Noticing: creating slow and affective interactive online video

Noticing: creating slow and affective interactive online

video

Hannah Brasier

Bachelor of Communication (Media)

Submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements for the

degree of Bachelor of Media and Communication (Honours)

Mr. Adrian Miles School of Media and Communication

RMIT University

October 2012

exegesis.indd 1 16/10/12 11:58 AM

Contents

Abstract

Statement of authorship

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Slow: the digital in-between

Affect: the cinematic in-between

Figures

Noticing: a methodology of descriptive list making through The Pillow Book

Close Up and Noticing: slow and affective interactive online videos

Conclusion

Works Cited

Filmography

Bibliography

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Abstract

Noticing: Creating Slow and Affective Interactive Online Video

discusses the interactive online video projects Close Up and

Noticing. Online environments are inherently fast—facilitating

immediate action through information, while Deleuze’s

concept of the affection-image as a cinematic in-between

allows time to expand between noticing and doing. The

two works, Close Up and Noticing, use this concept of the

affection-image to allow for affective experiences with online

work—expanding the time between the user watching

(noticing) and clicking (doing). The theoretical frameworks

of the digital and speed, and Deleuze’s concept of affect, are

explored through these works allowing a means to theorise

and make interactive online videos which slow the near

instantaneous interplay between noticing and doing within

an online context.


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Statement of authorship

I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been

made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not

been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify

for any other academic award; the content of the exegesis

is the result of the work which has been carried out since

the official research program; and any editorial work, paid or

unpaid carried out by a third party is acknowledged.

Hannah Brasier


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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor and Honours coordinator

Adrian Miles for his constant feedback, ideas and sneak peek

at his writing on affective interactive online video which

inspired this research endeavour.

I would like to thank my Slow Lab tutor Neal Haslem for

introducing me to the concept of slow, especially the “Speed?

What Speed?” paper.

Thanks to the Honours students for the long hours spent

stressing together over referencing styles, sentence

structures and printing. Our collective brain power made

the Honours lab such a supportive and, at times, hilarious

environment. It would have been a lonely struggle without you

guys.


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Noticing: creating slow and affective interactive online video

Introduction

My project based research grew out of a joint interest in

cinema studies and online video, with the intention to use my

previous knowledge of cinema studies to make an interactive

online video attuned to the materiality of the online form.

This relationship between cinema and online environments

was brought to my attention by Daly who saw that films were

beginning to mimic the materiality of the online, adapting

elements such as multilinearity, navigation, intertextual

linking, and “figuring out the rules of the game” (83). In light

of these cinematic changes she raises the question—“As vision

is subsumed to thought, do we lose an emotional experience

of moving images?” (Daly 98). This question was thought

provoking in terms of wanting to create emotive experiences

with online works.

My research began with Miles’s writing on Deleuze’s

affection-image, which he sees “fundamental to interactive

works such as a Korsakow film”. The cinema studies trajectory

of my research developed from this, through Deleuze’s

Cinema One: The Movement Image, which describes how

the affection-image, within a cinematic context, expands

the time between perception and action. This created the

first theoretical underpinning for my research—how the

form of Deleuze’s affection-image creates an interval between

perceiving and acting.


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Hannah Brasier

The other trajectory which emerged was online environments

and speed, where common trends in writing argue that

technological improvement is largely defined as a faster

means of achieving something. I wanted to create online work

which differed from these preconceptions of speed—a slow

online work. From this the second theoretical underpinning

became how to conceptualise the slow within an online context.

The research problem which emerged from these

underpinnings was how Deleuze’s affection-image could be

used to theorise and make slow interactive online video?

This led to the creation of two interactive online video works

entitled Close Up and Noticing with the intention to create

slow and affective works within an online context.

As a research outcome Noticing was the final work to be

produced, where through a methodology of noticing, based

on Mason’s Researching Your Own Practice: The Discipline

of Noticing, I developed a process to create interactive online

video which aligned with the concepts of affect and slow.

My argument is that a research methodology based on

noticing demonstrates how Deleuze’s affection-image allows

for the creation of interactive online video works which slow

the near instantaneous interplay between noticing and doing,

watching and clicking.


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Slow: the digital in-between

In recent writings on technological advancement there is

a common focus on speed, where speed is understood to

facilitate constant and immediate action through information.

Within these publications there is an emphasis on how

technical refinements are accelerating our lives. Examples of

such refinements are given by Millar and Schwarz, such as jet

engines being faster than petrol engines and emails as more

rapid than post. From these examples Millar and Schwarz

suggest “objects are improved, things get faster; within our

technological culture, this is known as progress” (16).

Meanwhile Trapp, Rieger and Illich (“Speed? What Speed?”)

contend that there is a “modern certainty” that we “live in a

world dominated by speed” (148). Situated in the disciplines

of biology (Trapp), music (Rieger) and history (Illich) each

attempt to discover when the idea of speed was invented,

and how this impacted their respective fields. Conjunctively,

from an arts practice perspective Manovich contends that

new communication technologies create faster responses

across large geographical spaces. Trapp, Rieger and Illich,

in conjunction with Manovich, conclude that technological

developments are creating more instantaneous responses

between events and their reactions, resulting in experience

being subordinated to the mechanical reproduction of


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Hannah Brasier

speed, where whilst “real time processes simulate global

omnipresence, and do get us electronically from here to

there, … the experience of the in-between … is gone” (Illich,

Rieger, and Trapp 154). If speed is conceptualised as the

disappearance of the time and space between events and their

reactions, a theoretical proposition of slow can be developed,

defining slow as an emphasis and expansion of what lies

between the here and there, events and their reactions.

“Speed? What Speed?”

Emphasising the process and technique of the falconIn Trapp’s section of “Speed? What Speed?” he compares

two texts which describe how falcons hunt—On the Art

of Hunting with Birds and a modern biology text book.

Trapp considers the differences between these texts, where

On the Art of Hunting with Birds never considers the falcon’s

speed as a factor in its ability to hunt, but “describes the

behaviour of the falcon — how it leaves the fist, how it

approaches the prey, what it has in mind when choosing a

certain route to the crane” (151). In comparison the text book

explains that a “falcon reaches a speed of up to 200km/h,

much faster than all the other birds he attacks” (Illich, Rieger,

and Trapp 150). On the Art of Hunting with Birds elaborates

on the movements and techniques which happen between

the falcon taking off and capturing its prey, detailing the

process in which the falcon hunts, whereas the text book


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suggests the falcon captures its prey via “being faster than

other birds” which Trapp argues “is not the reason why

falcons are successful hunters” (150). Trapp considers the text

book’s idea of speed to be the “property of a process, mostly

a movement in time, that — at least in principle — can be

measured by an instrument, by a technical device” (150),

further adding that this concept of “‘speed’ as we know it

is a … very modern one”—it is a “mechanical speed” (151).

Trapp concludes that this mechanical view of how the falcon

captures its prey is an abstraction which “distracts from the

way in which falcons actually hunt” (151).

Emphasising the mood and spirit in musicRieger, in his section considers our modern conception

of speed through discussing Beethoven’s support to

introduce the metronome to musical composition.

