Jeffrey Kanyama

Video and Intermedia Response

Intermedia, based on the reading is giving life to a concept through work. The idea is not easy to understand but I believe it is the space between art and reality that we are part of in our daily lives. Hans Breder explains Intermedia as a liminal space. Liminal moments are times of tension, extreme reactions and greater opportunity for critique and learning. Hans Breder’s work is very fascinating. It always puts spectators into a liminal space. A shift in consciousness; a space to see things from a different perspective. Hans Breder did a lot of work with mirrors and reflections. When you look at his art, you think it is religion or pornography. It can be both or one of them or neither. Everyone is a participant because one is actively involved in the art piece by perception. A link to Hans Breeder’s work is http://www.artnet.com/artists/hans-breder/.

I agree with Foster that it is the characteristics presented above that make video the most ideal example of Intermedia. To be Intermedia implies, in a broad sense being political. Video is political; it manipulates, transforms, superimposes and etc. Video leaves room for a liminal space where one can shift consciousness. It facilitates discussion beyond what is seen. There is a lot of critique that goes on when people watch video like a music video, a movie etc. There are questions about why a certain scene was used so many times and why others a few times. Video speaks to us and we all respond differently. We are all part of the same or different conversation as makers of a certain video. The audience shares experiences with creators. Video also inspires and compels.

I also agree with Foster that video cultures. An example is when I was exploring UbuWeb. I found a video called Me/We by Eija-Liisa Ahtila. It is a video in German and has English subtitles. When I played the video, I realized the piece was not in English and I immediately started reading the subtitles and lost focus of what was going on. I had to watch it again to understand what was going on. It is not the first time this has happened. Watching video has cultured my mindset. It seems I pay attention to what is said rather than what I see. The link to the video is http://www.ubu.com/film/ahtila_me.html.

Intermedia from what I understand is a medium to a reaction or emotion that people feel. The connection we have to things that move. 

Foster Response - Lauren

Foster discusses the main difference between intermedia and multimedia, arguing that “intermedia pieces ‘break down traditional art boundaries’”.  His example used talks about the Duchamp “Fountain” which is simply a urinal, and is not considered intermedia by Foster’s standards “because it occupies a place between art and plumbing”.  Foster continues his argument, saying “any number of activities ‘enabled’…is beside the point”.  They way I interpreted Foster’s opinion throughout his piece was essentially that art in general is very ambiguous.  While intermedia may be considered intermedia because of the medium it optimizes as well as its art status, ultimately, I believe art is considered art based on each person’s opinion.  Ruairi’s driving example in this case is very applicable, where most of the general population consider driving to simply be a medium that we can use to get us from point A to point B, while driving as a sport could be considered an art form; the ability to perfect turns, the atmosphere, the optimal timing of accelerating, etc. 

The same could be said for math.  For example this article is about a man, Daniel Tammet who can recite 22,514 digits of the number pi from memory.  In my opinion, math and memorizing more than a few digits of pi is a waste of my time and is not considered art at all.  Tammet on the other hand says what he “did was make a poem or a novel out of pi, and took those colors and those emotions and used them to perceive patterns”.  In this case, pi is an art, but in other cases pi is not – art is simply different for everybody.     

The sound I chose which represented my opinion of Foster’s article was Bernard Parmegiani’s “Du Pop À L’âne”.  This sound contains layers upon layers of musical instruments playing at different frequencies, tempos and volumes for about 10 minutes.  At certain times the instruments together sounded like an introduction to a pop song, while other times it sounded like a very bad middle school garage band.  There were instances where Parmegiani’s sound could have been considered music, (an art form,) and other times it was simply a lot of noise all together (not an art form).  Intermedia, and in this case art, is too ambiguous to label definitively.       

