Facetted Video (crystalline architectures)

facetted video(crystalline architectures)

Adrian Miles

vogmae.net.aubrussels: october 2007

I am using keynote too:work with designers

political economy of being an academic I have to produce knowledge ‘artefacts’ and this counts

I have to hang some sponsors name of something (compliance)


my epistemological vernacular - 01



I am technological determinist (small ‘t’, small ‘d’) materiality of media matters

media materialities matter

thinks us as we think it (posthuman cybernetics)

systems of communication between ourselves and media and not only systems for communication amongst ourselves



I am technological determinist (small ‘t’, small ‘d’) materiality of media matters

media materialities matter

thinks us as we think it (posthuman cybernetics)

systems of communication between ourselves and media and not only systems for communication amongst ourselves

I am a partially reconstructed formalistinterested in asking and wondering about what a network specific video might be

believe this will let webbed video move beyond being a “petite tv”


my epistemological vernacular (02)



Deleuze’s cinema philosophy informs much of this why are there edits?

how can wholes be broken?

cinema thinks us as much as we may think it

a posthuman post technological being

cinema as system of thinking



Deleuze’s cinema philosophy informs much of this why are there edits?

how can wholes be broken?

cinema thinks us as much as we may think it

a posthuman post technological being

cinema as system of thinking

Am a reflective academic practitioner this essay was written and will be published as a hypertext

during the writing I realised what I had to say revolves around the specificity of the edit

they are ideas and some are wrong


practice


practice

work in videoblogging - networked interactive “vogs” the aesthetics of this practice

minorstutteringeveryday (technology and fragments)possibly not narrative but musical, or poeticshould be porous to the networkmulitpanedassumes user activity to realise the work

is about constraint and the everyday

a video vernacular

informal, dirty, to–hand media

is an other media


fragment, grain


fragment, grain

shots are only fragmentsas fragments they are parts but as parts they are still whole

these fragments are what make video & cinema

these fragments produce the medium’s granularity

this granularity is fundamental

it is also a basic affordance of web 2


fragment, grain

shots are only fragmentsas fragments they are parts but as parts they are still whole

these fragments are what make video & cinema

these fragments produce the medium’s granularity

this granularity is fundamental

it is also a basic affordance of web 2

It is this granularity that has allowed digital technologies to have had such a substantial impact on film and video production as digitisation, random access, multiple undos, real time visualisation of editing and so on are all premised on film and video being made up of small parts. Indeed, to appropriate a bit of pop network theory, film and video can be usefully conceived of as being made up of small parts which, prior to editing, are always loosely joined. The issue is, of course, that once edited film and video becomes something made up of small parts tightly joined. It is this tightness that softvideo and what I'm describing as its crystalline architecture wants to loosen.


wholeness


wholeness

a shot has the odd quality of being a quality (rather than a quantity)you can cut a shot in half and it is still a shot

it is still ‘whole’

its integrity is not attached to its size (scale or duration)

film and video only deals with these wholes, which are whole at the level of the shot, not the episode or work

this suggests that this ‘wholeness’ is external to the shot (if it were internal, of or in the shot, then it would be lessened by being cut in half), and as it is external the shot, what is it and can be, is partly determined by the relations it is placed within. These relations are external to the shot itself.

this externality is integral to video and film and is called editing


wholeness

a shot has the odd quality of being a quality (rather than a quantity)you can cut a shot in half and it is still a shot

it is still ‘whole’

its integrity is not attached to its size (scale or duration)

film and video only deals with these wholes, which are whole at the level of the shot, not the episode or work

this suggests that this ‘wholeness’ is external to the shot (if it were internal, of or in the shot, then it would be lessened by being cut in half), and as it is external the shot, what is it and can be, is partly determined by the relations it is placed within. These relations are external to the shot itself.

this externality is integral to video and film and is called editing

Meaning does not inhere within the shot, but externally by virtue of the relations it is located within. In traditional video practice these relations are singular (which should not be confused with lacking connotation), whereas in softvideo's crystalline structure they are multiple. It is also possible to describe this by stating that linear video structures actualise a single vector of edits from those possible through the agency of the editor, producing a series of 'soft connotations' , while crystalline video allows for a variety of virtual edits which are actualised by the user. It also follows that if video (and film) editing is about the relations between parts then it does not follow that these relations need to be a single linear series. This implies that the multiple possible links (edits) that softvideo offers maybe less a new practice than a return to the very problems of relation that have always been posed by film.

serendipity


this is not tv (but it doesn’t realise this)


For webbed video, certainly in terms of videoblogging. YouTube, blip.tv and the others TV is the model rather than cinema.

