Response #1 (Intermedia)- Anna Lenhert

This week, I have approached the article “Video and Intermedia: Remarks on Their Relationship” by Stephen Foster in light of the opening classes in the Introduction to Media Studies in which I am also enrolled. We have discussed how media is a combination of support (materiality) + social conventions  (based on “Addressing Media” by W.J.T. Mitchell.) In other words, when we define a media such as video, it is not limited to just the technology of the camera and the places and people inside the frame, but also how the use of those materials are defined by conventions. This basis helped me understand Foster’s statement that “The Duchamp ‘Fountain’ is not because it occupies a place between art and plumbing but (if it is intermedia at all) because it (in a way that painting or sculpture never could have) catalyzed a variety of artistic and social mechanisms...”(63). I admit, I had to do my homework and research what exactly Duchamp’s Fountain was, but after doing so it was very clear that the relevancy of this work, seeing as the materials form a “ready made” piece, lies purely innovating and challenging the ideology what constitutes art. Thus, if I am interpreting this and the rest of the article correctly, it seems that it is more important to discuss how intermedia is a “catalyst” for new ways of thinking. The following passage also suggested to me that within a given form of intermedia, the unification of ideas into a single stream is important; “I have always found that intermedia is most ‘inter’ when the medium, whatever that happens to be, serves as a vehicle through which a variety of ‘generic intentions’ can be processed, either consecutively, serially, or simultaneously”(63).

A part of this reading that puzzled me was Foster’s statement that “Video is alive because our conceptual and perceptual apparatus for ‘images’ is dead” (64). I understand that video has emerged as a newer medium, and how time would correlate to established expectations, but it still seemed like an extreme statement to me, or perhaps I am misunderstanding his meaning.   

For my exploration of Ubuweb, I began with a composer that I have already had some exposure to John Cage. I found the work "49 Waltzes for the Five Boroughs," and thought it might relate well to both our article of intermedia as well as our upcoming first project. As Ubuweb describes, the piece was initially based on a visual, a map of New York City that had colored lines based on randomly selected addresses. Then, "Using the map-score of the boroughs, hundreds of coin tosses and the I Ching, I arrived at a 'tapestry' of sound, combining hundreds of traditional waltz fragments, and distributing them among three groups of five players each. This recorded version uses three pianists playing fragments (of other pieces in the collection as well as traditional waltzes), auxiliary sound making devices played by the same performers (musical toys, musical boxes, car horns, etc.) and pre-recorded environmental tapes made in various parts of the five boroughs (as indicated by the score.) Though this piece might be clearly more audio than visually focused, the map-score is enough of a key ingredient that I thought it a worthwhile example (and also, within audio it mixes genres of music and environmental sounds in an experimental way.)         

http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/cage_john/Cage-John_49-Waltzes_1977.mp3