadable to one’s PDA) for recording personal experiences of public space, more specifically, the Times Square area in New York City and the Twin Cities, Minnesota. Users create maps by marking locations with little graphic symbols and giving them attributes and ratings. While the categories for mapping are relatively structured, the prescription of certain categories or meta-tags also makes it easier to map contributions more effectively. PDPal is inspired by the idea of emotional geographies and the concept of psychogeography – the study of effects of the geographical environment on individuals’ emotions and behaviours – which was developed by the Situationists, a political and artistic moment that emerged in the late 1950s. p. 216-219

1W9 Project Proposal - final version

1- Working Title:

A foot kicking a ball: Narrative falling apart in the VJing playground

2- Aims and Objectives:

It all started when I realized that I am intrigued by storytelling and how it can be used in the visual field, being a practitioner in graphic design. I recollect stories and link them with concepts that I am recently becoming aware of, despite the fact that I don’t have great communication skills, which makes my storytelling experiences a bit complicated. And being from Beirut, in the Middle East, my character has been molded in a way that politics and economy is a vital interest.

Based on an incident of a football hitting my face when I was four years old, to my nosebleed ruining the removable collar of my mother’s dress, to the boutique where my mother purchased this dress and the boutique’s high stature, to the deterioration of the middle class’s economical situation in Beirut the nineties, I will be looking at football practice and its implications on the sociopolitical, discussing the ‘bread and circus’ phenomenon, driven by personal narrative and subjective judgments.

Far from being a novelist and intrigued by little stories, the accident of the football strike is the start of a narrative leading to a VJing project. VJing (in my case) comes from living in Beirut, a city renowned for its nightlife despite the destructive civil war. So I figured that the best way of campaigning an idea (bread and circus) is through this hub. I want to explore the logic of digital moving image in general and VJing in particular in relation to narratives, therefore I will be writing short stories related to my theme, filming, editing, animating and juggling between the audio and the visual. The lack of communication skills from which I suffered during my teenage years, its repercussions and the nature of the VJing medium directed me to wanting the narrative to fall apart in the VJing playground. If a narrative is deciphered, does it become a set of databases? I will be looking at Lev Manovich’s ‘The Language of New Media’ to discuss this concern. In my previous experience in graphic design, I have found a comfort zone to initiate the projects, that is the mood boards I create at the beginning; how can a mood board be translated in digital moving image and will it help in randomizing the course of events? An arbitrary decision of a football player is random, and randomness is a valid concept in the digital arts world. In Christiane Paul’s words digital art did not develop in an art-historical vacuum, but has strong connections to previous art movements among them Dada, Fluxus and Conceptual Art. As for interactivity, a football game is naturally interactive. How could one embed meaning in VJing? Would that be altering the role of this means? Devising a system that allows freeing my personal narratives from the traditional form and throwing them in the VJing arena will be developed through loops of filmed and animated material.

3- Context:

Process

From a historical point of view, a wide range of thinkers has studied the issue of mass-supported sports and its consequences. I will be looking at Theodore Adorno, Marc Augé, Roland Barthes and Herbert Marcuse in this part of the research.

To start, defining ‘bread and circus’ seems essential. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, ‘bread and circus’ is a ‘terminology used to explain the offerings, such as benefits or entertainments, intended to placate discontent or distract attention from a policy or situation.’

Theodore Adorno speaks about how the removal or reduction of the ‘bread and circus’ or what others term as ‘useful lies’ from mass culture will threaten the continued operation of the market and society as well as higher philosophical truth.

Elena Bertozzi, in her paper ‘At Stake: Play, Pleasure and Power in Cyberspace’, describes playing football as a ‘socially permitted aggression’. In a football game, the player reads and anticipates the action of the other, never quite sure what will really happen. Mastering football is a matter of time and skill. In the aftermath of a match, the idea of restoration of dialogue between the two teams, two enemies or two competitors is omnipresent: so much so that one can see the relation of football to politics, to rulers or governors using ‘bread and circus’ policies to fulfill and distract the governed in their basic needs, diverting their attention away from politics and interfering in the political scene.