However Rieger notes that after Beethoven listened to

performances composed via the metronome he concluded

that a “measured tempo [made] no sense in music” (Illich,

Rieger, and Trapp 153). In light of this Rieger considers his

experience as an amateur belly-dance drummer where he had

been taught to play at 60 minims, however, when he started

drumming with a belly-dancer the speed he was playing did

not harmonise with the dancer. He notes a conversation he

had with his teacher in light of this, where he asked “Shall

I play slower or faster?” in which his teacher replied “you

should not play faster or slower, you should play right” (Illich,

Rieger, and Trapp 154). In other words you should not play

the drums from a “machine’s point of view” but through


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Hannah Brasier

the belly-dancer’s movement, in which Rieger found the

right tempo (Illich, Rieger, and Trapp 154). Rieger contends,

in terms of the difference between modern and historical

notions of music and speed, that previous to the metronome

musical tempo “was determined by the setting: a special

event, a place, a type of work or action” (153). Even in the

seventeenth century when composers considered tempo

using Italian time-words such as adagio (“at ease”), they

did not refer to “measured time that could be expressed by

units per minute”, rather the terms indicated the “mood and

spirit or character of the piece” (Illich, Rieger, and Trapp

153). Rieger concludes by noting that the “main qualification

for being a musician” was for the instrumentalist to know

the “appropriate tempo from one’s experience, without a

technical device” (Illich, Rieger, and Trapp 153).

SpeedRieger’s example expresses a concept of speed similar to

Trapp’s, where they contend life should not be viewed in

light of a mechanical concept of speed. For instance, it was

Frederic’s focus on the falcon’s technique and movement

which allowed him a better understanding of how the bird

hunts. Similarly it was when Rieger drummed to the movement

of the dancer, as opposed to the metronome, that it sounded

“right” in respect to the dancer’s movements. Speed, as

conceptualised by Trapp and Rieger, focuses on the beginning

and the result, de-emphasising the experience and process

involved. They contend that this in-between of experience and

process is integral to understanding how the falcon hunts and

how to play instruments at the appropriate tempo.


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Trapp, Rieger and Illich conclude that mechanical speed is a

modern invention—a result of the industrial revolution. They

refer to mechanical speed being “invented together with the

railroad” (150), suggesting that the first train passenger’s

“felt that the train, speeding through the world, required

a new world, and adopted ‘landscape’ for places they saw

rushing by the compartment window, without ever setting

foot in one” (157). Speed, in light of the railroad meant the

disappearance of the places between departure and arrival,

replacing the actuality of places with blurred landscapes.

Illich, in his section contends that prior to the invention

of the railroad “‘to speed’ … meant ‘to prosper’ and not

‘to go fast’” (154). Illich views modern society as “people

imprisoned in the age of speed”, where “common sense

tells them that some idea of ‘space over time’ and, more

generally, ‘process correlated with time’, is part and parcel of

all cultures” (154). He further suggests “speed, has the power

to disembody”, where experience and process is lost to a

reduction of the result (157). A reduction which diminishes

the technique of the falcon to its pace, and the spirit of a

musical composition to its metronomic beats, where the

pace and metronomic beats abstract and to some extent

misinterpret these particular situations.

Theor ising the in-between

Illich does not conceptualise slow as a literal reduction

of speed. For instance, slowing down the Beethoven

composition will not improve it, but re-focusing on the time

and event of performance to play at the appropriate tempo

will. Hence, Illich, Rieger and Trapp ask for a consideration of


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Hannah Brasier

the “overlooked speed-less zones of experience” (157). These

zones are the tactics and movements between the falcon

taking off and capturing its prey, the experience of playing

to the dancer rather than following a rule, and experiencing

the places which lie between departure and arrival on a

train, all of which can be considered the “speed-less zones

of experience”—the “in-between”. Furthermore, it is not

until we emphasise and expand on these speed-less and

in-between zones that we can understand and appreciate

the falcon, belly-dancer and travel. The in-between is

an emphasis and expansion of the process, description,

appreciation and technique which allows for a richer

understanding of a particular situation. The in-between

can then conceptualise the slow because it allows for an

expansion of the experiences which lie between, slowing the

interaction of the here to there, events to their reactions.

Arts practice and the in-between

From an arts practice perspective Manovich opens his

chapter on “Teleaction” by introducing the history of different

communication technologies. Manovich notes that since the

beginning of the nineteenth century media technologies have

developed along two “distinct trajectories”—representational

technologies, such as film and painting and real-time

technologies, such as the telephone (162). He suggests radio

and television intersected the two trajectories and later,

more prominently, the Internet has interrupted this division,


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through what Manovich defines as teleaction—the ability “to

see and act at a distance” (165).

Telepresence and teleactionManovich describes teleaction as the condition in which I

exist within a “physical location” in front of my computer

and simultaneously in a “synthetic computer-generated

environment” (165) where I “do not have to be physically

present in a location to affect reality at this location” (167).

Manovich provides two examples in respect to telepresence

and teleaction—web cams and hyperlinks. The web cam

which allows images to be transmitted between locations

and more prominently hyperlinks which allow the user

to teleport “from one server to another, from one physical

location to the next” (Manovich 164). This prominence of

hyperlinks, as Manovich argues, is due to the user’s ability

“to be able to explore a multitude of documents located on

computers around the world” whereas the web cam only allows

users to “perform physical actions in one remote location” (165).

Manovich compares Virilio’s “Big Optics” and Benjamin’s

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

contending there has been a “destruction of distance

… that guaranteed time delay between events and our

reactions” (173). This is, according to Manovich, because

Virlio and Benjamin view new technologies as causing a

disruption “in the familiar patterns of human perception”

(171). A “disruption of distance” for Virilio and Benjamin

because “they equate nature with spatial distance between

the observer and the observed, and they see technologies as

destroying this distance” (Manovich 171).


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Hannah Brasier

“Big Optics”Virilio distinguishes between real-time communication and

representational technologies, which he calls “Big Optics” and

“Small Optics” respectively. He describes “Big Optics” as the

“aesthetics of disappearance”—the “emergence of a latest type

of transparency: the transparency of appearances instantly

transmitted across large distances” (original emphasis,

Virilio 83). In contrast Virilio describes “Small Optics” as the

“aesthetics of appearance” where “objects or people stand

out against an apparent horizon of a unity of time and space”

(83). “Big Optics” diminish the space between foreground and

background because objects or people instantaneously move

from one point to the other, where “Small Optics” allow for

perspective—to see between what is near and far. According

to Manovich, Virilio aligns film and painting as representative

of “Small Optics” because they are a “continuation of our

natural sight”, allowing Virilio to situate “Big Optics” in

opposition as “instant electronic transmission” which is

faster than human perception (Manovich 173).