Video and Intermedia Response, Ruairi

Wading through this particularly conceptual response of Fosters, I found myself neck deep in uncharted territory. However one thing that crossed my mind was his comparison to the human nervous system. The idea that we can appreciate the function of something without needing to know how it works internally. I mean we've all driven a car but aside from one pedal for go and another for stop, very few know how internal combustion helps us drive along. It's an interesting concept seeing as we're a curious species at heart. Surely we would love to know how everything works, that when we watch video we would try to pick apart each scene to understand it more. How did this happen and where did that come from? etc. But later in the article Foster leaps to "What is art?". Now I'm not going to blow everyone away with a well researched answer, but the link I have come up with from this article is as follows. It wouldn't be art if we knew how it worked. (sticking with my driving idea) For those who see driving as an art, the scene of a race car caressing each apex and accelerating through to the chicane ahead at the Monaco Grand Prix, the thrill of the speed, the roar of the crowd, the thunder of the engines all creating this fanatical atmosphere. If we knew the calculation of every dip and turn, the mathematics behind each acceleration and brake, it surely would not be as much of a spectacle. I think once you know how it works, the passion or imagination behind it vanishes. So applying this idea to video as art for every angle and each frame. Surely diagnosing and planning should be artistic suicide? I think that's what sets video apart. It's not suicide it's necessary. It's a medium where flair and feel alone are not enough to create something worthwhile. You need that structure and precision to create whatever "art" it may be.

As for the link between Multimedia and Intermedia, would it be wrong for me to think that it was simply a distinction? That multimedia has different levels at different mediums, while intermedia involves an overlap and interaction between different mediums on more than just a physical level? I suppose it is sort of like daydreaming. We don't daydream in just one medium. We dream in sound and sight and touch, sometimes so vividly that we can taste and smell. All of which happens organically, we don't need to take the image and then layer the sound on, it just happens. So with some ambient sound and a touch of nostalgia I've found a group of sounds created by David Greenberger that resembles the path of a daydream and inner musings.

http://www.ubu.com/sound/duplex.html

Jack Scardino - Re: Foster and Intermedia and video theory

I’ll agree with Foster to some extent when he talks about video being “compelling”.  It is different than other media because of how immediately it can affect one’s emotions and sense of reality, and can have a powerful effect on people, in part because it synergizes media.  But to say the reason video is alive is because “our conceptual and perceptual apparatus for ‘images’ is dead” I think is really an exaggerated and over-glorifying claim.  It reminds me of the argument “kids get violent because they listen to rap and play video games”, which I also reject.  I have the sense that I’m missing something critical in this reading, because some of these statements come to me so simultaneously bizarre and matter-of-fact.

Claiming that video is an “extension of one’s self rather than an extension of one’s notions of art” is just semantics.  All art can be called an extension of one’s self, and creating a difference here I think is an unnecessary and misled view.  I agree- video, the more developed it is, has great difficulty not being partisan.  But that could be said for many art forms, especially those that use language and visual media.  Isn’t it up to the viewer of the art to apply his/her own ideals to it?  Suppose I made a short video featuring only shots of lakes and rivers.  How does that fit into Foster’s vision?  Foster’s article does not really define how the term “video” is being used, and that might be creating a problem for me.  Throughout the reading I assumed he was discussing videos made with some kind of budget, intended to be viewed by an audience wider than say, one individual.  I’d rather film and videos that were intellectually and heartfully composed simply be called art and only then evaluated for value or credibility.

One point did interest me though: that intermedia, because it is intermedia, is inherently political.  I’m not totally on-board with the statement, but I do think there’s an inherent quality to intermedia that actively engages the audience and pushes them to approach the work more thoughtfully.  Intermedia has a special kind of relationship with the audience, I think.  A rock concert can do that.  A loud, spontaneous, and high-energy performance can be a very aggressive and captivating way to deliver music, but it becomes more than just the music because of the relationship between everyone in the room.  Video might be more one-sided in its delivery but it typically requests or requires and active role on behalf of the audience.

I found this piece on Ubuweb which I think is a fitting example of intermedia for our studies.  It is piece written and read by Jack Kerouac, and combines the written work (actually, spoken) with jazz piano playing.  I think that the interplay between the words, music, and his delivery is all noteworthy as part of analyzing intermedia.  The sum of these three elements is less than the result of their being combined together.

http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/kerouac_jack/poetry/Kerouac-Poetry-for-Beat-Generation_1-06-Goofing-At-The-Table.mp3

Marika's video

http://vimeo.com/114157941

Line in the Sand -- Hayden Freedman

Line in the Sand from hayden f on Vimeo.

A Lighter Story - Zach Shaw

https://vimeo.com/114167789