Jean-Marie Brohm and Marc Perelman, in ‘Football: From Ecstasy to Nightmare’, discuss the illusion big football games provide society’s masses. It is presented as a ‘social elevator’ for poor people. The ideology behind these big football games is that of war, an apology for physical force. Fanatic supporters encouraged and promoted by the shadow of multiculturalism – or a form of belonging in the sectarian, national, regional or ideological sense.

Marc Augé, in ‘An Ethnologist in the World Cup’, speaks about how, during big football games, the masses reclaim symbols of the republic, the flag and the national anthem which otherwise are confiscated as the property of right wing nationalists. Augé studied the football language through television screens. On small screen televisions and monitors, audiences watching a football match plunge into a so-called ‘voluntarism of imagination’, that is, the tendency of the spectator to go beyond the game by screaming and trying to visually force the relatively small-scale football players to get closer to the ball and score. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the screen is small; therefore the simulacrum of the field is a field in reduction or a micro-field. This implies football players and the ball appear in miniature, making the viewer imagine that the process of getting a goal is actually quite simple. Later, Augé speaks about ultra big screens displayed in public spaces; here, the player appears larger than usual and thus, the ability to imagine is reduced to zero. In this case, the spectator’s perception with regard to the scale of the football match becomes more complicated: The screen enlarges players, giving back to the audience, as in their early days of movie theaters, their childhood perceptions… a period where all adults appeared as giants. For Augé, the relation between the public and the television screen is revealed at the end of the match. Suddenly the event is no longer inside the screen but totally outside it. The screen is, in this case, reduced to its modest role as witness or substitute with the mere task of giving older and sick people a reflection of what is happening elsewhere. The remarkable fact, at game end, becomes the urge instantly felt by each viewer to meet the crowd. There’s something to share, something that doesn’t exist outside the sharing process; and that is the object that the screen cannot contain. It is at the same time the victory and the limits of the media… the moment when television screens become abandoned by all those who rush to the streets to congratulate each other.

Roland Barthes in ‘Mythologies’ continues the case study of mass-supported sports using the boxing scene in Paris in the 1960s. In trying to understand the football scene, one needs to question the core subject of popular games where the central event happens outside the playing field in the football sense or the arena in boxing: The delirious crowd, the intellectuals glued to their television screens and the public literally colonized by magical passes or punches.

According to author Michael G. Horowitz, philosopher Herbert Marcuse ‘sees history as an endless confrontation between reason and imposed ignorance’… The ruling class, Marcuse insists, will resort to anything to preserve its privileged position, from the artificial creation of pointless wars and weapons to the maintenance of a sterile morality to a massive ‘bread and circus’ campaign designed to numb you into bliss with new cars, football and moon landings.

I will also be looking at the repercussions of capitalism on society and humankind in general, as well as looking at the concept of ‘Normalization’ and the ‘potential’ and ‘achieved’ society by Marcuse to further support my mission.

In trying to argument the medium (VJing) in relation to the content, I will be reading about new forms of representation. I will be looking at the ‘instantaneous’ according to Paul Virilio who would argue, “Where the last century's revolution in transportation gave rise to an era of generalized mobility, our own tools of instantaneous transmission are reversing the tendency. With the dissolution of the scale of our human environment (prefigured by the telescope and radicalized by the satellite), the very reality of the world is reduced to nil (or next to nothing), leading inevitably to a catastrophic sense of incarceration now that humanity is literally deprived of horizon. Having lost our sense of the journey in the commutation of space during the industrial age, we now lose departure in the age of electromagnetics and the speed of light.” I will also look at the connotation of museums and the choice of wanting to interact live with a crowd in a nightclub.