“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

Benjamin compares original and authentic art to those

which are reproduced, suggesting the invention of film as a

reproductive art has had the most “revealing” repercussions

on the traditional art form (20). In terms of reproductions

Benjamin suggests they lack one element—“presence in

time and space, its unique existence at the place where it

happens to be”, which Benjamin argues “is the prerequisite to


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the concept of authenticity” (20). Furthermore, he describes

this authenticity as “aura”—“the unique phenomenon of a

distance, however close it may be” (Benjamin 22). Benjamin

uses this concept of aura to compare film to theatre and

painting. He suggests that these artistic advancements

have caused a “contemporary … decay of the aura”, where

there is a modern desire to “bring things ‘closer’ spatially

and humanly … to get hold of an object at very close range

by way of its likeness, its reproduction” (Benjamin 22). In

respect to his definition of aura as distance Benjamin uses

the analogy of a surgical operation to compare a painter and a

cameraman. He aligns the painter magician and cameraman

surgeon, describing the magician as “maintaining the

natural distance between the patient and himself” whereas

the surgeon “diminishes the distance between himself and

the patient by penetrating into the patient’s body” (29). In

respect to the painter and cameraman “the painter maintains

in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman

penetrates deeply into its web” permeating reality with

mechanical equipment (Benjamin 29). In terms of the art

works produced “that of the painter is a total one, that of

the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are

assembled under a new law” (Benjamin 29).

This diminishing of distance brought by the camera allows

an inherently new form of perceiving art works, where

the camera’s viewpoint along with editing and montage

disallow a total view of the world. In light of this Benjamin

describes spectator responses to painting and film in regard

to contemplation and distraction, suggesting paintings allow

you to concentrate “before a work of art” and be “absorbed


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Hannah Brasier

by it”, whereas in a cinema the “distracted mass absorbs

the work of art” (32). Benjamin suggests to view a painting

you must concentrate to be affected by it, whereas in film

you are “an examiner, but an absent-minded one” (33). This

diminishing of aura, as Benjamin contends, has radically

changed our perception of artworks.

A closing of distanceManovich, through his analysis of Benjamin and Virilio,

contends that the invention of new media technologies of

teleaction allow for a closing of distance between events

and reactions, the here and there. According to Manovich,

Benjamin sees this dissolving of distance correlate with the

dissipation of aura because Benjamin defines aura as the

“unique phenomenon of distance” (22). Through Manovich’s

discussion of Virilio and Benjamin, the in-between can be

conceived of as the aura of the work, which dissolves as

events and their reactions become instantaneous.

The digital in-between as slow

Theorists Illich, Rieger and Trapp, in conjunction with

Manovich propose a concept of speed which emphasises

technological innovation progresses towards more immediate

relationships between the here and there—events and their

reactions. This defining of speed and the digital allows for

a concept of slow as the space and time between these


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situations. This concept of slow as the in-between is what

Manovich describes as the distance which “becomes

responsible for creating the gap between spectator and

spectacle, for separating subject and object” (174), and

is what Benjamin considers the aura of the work as the

distance between. The slow allows for a re-emphasis on

the “concepts of near and far, horizon, distance, and space”

which Manovich contends “no longer have any meaning” due

to the speed information is transmitted (172). In order to give

meaning back to these concepts of “near and far, horizon,

distance, and space” Manovich argues we need to expand

what happens between the transmitting and receiving of

information (172). This can be done, as Illich, Rieger and Trapp

describe, through emphasising and expanding the description,

technique, appreciation and process which lies in-between,

with the outcome that the aura will to return to the work, as

well as a richer understanding and better artistic outcome.

Illich, Rieger and Trapp, as well as Manovich, contend the

in-between has dissolved into near simultaneous interplay

between events and their reactions. It is this idea of the

in-between as the description, process, technique and aura

within the context of the digital which I will focus on—the

in-between as the “speed-less zone of experience” which

fall between the here and there, an event and our reaction

(Illich, Rieger, and Trapp 157). The slow within the digital

will be considered as re-emphasising and re-focusing on this

experience of the in-between.


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Hannah Brasier


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Affect: the cinematic in-between

The theoretical framework of my project rests within the

disciplines of the online and cinema, where it is integral

to theorise the in-between within both contexts. From a

cinematic perspective Deleuze’s affection-image provides

a means to theorise an in-between which aligns with

interactive online video practice.

Bergson’s sensory-motor-schema and Deleuze’s movement images

In Deleuze’s Cinema One: The Movement Image he proposes

three types of cinematic image—perception, action and

affection images, which Deleuze adapts from Bergson’s

sensory-motor-schema. In Bergson’s schema there is a

relationship between perception, action and affection, which

can be defined as noticing (perception), doing (action) and an

enlargement of what lies between noticing and doing, which

Bergson describes as affect. In regard to Bergson’s schema,

movement is a part of all images because “every image acts

on others and reacts to others”, on “all their facets at once”

and “by all their elements”, and as Deleuze notes, “external


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Hannah Brasier

images act on me, transmit movement to me, and I return

movement” (Deleuze 60). For example, consider eating a

meal—a meal is placed in front of you, and you pick up a

knife and fork to eat it. In Bergson’s terminology you perceive

the meal in front of you and respond by deciding to eat it,

where I notice I am hungry but not the seat I am sitting on

or the temperature of the room. Therefore I act according to

what I have noticed, by eating the meal, and in light of this

my body becomes a centre which selects images to receive

and react upon. Bergson describes this position of the body

as a living image—“the seat of affection and, at the same

time, the source of action: … which I adopt as the centre of

my universe” (32). In other words perception isolates “certain

images from all those which compete and act together in the

universe”, thus the living image (affection-image) becomes:

an instrument of analysis in regard to the movement

received, and an instrument of selection in regard

to the movement executed. Because they owe this

privilege to the phenomenon of the gap, or interval

between a received and an executed movement,

living images will be ‘centres of indetermination’,

which are formed in the accentred universe of

movement images. (Deleuze 64)

The body becomes the centre which is an interval between

looking and doing, perceiving and acting, and this interval

affords the “opportunity for an alternative reaction, a

choice if you like, between an action and the reaction

undertaken” (Miles). This concept of affect as an interval,

affording a conscious opportunity is what I will focus on,

because I intend to argue that affect allows a theorising


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of a videographic in-between. I will expand this argument

through Deleuze’s concept of the affection-image in regard to

its form in filmic montage.

The affection-image and cinema

In cinema the affection-image takes the form of a shot which

exists independently of narrative cause and effect, usually a

close-up within an emptied frame—a moment of expression,

which allows for an enlargement of a moment between

perception and action, a pause as a moment of heightened

“impassive suspense” (Deleuze 89). Perhaps a character

caught in indecision, not knowing how to act upon an event

they have perceived. An example could be a film sequence

showing a character witnessing a stranger getting murdered,

interrupted by close-ups of the perceiving character’s

expression of fear and shock, followed by the action of

them running to save the victim. This scenario presents a

montage of movement from perception (witnessing attempted

murder) into action (running to save victim), interrupted and

prolonged by the indeterminacy of the character’s indecision

as indicated by the close-ups. These close-ups could show

the character expressing shock, followed by fear and then

perhaps an expression of confidence, describing the process

of indeterminacy the character has experienced, indicative

of the affection-image as an “intensive series which marks

an ascent towards … a critical instance” (Deleuze 89).