TV is about saturation of a narrow channel (time)

but is only fragments - TV is never whole

It relies on cycles of repetition (diurnal programming and programmed regularity)

Hence the serial form is privileged

This lack of wholeness is why it is trivial to ‘interrupt’ ‘content’ with advertisements, channel promos, and so on.

we have an asymmetric relation to TV but not to web video



For webbed video, certainly in terms of videoblogging. YouTube, blip.tv and the others TV is the model rather than cinema.

TV is about saturation of a narrow channel (time)

but is only fragments - TV is never whole

It relies on cycles of repetition (diurnal programming and programmed regularity)

Hence the serial form is privileged

This lack of wholeness is why it is trivial to ‘interrupt’ ‘content’ with advertisements, channel promos, and so on.

we have an asymmetric relation to TV but not to web video


Video only deals in such wholes. This qualitative aspect of video as "whole" has become conflated with our understanding of video's material form and so leads to the common assumption that the basic unit of video is the program - something with a beginning, middle, and end, and since it is linear, of a specific duration. This is what it is to watch a show, or a film. But it is not what constitutes the idea of the 'whole' in video (or in film).


youtube, blip.tv et al



YouTube (though Blip.tv is a much better example) are characterised as Web 2 technologies though in terms of a webbed video they are more properly Video 1

Against

the content is wannabe tv, film student, art film, saturday night live, and so on. the fact that you can imagine a show entitled “YouTube’s Funniest Home Videos”, or “YouTube’s Protest Videos” where broadcast via tv would make no difference to the content indicates the extent to which this is tv.the minimal unit remains the entire video clip, which is too large a ‘unit’quotation of parts is possible but FLV is a very difficult format to work with in terms of incorporating it into other objects




For

they have diminished traditional barriers to production and more importantly distributionthey are solving (along with the video iPod) the problem of a common set of compression and format standardstagging and the publication of individual ‘channels’ provides some pathways to and through contentthey are a proto-crystalline shape as they are not television to the extent that they are not a continuous flow of material in a single vector of time (a tv ‘channel’) but each clip has a variety of other connections each of which is an entirely other trajectory. there is no traditional closure on these systems, you view for “long enough”, it is akin to channel surfing except obviously programming control has shifted and is no longer constrained by paucity




For

they have diminished traditional barriers to production and more importantly distributionthey are solving (along with the video iPod) the problem of a common set of compression and format standardstagging and the publication of individual ‘channels’ provides some pathways to and through contentthey are a proto-crystalline shape as they are not television to the extent that they are not a continuous flow of material in a single vector of time (a tv ‘channel’) but each clip has a variety of other connections each of which is an entirely other trajectory. there is no traditional closure on these systems, you view for “long enough”, it is akin to channel surfing except obviously programming control has shifted and is no longer constrained by paucity

This is a proto-link structure that will gradually evolve into a more pronounced form as these large chunks (entire video objects) move towards increasingly granularity. The crystalline form evident here will shift from being based on large scale objects towards, either, reinscribing the original granularity of these practices at the level of the shot, or to the development of ever briefer (more granular) episodes which can be more easily connected into variable series.


softvideo


softvideo

soft video computer is medium of publication (exclusively)

contains links

assumes, expects, requires user action

aims to be porous to other online video (quotation,

maintains the granularity of video after publication

rss as currently completely makes all of this impossible


softvideo

soft video computer is medium of publication (exclusively)

contains links

assumes, expects, requires user action

aims to be porous to other online video (quotation,

maintains the granularity of video after publication

rss as currently completely makes all of this impossible

These links, like in the example of early hypertext, function to make any work more porous to the extent that the military occupation of time of traditional video and cinema along a single resolute timeline (which after all is the default metaphor of all digital hard video editing systems) now becomes fragmented and fractured as any moment (shot) is available to be linked from and to. Once links become external this makes the work even more porous to the network as content from "outside" of the work can now be linked to, even incorporated, into the work. From here it is a small step to conceive of a softvideo system that is properly porous so that it is as aware of connections in from other softvideos as of its links out. This would allow for a porous videographic writing practice.