In placing ‘bread and circus’ at the center of my narrative, I will try to argue that it is not mere coincidence that the economy in Beirut in the nineties deteriorated, leading to my mother’s inability to buy her wardrobe from this fancy boutique. Inflation was a post war fact in Beirut; nevertheless Beirut had become a potential ‘winning’ project, or at least that is what the leaders wanted people to have faith in… the mere existence of the country on the map was a victory; debt was not an issue. Politicians in Lebanon were thus investing in the economy of football, consuming football practice and football teams rather than empowering diverse institutions.

Practice

Having researched the historical background of the football theme, I do not wish to portray football as a main issue. Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon in their film ‘Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait’ managed to immerse the viewer in an awkward situation, not to film the actual ball but the star player during a football match, without showing the actual game. They were playing on the ‘ordinary’ mentioned in the beginning of the film when the sentence appears on the screen, “Who could have imagined that in the future, an ordinary day like this, might be forgotten or remembered as anything more or less significant than a walk in the park.”

Storytelling becomes the main issue behind the foot kicking the ball. It is in Marc Amerika’s words that I find the pathway to follow; in a Tate Intermedia Art interview, he describes the novel in the digital field as what print cannot contain. Amerika remixes personal narrative, philosophical inquiry, spontaneous theories and cyberpunk fictions that investigate the emergence of digitally constructed identities, fictional personas, narrative mythologies and collaborative networks. He has been working on expanding the concept of writing to include multimedia formats... He starts with a written and then tries to locate different kinds of audiences through the Internet, in nightclubs, museums, galleries, etc… For him net art is trying to blur the boundaries so the difference between cinema, digital video, digital narrative, net art and so on… is to be revisited.

At this stage, I will investigate Lev Manovich’s ‘Soft Cinema’ project that relates to the above concerns.

Watching Amerika’s films and his technique of expanding the concept of writing, I want to come out with a personal narrative about the football story and see how I can make it fall apart in a VJing environment.

Challenging a medium was the main subject to ‘Five Obstructions’, a documentary by Jørgen Leth and Lars Von Trier about ‘The Perfect Human’, a film created by Jørgen Leth in 1967. In ‘Five Obstructions’, director and mentor of Lars Von Trier, Jørgen Leth, is invited to recreate his film in five different ways or experimenting with the narrative in five different ways, each time, carrying a set of obstructions placed by Von Trier. The outcome is heart breaking, and in a way, made me wonder about the flexibility of the digital moving image field, how endless the possibilities of the outcome are. Thus the idea of VJing becomes a means to an end, where the video loops that I will create are the main content I will be working on, while their order is to be decided later.

Another contemporary practitioner in the digital arts field whose work serves as a support to my research is Jill Magid, an MIT graduate whose work revolves around the theme of recognition and identity. In her exhibition ‘Authority to Remove’ at Tate Modern, she challenges technology into sensuality, using spy cameras, videos, texts, emails on intranets, narratives, performances… to engage the systems in romantic journeys, juggling between the profile of artist, surveillance subject and surveyor. Fairly political, she questions issues of identity, power, protection and trust… It is the playfulness and challenging the system once again that comes to mind whenever I mention her work.

At this point I should try to treat the sharpness of the narrative tone in a subtle way, this will be defined once I proceed with the project’s experimentations. For instance, when I speak about the narrative style (or maybe is it too early to discuss this issue) the fighting ignorance with ignorance and corruption with an even more corrupt mentality, I think of Rose Jackson’s comment on Rebecca Horn’s artwork ‘Concert for Anarchy’ (1990) when she says, “My first visit to Tate Modern was memorable due to this piece (among others). I love grand, surreal spectacle and it doesn’t come much grander or more surreal than a piano hanging from the ceiling. It seems slightly ridiculous and makes you wonder – what’s the point of it, but then again… why not? Where else in life would this fit?”

Narrative falling apart is a challenge, narrator in Wim Wender’s ‘Wings of Desire’ states: “With time, those who listened to me became my readers. They no longer sit in a circle, but apart and one doesn’t know anything about the other… What is wrong with peace and its inspiration doesn’t endure and that its story is hardly told? Must I give up now? Then mankind will lose its storyteller. And once mankind loses its storyteller it will also lose its childhood.” What Wim Wender is discussing sounds like narrative in a problematic environment – in his film it is the divided Berlin, in my research project it is football as entertainment in the sociopolitical economical scene.