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Hannah Brasier

Through interrupting narrative causation Deleuze’s affection-

image slows the movement of noticing into doing.

It is the close-up of the face which Deleuze describes

specifically as a type of affection-image. This is because

a close-up of a character’s face allows the intensity of

expressions such as sadness, happiness, fear, and so on to

be communicated to the audience. Furthermore due to the

linearity of the cinematic form close-ups can almost still

narrative movement because they show one intensity at a

particular moment, encompassed within a particular shot, as

if story time has paused. Because of this Deleuze argues that

Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc is “an almost exclusively

affective film” which shows how the form of the affection-

image as close-up distends the movement of perception into

action (72). Deleuze suggests there are two parallel levels

of narration throughout Dreyer’s film; the first being the

“whole historical state of things”, which is essentially Joan’s

accusation, trial and death, yet on another level the “internal”

(109). It is the “internal” which is emphasised, such as Joan’s

martyrdom and the Bishop’s anger, and it is these affections

which Deleuze describes as the “quality” (martyrdom) and

“power” (anger) of the affection-image in The Passion of

Joan of Arc (110). The “internal” is emphasised as the film

is made almost entirely of fragmented close-ups of isolated

character’s faces, such as Joan’s face sitting very low in the

frame (Fig. 1), where isolating them removes direct narrative

causation between characters. Through placing these

close-ups within a montage of affections Dreyer expands

the moment from accusation to trial to death, an expansion

which is able to exploit the narrative events of the story

of Joan of Arc as we all know the film will end when Joan


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gets burned at the stake. This allows Dreyer to focus on the

in-between affections to extend the movement from accusation

(perception) to death (action) through the film’s emphasis on the

emotional weight the trial is having on each of the individuals and

collectives which make up the narrative whole. This highlights

what Deleuze describes as the first sign of the affection

image, being a “power-quality expressed by a face or an

equivalent” (original emphasis 113).

The second form of the affection-image theorised by Deleuze

is the affection-image as “any-space-whatever”, where

the face and close-up as a receptive surface for intensities

is replaced by any-space-whatever (Augé’s term qtd. in

Deleuze 112). An example Deleuze gives of the affection-

image as any-space-whatever is rain in “some of Jorge Iven’s

films” where (113):

Rain is not a determined, concrete rain which has

fallen somewhere. These visual impressions are not

unified by spatial or temporal representations. What

is perceived here with the most delicate sensibility,

is not what rain really is, but the way in which it

appears when, silent and continuous, it drips from leaf

to leaf, when the mirror of the pool has goose-pimples,

when the solitary drop hesitantly seeks its pathway on

the window-pane, when the life of the city is reflected

on the wet asphalt. (Balázs qtd. in Deleuze 114)

Rain, in this example, is fragmented across different rainy

times and places to develop rain as an affect through a set

of singularities, “which presents rain as it is in itself, pure

power or quality which combines without abstraction all


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Hannah Brasier

possible rains and makes up the corresponding any-space-

whatever” (Deleuze 114). Rain is extended beyond its concrete

meaning to develop a series of interpretations of rain which

are not specific to a certain time or place. What this allows,

as Deleuze suggests, is rain as a descriptive quality to

exist independently of the place it was produced, where

“space itself has left behind its own co-ordinates and its

metric relations” (112). Furthermore, because rain as affect

has created its own “perfectly singular space … linkages

can be made in an infinite number of ways” (Deleuze 113).

Deleuze’s “power-quality presented in any-space-whatever”

then provides the second sign of the affection-image through

extending descriptive qualities between events and their

reactions (original emphasis 113).

The affection-image as face and any-space-whatever are

the forms of the affection-image which allows for an interval

between noticing and doing. These qualities of the affection-

image allow for a prolonged engagement with what happens

in-between noticing and doing, slowing down the temporal

movement of perception into action. It is a film where the

“relation, or distance, between action and reaction is enlarged,

almost made slow” (Miles) and it is this which defines

Deleuze’s affection-image.


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The affection-image and interactive online video

Miles suggests in “Click, Think, Link: Interval and Affective

Narrative” that Deleuze and Bergson’s concept of affect is

easily seen in how a user must act with interactive online

video, where:

The distance, an interval between perceiving and

some form of response or action, is fundamental to

interactive works such as a Korsakow film as it is

exactly (not nearly, not similar to, but isomorphic with)

that point in the film where the work offers possibilities

to the user where the user not only has the opportunity

but is required to make a decision.

This can be seen by differentiating the role of the viewer in

cinema and the user in interactive online video. For instance

in The Passion of Joan of Arc the affection-images, which

make up the majority of the film, are subsumed by the closure

of Joan’s death, where within the fixed duration of eighty-

two minutes, the film moves through a series of sequences,

montages, perceptions, affections and actions, from Joan’s

accusation to her subsequent death. The role of the viewer is

to watch the film unfold over this period of time. This rigidness

of fixed order of shots and duration is overcome in the context

of interactive online video, and perhaps more specifically a

Korsakow interactive online video, because firstly, the user and

system determines the order of clips and secondly, there is no

fixed duration. The user, determines how quickly or slowly they

proceed through the Korsakow film, becoming an embodiment

of Bergson’s living image—they perceive a certain image


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Hannah Brasier

which presents itself on the screen and must act by selecting

a thumbnail, where these “regular moments when the user

has to choose a next clip or sequence … becomes such a zone

of indetermination between the film, the screen, and a user”

(Miles). If they do not select a thumbnail the work quite literally

stops, either in a continuous loop of one video or a freeze frame

of that video. The duration of the work is determined by the

user, with the possibility for the work to continue infinitely.

The level of affective user engagement with interactive online

video, as Miles notes, is through the indeterminacy and

distance between them “perceiving, understanding and then

deciding”, where the “extent of this interval is critical to how

a work is experienced and is fundamental to the recognition

of authorial direction and voice”. This level of affection is

not determined by giving the user an overwhelming number

of thumbnails to navigate between but a result of the

associations between clips not being “obvious, direct and

literal” (Miles). This aligns with Deleuze’s affection-image

as a quality, an adjective, and a single-entity which does not

directly, literally nor obviously tell or refer to something else.

For instance, it is only through the fixed editing of Joan’s

face filled with tears to shots of perceptions and actions

which situate Joan’s internal emotions within a specific

space and time of the trial. The shot of Joan’s sadness viewed

independently, displaced from this context, expresses Joan’s

sadness as a single entity which can be interpreted and

connected to other shots in a multitude of ways.

Within the context of interactive online video the use of affect

becomes two-fold—in the role of the user as Bergson’s living

image, and as a means to create videographic content which


23


obscures the direct narrative relationship between images.

This creates the theoretical underpinning of my interactive

online video project which seeks to insert the slow into the

digital, using Deleuze’s concept of the affection-image as

cinematic in-between to do so.