relations

fragments are put into series via relations

relations are external to their terms

these relations are always multiplerealism, narrative sense, colour, duration, scale, graphic elements, character, action (some can be thought of as internal others external, but they’re all really external)

we have a whole language that pretends these relations are internal (naturalism, ‘motivated’ edits and so on) and proscriptive (classical editing, etc)

in traditional video this multiple becomes single


teleological editingteleological editing


teleological editing

traditional editing excludes that which falls ‘outside’

it is wholly ends directed so decisions are intended to inevitably get us to closure

each decision gains authority and sense in light of this end




traditional editing excludes that which falls ‘outside’

it is wholly ends directed so decisions are intended to inevitably get us to closure

each decision gains authority and sense in light of this end


realism

narrative sense

colour,

duration,

scale

graphic elements

character

action

industrial constraint, budget, technical constraint

creative constraint, time, know how


virtual and actual


virtual and actual

another way of describing this is that shots, prior to editing, express a virtual multiplicity.

teleological editing selects one vector to actualise

crystalline editing provides for a virtual series of vectors to be actualised, it reverses the ‘cone’ of teleological editing and structures


virtual and actual

another way of describing this is that shots, prior to editing, express a virtual multiplicity.

teleological editing selects one vector to actualise

crystalline editing provides for a virtual series of vectors to be actualised, it reverses the ‘cone’ of teleological editing and structures

Editing is the act of actualising the virtual within the footage available. It clearly poses

and contains problems, where each of these problems express vectors of force or

events offering particular trajectories - how to narrate the story, cutting on action,

colour, narrative event, shot scale, how long should that shot be, total length of the

work and so on. How a work is edited is the actualisation of these virtualities, and in

their realisation they are not merely possible (the realisation of the same) but are the

creation and invention of the new.

If in softvideo we can apply something as simple as links within video then the

virtualities of the footage are able to be actualised in a multiplicity of ways, and these

actualisations remain available, immanent, within the work. They may not ever be

actualised - for example a viewer may not following a particular link, or a particular

series of paths, yet the work retains in itself these possible actualisations.

These links, as the possible actualised virtual, can be realised by user action (as in much

interactive work) and of course could also be made available on the basis of a variety of

programmatic conditions. Each of these vectors offers itself as a facet or aspect

towards the other shots and sequences available in the work.


crystalline facets


crystalline facets

multiple relations established by each shot having a view towards its others

I think of each view as a facet

a facet is a vector (an interest expressed as a force)

these interests are external to the shot (they are relations)

since each shot may have a relation to any other shot (they are promiscuous like that) you get a crystalline structure

I am not sure how to illustrate this just yet


crystalline facets

multiple relations established by each shot having a view towards its others

I think of each view as a facet

a facet is a vector (an interest expressed as a force)

these interests are external to the shot (they are relations)

since each shot may have a relation to any other shot (they are promiscuous like that) you get a crystalline structure

I am not sure how to illustrate this just yet

These facets produce what can be thought of as a crystalline structure, where any point in a softvideo work has a virtual set of attitudes towards other material. These connections should not be thought of as linear, for even where they are conceived of as links there is nothing within a crystalline softvideo architecture that requires video to be simply replaced by other video when a connection is made. This is, in the end, the problem that such a structure poses as it in turn becomes a problem for video practice in the true sense of the term. This architecture lends itself to more musical pr poetic forms as the teleological forms of traditional narrative struggle with the repetitions and rhythms of this.


consequences


consequences

when editing moves to a combination of the creator and user what decisions need to be made as videographers?

is this a narrative form or ambient/experiential?

what happens to the timeline of film and video in this model?

what tools do we need to write like this?

should we make video like this?


beginning ideas


beginning ideas

this is about Deleuze’s audiovisual relations

to move these processes out of art and the museum into everyday practices

crytalline re-establishes the equidistance between parts that exists prior to editing

is combination of Deleuze’s movement and time image (can be both)

relations are external to the parts

these relations and parts open onto an open whole (duration)

it does not follow that these relations (the edits) are to be single

these multiple relations are not a departure but a return to the condition of editing


summary


summary

shots are equidistant

relations are multiple

these became single in traditional forms

YouTube/Blip begin to make these plural again

each of the possible relations is a facet

reintroduction of these facets is now possible

the granularity within video objects need to be restored after publication

need tools to move this from the boutique to the everyday


vogmae.net.au

Adrian Miles

[email protected]

Facetted Video (crystalline architectures)

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