4- Methodology:

I will be reading novels, theories related to the theme and visually translating them into mood boards, watching films and shorts and experimenting with VJing gigs in nightclubs. This is crucial for the theory usually helps me come up with ideas. I will keep track of this material on my blogspot, using it as an archive and interactive space.

I might produce a digital application form to be filled by Lebanese citizens, to help restore bits of my memory by telling me what happened with them in 1985, the year the football struck my nose.

Coming up with narrative bits based on my research process seems to be the first step in the execution of the project then working on deciphering it into small units. Then I will start filming and editing to create small loops inspired by a part of the narrative. Working on my technical skills in pure date (VJing being a means to an end) will enable me to start experimenting with randomizing the course of events.

5- Outcomes:

How to diffuse my narrative and make it fall apart?
The idea of using the screen’s full potential, experimenting with its dimensions, emphasizing details and scrutinizing wide thoughts, creating a sort of a visual dictionary / library sounds like the best possibility at this stage.

I will go into VJing as an end, clubbing is the dramatic end to this project when everyone’s there; the people with a drink in their hands are my target audience. It sounds appealing to me to expose my childhood memories and come up with statements full of extreme brouhahas to a bunch of nice people chilling in a club environment.

6- Work Plan:

Unit 1: Week 1 – 60 Research, development and practice
To read, watch, research, report on the blogspot, write the narrative, come up with visuals, figure out ways and styles of filming, edit and create loops to experiment, learn pure data and contact Ed Kelly.

Unit 2:Week 30 – 60 Reflection and presentation
Finalize the narrative and the visuals and apply in the VJing environment.

7- Bibliography:

Essays:
• Elena Bertozzi, “At Stake: Play, Pleasure and Power in Cyberspace”
• Marc Augé, “An Ethnologist in the World Cup”; http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/08/AUGE/10819
• Jean-Marie Brohm and Marc Perelman, “Football: From Ecstasy to Nightmare”

Catalogs:
• Jill Magid, “Authority to remove”; Tate Modern, September 2009
• Tate Members; 1958-2008

Films:
• Wim Wender, “Wings of Desire”
• Jorgen Leth and Lars Von Trier, “The Five Obstructions”
• Philippe Parreno and Douglas Gordon, “Zidane, a 21st Century Portrait”

Books:
• Theodore Adorno, “Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life”; Verso, 2006
• Paul Virilio, “Open Sky”; Verso, 2008
• Roland Barthes, “Mythologies”; Seuil, 1970
• Herbert Marcuse, “One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society”; Routledge Classics, 2002
• Lev Manovich, “The Language of New Media”; The MIT Press, 2001
• Mark Hansen, “New Philosophy for New Media”; The MIT Press, 2004
• Peter Lunenfeld, “The Digital Dialectic: New Essays on New Media”; The MIT Press, 2000
• Pramod K. Nayar, “Virtual Worlds: Culture and Politics in the Age of Cybertechnology”; Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, 2004
• Christiane Paul, “Digital Art”; Thames & Hudson Ltd, 2003
• Michael Faulkner and D-Fuse Editors, “VJ: Audio-Visual Art + VJ Culture”; Laurence King, 2006
• Onedotzero, “Motion Blur”; Laurence King, 2004
• Paul Auster, “Oracle Night”; Henry Holt and Co., 2003

Websites:
• onedotzero.com
• Mark Amerika: Interview with Tate Intermedia Art:
tate.org.uk/intermediaart
markamerika.com
• Lev Manovich's Soft Cinema: softcinema.net/?reload
• Beirut on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beirut
• jillmagid.net
• rhizome.org
• Yasmin - moderated list for art-science-technology interactions around the Mediterranean Rim: media.uoa.gr/yasmin
• beonlineb.com
• arcadefire.com