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Hannah Brasier


25


Figures

Fig. 1 Joan’s face fragmented in The Passion of Joan of Arc

Fig. 2 yellow flower blowing in the wind


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Hannah Brasier

Fig. 3 reed blowing in the wind

Fig. 4 light reflected on floorboards

Fig. 5 trains entering and leaving Flinders Street Station


27


Fig. 6 clouds reflected on a skyscrapper

Fig. 7 subway at Flinders Street Station

Fig. 8 trams intersecting on a busy bridge


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Hannah Brasier

Fig. 9 shadow of tree on a picket fence

Fig. 10 Prototype One interface

Fig. 11 Prototype Two interface


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Fig. 12 Noticing interface

Fig. 14 Joan stating her name in Close Up

Fig. 13 Joan getting her hair cut from The Passion of Joan of Arc


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Hannah Brasier

Fig. 15 journey in a car with rainbow in the distance from Noticing

Fig. 16 droplets of rain on a car windscreen from Noticing

Fig. 17 wide shot of a collection of leaves in Noticing


31


Fig. 18 close-up shot of a leaf in Noticing

Fig. 19 shot of leaves attached to the trunk of a tree from Noticing

Fig. 20 shot of leaves and a powerline from Noticing

exegesis.indd 31 16/10/12 12:00 PM

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Hannah Brasier

Fig. 21 shot of pegs on a clothes line in the backyard montage clip

Fig. 22 grass plant shot, second shot of the backyard montage clip

Fig. 23 flowers, third shot of the backyard montage clip


33


Fig. 24 red flower moving in the wind from Noticing

Fig. 25 clouds reflected on the side of a skyscrapper from Noticing

Fig. 26 mini disco balls on a powerline from Noticing


34

Hannah Brasier


35


Noticing: a methodology of descriptive list making through The Pillow Book

The intention of my project is to create an interactive online

video using Deleuze’s concept of the cinematic affection-image

to perform the digital in-between. The theoretical proposition

of affect as a cinematic in-between allows for a concept of

the digital in-between to be formulated. The slow is a result

of these discussions, as an expansion of the description

and process which lies between noticing and doing, with

the intention that the slow will allow for aura and richer

experiences with online work. My project aims to merge the

cinematic and digital in-between within an interactive online

video made with Korsakow, which is an open source software

for the authoring of interactive online video.

Noticing, lists and reflection

My methodology to make a slow and affective online work is

informed by Mason’s proposition for noticing as research and


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Hannah Brasier

Shonogan’s The Pillow Book, due to their shared emphasis on

noticing and description. It is in light of these texts that I will

describe how I undertook my project, and furthermore how this

aligns with the theoretical underpinnings of slow and affect.

The methodology I developed for making the videos was

to find the in-between through a process of observing and

filming, rather than using the in-between as an external

prompt the videos would respond to. The starting point

was to film everyday moments that I believed were worth

noticing and build conceptually upon that collection. This

was a procedural and circular approach, as opposed to

a structured and linear process of writing, shooting and

editing, that is a more common convention for television

and film production. There were four steps to my approach:

filming what I noticed, editing together sequences, compiling

these within the Korsakow system, and then noticing what

was emerging within the work. Filming involved recording

what I noticed and editing involved placing some of what

I shot into sequences which reflected the themes which

were developing. Compiling was the process of organising

the clips and sequences within Korsakow to create a

project reminiscent of descriptive list-based works such

as Shonogan’s The Pillow Book. These lists then became a

means to focus further noticing and filming. However, this is

a reductive explanation of the processes involved, where each

step required reflection and prototyping used to enable the

project to develop and improve.


37


A selection of images worth noticingBergson’s sensory-motor-schema proposes that perception

is a selection of images from the world, where our bodies

are “in the presence of images, in the vaguest sense of the

word, images perceived when my senses are open to them,

unperceived when they are closed” (9). My approach to

shooting is informed by this relationship between perception

and our bodies, where perception is a selection of images

from the world, a filtering of the world to a reduction of

the images we notice. Bergson’s definition of noticing

became a means to think about me filming what I noticed,

and this would be selecting images from the world. This

concept of noticing and the body is expanded into a

research methodology by Mason who defines noticing as

a “distinction, to create foreground and background, to

distinguish some ‘thing’ from its surroundings” (33). His

contention is to “develop sensitivity, to gain control” of what

we notice and from this control make more informed choices

of how we respond to what we do “rather than following

whatever impulse arrives” (Mason 83). I developed my

methodology in light of this, where through the process of

noticing and filming I would “develop sensitivity” to refine

my noticing (Mason 83). My videos would then improve, as

Mason proposes an approach to research which emphasises

a development towards refined noticing which he suggests

is necessary to the success of professional practitioners

within any field (182).

I began my project filming things I saw as worth noticing,

what Mason describes as “marking”, which “signals that there

was something salient about the incident … a heightened


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Hannah Brasier

form of noticing” (33). My process was to film five videos a

day over a week, to view and reflect on these as a group,

and on the basis of noticed similarities between videos, to

develop the project from there. After viewing the first set of

videos, made over the first week, there were strengths and

weaknesses in terms of filming techniques, composition,

shot selection, and furthermore, I noticed particular thematic

similarities emerging between clips. In terms of composition

and shot selection stronger videos were framed in close-up

and possessed a moment of minor movement. For instance,

the yellow flower (Fig. 2), reeds blowing in the wind (Fig. 3),

and the reflection of light shifting on floorboards (Fig. 4), had

more resonance than the relative flatness of the wide-shot of

trains moving along train tracks (Fig. 5), and clouds reflected

on the side of a skyscraper (Fig. 6). In respect to thematic

similarities there were four themes I noticed encompassing

the work—nature (flowers, trees, reeds), urban (trains,

buildings, roads), light (reflection, shadow, glimmering) and

water (drains, droplets, rain). This reviewing of strengths

and weaknesses, in conjunction with thematic similarities

allowed me to create theme based sequences as well as

giving me direction for further filming.

Expanding description through The Pillow BookAs some videos were not as strong as others, yet thematic

similarities existed between these weaker ones, I decided to

create short edited sequences based on these resemblances.

For instance, the video of trains moving along tracks (Fig.

5) was edited into a sequence around an idea of transport.

This sequence shows people moving along a subway (Fig. 7),


39


trains along the tracks (Fig. 5) and two trams intersecting on

a busy bridge (Fig. 8). Once the videos were edited together

they were stronger in terms of what each individually

attempted to express, whilst avoiding becoming a narrative

movement through a series of events.

This sequence of transport expanded on description rather

than narrative, aligning with works such as Shonagon’s The

Pillow Book. This book, written in early eleventh century

Heian-Koyo, Japan, consists of “essays, lists, and diary

passages” (Fukumori 2), as McKinney notes a “crazy quilt of

vignettes and opinions and anecdotes” (ix) which describe

Shonogan’s experience in the high court. For my project I

concentrated on the list sections of this book which iterate

and describe what Shonagon notices, for instance:

Insects - The bell cricket. The cicada. Butterflies.

Crickets. Grasshoppers. Water-weed shrimps. Mayflies.

