Video and Intermedia: a function
In his article, Stephen is just saying that video being a
very important form of art simply because of the fact that videos can uniform “artistic
and social mechanisms” (i.e. sound, picture, structure, nature elements, micro
atoms, human motion, etc.), combine these mechanisms “politically” so as to
make a purpose, or at least an implication, and effectively compel these
information to its audience. This is what Stephen defines as “intermedia”. To
be brief, everything, the sound, the pictures, different elements, the
manipulations, just serves as media. What important is they together contribute
to one purpose.
However, he seems quite worried that only few people truly
understand what video and “intermedia” really means. To point it out, he made
an interesting analogy---function. As an engineering student, I can’t help to
admire his intelligence. In mathematics, a function is a relation between a set
of inputs, (here he means the aesthetic elements) and a set of permissible
outputs with the property that each input is related to exactly one output.[i]
Exactly one output---this is what he emphasis. In field with
high-dimension, an input could be a vector with tons of variables, e.g V (X1,
X2, X3, …, Xn). Our world is a world with
high-dimension. Here our one input can be a vector such as (light, steps,
fluid, emotion, outside environment, breath, coffee, atmosphere), while what would
be crucial is: we only have one outcome by one input. Otherwise the work can’t
be counted as a successful video, not even art. “Multimedia” where elements are
just causally placed without a clear purpose is what Stephen hates to guts. To
make a purpose, Stephen suggested, artists need to care about the society.
Yet, I don’t quite agree on his later claim that “video is
an extension of ourselves and we can no longer distinguish between ourselves
and TV-type technology without an anti-environment.” Like what ‘The Matrix (1999)’ illustrated, there’s
always some bugs in an artificial environment for some people to discover. That
is, bugs exist permanently. That’s also why I love this world and engineering
so much--- massy enough.
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