Fireflies. The bagworm is a very touching creature. It’s

a demon’s child, and the mother fears it must have the

same terrible nature as its parent, so she dresses it in

ragged clothes and tells it to wait until she returns for it

when the autumn wind blows. (47)

Through Shonogan’s description it is obvious that the

insect which holds particular resonance is the bagworm,

or in respect to Mason, it is the bagworm which Shonogan

“marks”, and makes salient to the reader. This expansion

of description allows Shonogan to express to her reader the

particular things she values in her noticing.


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Hannah Brasier

PrototypesI built a first prototype from footage collected during the first

two weeks of filming. The aim of the prototype was to test

whether the thematic connections I thought were evident

in the clips would reveal themselves when organised with

keywords in the Korsakow system. I organised individual

clips according to four dominating themes, using the

keywords—“artificial”, “nature”, “light” and “living beings”.

The clips within the project were attributed one or more

of the keywords, for instance, the video of the shadow of

the tree on the picket fence (Fig. 9) was given “nature” and

“light”. These clips, along with their keywords, were exported

into an interactive online video with an interface of one main

video and a set of six accompanying thumbnails, distributed

in two rows below the main video (Fig. 10).

As this prototype developed I realised the connections

between clips did not reveal the structure the keywords

described, realising other similarities between videos were

more pronounced visually than those I had chosen. I further

noticed the keywords I used were only loosely aligned with

some of the videos. Whilst I could see and identify resonances

between the clips via the interface this was not reflective of

the keywords attributed through the entire collection.

A more methodological approach was developed for Prototype

Two which aimed to realise the themes which were emerging

as dominant. I used the list sections of The Pillow Book to

think about the clips, for example, Shonogan’s lists begin

with a broad thought such as “Things which are better at

night” or “Things which are hard on the ear” followed by a

list of things which detail this thought, such as the “glow of


41


deep purple softened silk” and the “sound of someone with

an unpleasant voice talking or laughing uninhibitedly” (249).

The approach to Prototype Two (Fig. 11) was to view all clips

and list every word I considered to describe that clip, then to

group these words to form the eight broad lists: wind, water,

light, nature, urban, sky and abstract. These lists became

individual keywords for Prototype Two (Fig. 11), which was

exported using an interface with one main video and a set

of eight accompanying thumbnails, distributed in two rows

below the main video.

Two things became apparent from this methodical list

making used to develop Prototype Two. Firstly, the listing

allowed me to attune my attention to further notice and then

film the themes which were developing, giving me a set of

terms to structure additional filming around. In reference to

Mason the clips consisted of “moments of noticing” which

were “used to enhance future moments of noticing” with

the outcome to produce richer work to expand and enhance

what I had already filmed (185). The second realisation was

based on interface design deciding the thumbnails would be

reflective of a list. In the final project, entitled Noticing (Fig.

12), there are six thumbnails displayed vertically to the right

of the main video.

In analysing Prototypes One (Fig. 10) and Two (Fig. 11) I

came to several realisations in terms of developing Noticing.

Firstly, even though Prototype One was not expressing

exactly what I intended, the simplicity of four keywords and

six thumbnails allowed more visibility of the similarities

between clips, whereas Prototype Two whilst having a

stronger set of keywords used too many thumbnails making


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Hannah Brasier

it difficult to see within the interface connections between

clips. Furthermore, in Prototype Two, the user could get stuck

in one keyword group for a lengthy amount of time reducing

the possibility of multiple associations developing between

clips. These variations between Prototype One and Two led to

the development and construction of Noticing (Fig. 12), where

I decided to use less keywords and less thumbnails, making

the project simpler to navigate, yet the keywords reminiscent

of the lists constructed in light of the developing themes.

A methodology of disciplined noticing

Noticing is the result of an iterative process of collecting

footage, analysing, testing within the Korsakow system, and

exporting, where the project was built by reflecting on what

did and did not work and allowing this to determine what was

further filmed–enhancing the work through a circular process.

The final project uses five keywords which are the result of the

five dominant lists constructed through the listing process:

wind, light, water, nature and urban. These keywords were

used to focus further filming, attuning my noticing to the

themes which were appearing as particularly salient.

Made through a process of making and reflecting in and

on practice I developed a methodology of noticing which

reflected Mason’s argument:

To take the apparently simple notion of noticing, to

elaborate various features of the kind of noticing


43


which happens as part of carrying out professional

practice, and then to turn this into an intentional

activity, a discipline and practical approach to

enquiry and research. (30)

The initial filming began simply as “deciding to notice”,

where I developed a “sensitivity to notice particular things”

(Mason 30). The process of editing allowed me to expand

what I had initially noticed, becoming attuned to previous

observations. The listing followed by prototyping allowed

for further filming to become “an intentional activity” of

disciplined noticing which expanded the previous content

into thematic lists (Mason 30). Mason attributes expertise as

a “sensitisation to notice” (177) where to be an expert within

a particular field requires a refinement of noticing (182). My

project developed from a decision to notice, to a disciplined

methodology of noticing, which allowed for the videos to

enhance through the process.

The proposed outcome of my methodology of noticing is for

the user to notice what I have observed, where the clips,

keywords, and their associations emphasise what I have

“marked” through the filming process. Noticing, should have

a similar relationship with the user as The Pillow Book has

with its reader, where the descriptive and salient qualities of

the clips emphasised via their associations allow for the user

to notice, and as they progress through the work, become

attuned to these resonances. The intended outcome is that

this allows for affective user engagement with the work.


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Hannah Brasier


45


Close Up and Noticing:

slow and affective interactive online

videos

It is in the context of affect, the in-between, and how they

construct a concept of slow, that the works Close Up and

Noticing will be discussed in terms of the extent they can

be analysed as affective and then as slow interactive online

video works. Both works use Korsakow to explore Deleuze’s

concept of the affection-image to extend what lies between

noticing and doing within an online context. Close Up

adapts what Deleuze describes as the “affective film par

excellence, Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc” (109), to

extend the affections between Joan’s accusation and her

subsequent death. Noticing uses original video content,

based on a methodology of noticing, to focus on themes which

expand using video description what could be considered the

in-between. Both films, through video content, rules which

govern the work, and user interaction are affective and slow

due to their emphasis on expanding the in-between.


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Hannah Brasier

Close Up

Close Up breaks The Passion of Joan of Arc into its individual

shots. It uses five keywords to organise these shots, divided

between those which are strictly an affection-image, such as

the shots which express the Bishop’s anger, Joan’s sadness

and fear, or the people’s sympathy, and those that refer to the

three predominant events which take place within the film—

the accusation, the trial, and the burning at the stake. The

keywords which organise the clips are therefore “fear”, “sad”,

“happy” and “anger” (the affective series), and “trial” (which

shows representations of the events which take place within

the film). The interface shows one main video and a set of

eight accompanying thumbnails.

Extending the in-betweenThe structure of Close Up extends the in-between “internal”

affects, and subordinates the “whole historical state of

things” to the emotional affective intensities (Deleuze 109).

For example, if the main clip is Joan getting her hair cut in

misery (Fig. 13), this has fifty seven possible associations

with clips all containing the “sad” keyword, and thirty

nine clips connected via the “trial” keyword. The Korsakow

system selects eight out of these ninety-six clips to present

to the user through its interface, and then the user chooses

a thumbnail from this eight. The only rule which I have

scripted is that seven of those have to be “sad” and one has to

be “trial”. In this scenario the relationships possible between

clips don’t render narrative cause and effect, but assemble

a story of “sadness”. In contrast if the main video plays a


47


clip of Joan stating her name is Joan in France (Fig. 14) the

user has entered this clip via the “trial” keyword, and the

eight thumbnails will show two of each of the “sad”, “anger”,

“fear” and “happy” clips. In light of these scenarios there is a

greater likelihood the user will create associations between

the affection clips, rather than the “trial” perceptions and

actions. This is because every time a user enters an affect

video only one “trial” clip is available for selection and when

they enter a “trial” video I have scripted that only affect clips

are available within the thumbnails, making the affect videos

more prominent within the system. Furthermore, the affect

clips are programmed to always be available to the system,

whilst each of the “trial” clips are constrained to a maximum

of two appearances. What this means for the user is if they

explore the work over a prolonged period of time they will be

only left with a montage of affections. In doing this the time

of the film is also elongated because each of the affection

clips can be repeated an infinite amount of times, meaning

the duration of the work is not restricted to the eighty-two

minutes of the film, and will continue, depending on how

long the user engages with the work. The outcome of this

is a multitude of connections are possible between events

and affections, with a greater possibility of the user having

a prolonged engagement with the affective moments of the

film. The emphasis of the work is not for the user to progress

immediately from Joan’s trial to her subsequent death but to

experience the in-between of this passage.

This movement from perception (accusation) to action (death)

is further prolonged in Close Up by the exclusion of Joan’s

death from the architecture of the project. This exclusion


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Hannah Brasier

allows for further expansion of the in-between because the

“internal” intensities do not get subsumed into the action of

Joan dying, they remain as an excess because they extend

beyond the end of the film. This is what Tofts describes

as the “charged multiplicity of the beginning” (10), where

excluding the film’s conclusion allows the clips to “retain a

powerful sense of restrained encyclopaedic complexity” (12).

Furthermore, Tofts argues that the individual particle, or

in Close Up the individual clip, is dense in its ability to act

as a “potential multiplicity” which Tofts argues is “diffused

once it is extended into a relation, a link, an elongation”

(10). In other words each affection-image clip which makes

up the architecture of Close Up is a “potential multiplicity”

because the clips do not elongate or extend into the closure

of Joan’s death, allowing the clips to remain open as they are

not confined to the linearity and fixed duration of movement

through montage. This is because the user must literally

act, in terms of clicking a thumbnail, to proceed, allowing a

multitude of possible associations between clips. The user

creates associations between the individual clips depending

on what they see (perceive) and how they react towards what

they see (action), where their indecision of which thumbnail

to click next becomes a “centre of indetermination” (Deleuze

68). Close Up emphasises the connections between

affection-images in the underlying architecture of the

work, where the user is put into a position to expand the

in-between of the internal affections without losing the

potentiality of these intensities into the action of Joan’s

death.


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Noticing

The problem of Noticing is the work does not rely on

Deleuzian conceived affection-images, and therefore had to

generate its own content which could be read as affective.

Whilst Close Up was analysed as further expanding the

affection-images of Dreyer’s film, Noticing must be analysed

according to whether, firstly, the video content can be read

as affective and, secondly whether the relationships between

these clips determined by governed rules and user interaction

further expand the affection-images as cinematic in-between

within an online context.

Video content as affection-imageAs previously noted, the ability for Deleuze’s affection-image

to act as cinematic in-between is due its position as a quality

expressed within an indeterminate spatial field which

expands and slows movement from perception into action.

For instance, it is the “internal” descriptive qualities of the

clips within The Passion of Joan of Arc which allow Dreyer

to expand the time between Joan’s accusation and death as

they do not directly progress the narrative. Hence, Deleuze’s

affection-image exists as a centre of indetermination because

it describes, rather than tells narrative information.

In Noticing the clips can be viewed as affection-images

because they express descriptive qualities as opposed to

telling information, even the sequence clips do not tell a

narrative, rather they expand an idea. For instance, the clip

showing a montage of two different journeys in a car—one

showing a rainbow in the distance (Fig. 15), the other raindrops


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Hannah Brasier

on a windscreen (Fig. 16)—expand on the experience of being

in a car through showing two differing moments of salience.

The sequence does not show a journey from one destination

to another but expresses an intermittent capturing of two

different driving occasions without the car starting or

coming to a stop at any particular location. This allows the

user to notice the detail of the clips, such as the rainbow

in the background of the first shot, and the water droplets

accumulating on the windscreen in the second. There are

other clips within the work which expand on the in-between

through revealing different perspectives of the same thing.

For instance, there is a clip of four different perspectives of a

tree with cardboard and material constructed leaves attached

to it: a wide-shot of a collection of leaves (Fig. 17), a close-up

of one within this first collection (Fig. 18), a shot looking up at

some leaves attached to the trunk (Fig. 19) and a shot looking

up at two leaves and a power-line (Fig. 20). This sequence

is expanding on a particular entity through providing a

“multiplicity of points of view and singular aspects” which

allows the clip to extend without resulting in closure (Couchot

qtd. in Hansen, New Philosophy for New Media 204). The clip

shows multiple facets of one thing which “taken all together

they can only refer back to themselves, and constitute the

‘expressed’ of the state of things” (Deleuze 105).

Noticing and the any-space-whateverThe spaces and locations shown in Noticing can be analysed

according to the concept of the affection-image as “power-

quality presented in any-space-whatever” (original emphasis,

Deleuze 113). For instance, there are clips within the work

which capture noticed fragments of the same suburban


51


backyard, such as a shadow of a tree on a picket fence (Fig.

9), montage of pegs on a clothes line (Fig. 21), grass plant

(Fig. 22) and flowers (Fig. 23), and the clip of a red flower

moving to the wind (Fig. 24). These clips, in fragmenting the

space of the backyard, reveal certain qualities which exceed

the actuality of the space which they contextualise, where

according to Deleuze:

what in fact manifests the instability, the

heterogeneity, the absence of link of such a space, is

a richness in potentials or singularities which are,

as it were, prior conditions of all actualisation, all

determination. (113)

The qualities of light, colour and movement emphasised within

these clips exceed their actualisation, where the quality of light

is not and cannot be contained within a determined space.

This is shown through the work because other clips possess

the quality of light and reflection, such as the clip which shows

two shots of clouds reflected on the surface of a skyscraper

(Figs. 6 and 25) and light glimmering from disco balls on

a power line as they sway in the wind (Fig. 26). Therefore,

the qualities of the clips which the work encompasses are

expressed within any-space-whatever because the space is

not determining something which is specific to it. Rather the

spaces are expressing something which cannot be contained

within and furthermore exceed because the quality expressed

is evident in other clips of Noticing.

Affective engagementAs the clips which Noticing contain can be understood

according to Deleuze’s affection-image I can analyse


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Hannah Brasier

whether the associations which unfold between clips, as

determined by its governed rules and user interaction, further

emphasise and expand this affective in-between. This

analysis is in light of Miles’s “Click, Think, Link: Interval and

Affective Narrative” where he considers the level of affective

engagement with Korsakow interactive online video works to

be through the user’s indeterminacy and distance between

“perceiving, understanding and then deciding”, where the

extent of this interval is critical to the experience of the

work. Miles considers this to be a result of the associations

between clips not being “obvious, direct and literal”. The

user’s affective engagement is therefore determined by the

associations between the clips not being obvious, which

allows for an extension of user indeterminacy between

watching and clicking, perceiving and acting.

The associations which take place within Noticing will

be analysed according to their complexity, in the relations

between the user watching and then clicking the next

thumbnail being indeterminate. This complexity can be

explained via the affection-image affording multiplicity,

where as Deleuze notes:

The expressed — that is, the affect — is complex

because it is made up of all sorts of singularities that

it sometimes connects and into which it sometimes

divides. This is why it constantly varies and changes

qualitatively according to the connections that it

carries out or the divisions that it undergoes. (108)

An example which Deleuze details in respect to the

affection-image’s multiplicity is a “rapid montage of seven


53


hundred shots means that different views can be fitted

together in an infinite number of ways and, because they

are not orientated in relation to each other, constitute the set

of singularities” (114). The affection-image is more complex

within the context of interactive online video because the

associations between clips are not “fitted together” within a

“rapid montage”, but are determined through the rules which

govern the work, in conjunction with user interaction which

literally allows for infinite associations between clips.

This is evidenced within Noticing because most of the clips

have multiple keywords attributed to them meaning what

the user perceives within the clip is always open to change.

For instance, the clip of the backyard montage (Figs. 21, 22,

and 23) has three keywords attributed to it—wind, nature

and light, where the quality emphasised within the clip

changes as it is associated with other clips. The significance

of this is that the quality of the clip changes and expands its

multiplicity as the user moves through the work, furthermore

the clip is not directly associated with the other backyard

clips which could contextualise the clip within a determinate

space. The quality of the clip is therefore never static because

it changes as it is associated with other clips, emphasising

the shared qualities of the shots, such as light or nature,

rather than contextualising the clip within specific spatial-

temporal or narrative co-ordinates. For instance, if this

backyard montage clip follows the clip of the disco balls (Fig.

25) the shared quality emphasised is either light or wind,

however the next clip entered could be reeds blowing in the

wind (Fig. 3), where the shared quality could either be nature

or wind. These associations are further complicated because

the keywords and rules which govern the work are hidden


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Hannah Brasier

from the user, meaning what they notice within the clips

is indeterminable. Their decision to act (click) is reliant on

their affective engagement with the work, and the work relies

on their affective engagement to proceed, otherwise it will

literally stop. This affective interplay between work and user

is reminiscent of the interaction Hansen describes in terms of

new media art, where:

Affectivity thereby becomes the very medium of

interface with the image. What this means is that

affectivity actualises the potential of the image at

the same time as it virtualizes the body: the crucial

element is neither image nor body alone, but the

dynamical interaction between them. (“Affect as

Medium, or the ‘Digital-Facial-Image’” 208)

Noticing expands the in-between quality of the clips through

the governed rules emphasising the multiplicity of these

qualities, and expands the affective interval of the user

between perceiving and clicking. The user must, through

the clips not providing literal nor static connections, have an

affective engagement with the work in order for it to progress.

Slow and digital

Close Up and Noticing can be viewed as affective interactive

online video works because each consist of affection-images,

which, through the rules which govern the work, expand

as the user interacts with them. Close Up emphasises the

in-between through concentrating on, and then prolonging


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the affections which exist within The Passion of Joan of Arc,

and Noticing through the work’s emphasis on intermittent

qualities of everyday occurrences which are extended

through the clips having a multiplicity of associations

between them. Hence, because both works emphasise

and expand the in-between they can be considered as

manifesting the slow within the speed-driven online

environment.


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Conclusion

My research problem emerged from the two theoretical

perspectives of Deleuze’s affection-image, in conjunction

with speed and the online, where through the process of

making two interactive online video works I believe I have

identified a way to theorise and make slow and affective

interactive online videos.

What I have learnt through my project based research is a

theorisation of the slow within a digital context and how

this concept of the slow can be applied through interactive

online video practice to create affective user engagement

with online work which does not adhere to the fast-paced

environment often attributed to the online.

Conceptualising the slow

I conceptualised the slow using the two theoretical

trajectories of speed and the online, and Deleuze’s concept of

the affection-image, to theorise the slow as the in-between.

In respect to theorists Illich, Rieger and Trapp, along with

Manovich, I conceptualised the in-between as an expansion

of description, process, appreciation and technique which lies

between the here and there, events and their reactions. The

outcome I sought in the projects was by expanding these things

a richer understanding and experience of online work could be


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Hannah Brasier

achieved because distance has been elongated between events

and their reactions and aura has returned to the work.

Deleuze, in turn, allows this concept of the in-between to be

framed within a cinematic context through detailing how the

affection-image in its form as either power-quality expressed

by a face or any-space-whatever expands the time between

perception and action in film.

As contended by Miles the ability for the affection-image

to perform as a centre-of-indetermination is “isomorphic”

with interactive online video practice where the user is

positioned as a centre-of-indetermination, where the extent

of their indeterminacy between watching and clicking

is essential to their affective engagement with Korsakow

interactive online works.

A methodology of attuned noticing

My methodology was informed by Mason, where noticing

as research allowed me a means to create interactive online

video attuned to the concepts of slow and affect. This was

because Mason’s methodology asked me to be conscious of

my position in regard to all possible images, and to make

these conscious observations salient through capturing them

on video. Hence, the videos I captured reflected my noticing,

and these observations in turn helped develop the emerging

structure of creating my project Noticing.


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Affective and slow works

The aim of Close Up and Noticing was to take my theoretical

understanding of slow as the digital in-between, and

Deleuze’s concept of affect as a cinematic in-between, and

apply these theories through an interactive online video

practice. The outcome has been two works which draw on

Deleuze’s affection-image for the content of the clips, using

the rules which govern the work and user interaction to

expand the affective qualities evident within the videos.

This level of affective engagement expands the user’s

indetermination as they progress through the work because

the qualities emphasised in and between the clips changes

according to user engagement, where Hansen considers the:

most significant experiments with new media

carry on the legacy of Bergson’s … understanding

of technology as a means of expanding the body’s

margin of indetermination. (New Philosophy for New

Media 10)

What I realised through my research was a means to theorise

and make two affective and slow interactive online videos,

discovering a practice which afforded me the possibility to

create work which inserts a manifestation of the slow within

the speed driven online environment.

My research has changed how I approach interactive online

video production, where through creating Close Up and Noticing

I have found a process of making interactive online video

which I can discuss and explain within a slow and cinematic

framework. Through this process I have found a methodology


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Hannah Brasier

of creating small descriptive interactive online video works

made possible through a methodology I can apply to further

research projects within an online and cinematic discipline.


61


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Noticing: creating slow and affective interactive online video

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