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Cinemélange: ITP Thesis Paper · Wednesday April 30, 2003

Man Ascending Staircase (1887) by Eadweard Muybridge

Cinemélange

Matthew Belanger
ITP Thesis Paper 2003

Acknowledgement

For my mother and father who have supported and guided me through life.

Introduction

Many past and present video artists have had a desire to make video a more participatory or democratic medium. Making this aim a reality has been central to my thesis. Cinemélange is a suite of motion picture players, mixers, and editors that encourage the viewer to become more active in their experience of motion picture based media. Once viewers become more active in their experience of film and video, new narratives will emerge taking the place of the passive story.

Research

Early Motion Picture Devices

Although Egyptian and Greek scientists noted the persistence of motion phenomenon earlier, Peter Mark Roget became the first person to scientifically document the persistence of vision in 1824. Roget proved that an image is retained in the retina for approximately 1/16th of a second after that image actually existed. This flaw in our optic system has often been said to account for the illusion of motion created by a series of rapidly changing still images.

There is some debate at present about whether the persistence of motion phenomenon actually matters in terms of us seeing motion pictures. Regardless, Roget’s research into the theory of the motion pictures helped ignite society’s passion for motion pictures to this day. Roget and two other people are attributed with the invention of one of the earliest motion picture devices, the Thaumatrope, a card with a different image on either side and two strings attached at either end. The string can be rolled between the fingers, rapidly spinning the attached card, and creating a single image.

Another early motion picture device, the Phenakistoscope, a circular card with a series of printed images on it that when spun creates a looping animation, was developed in 1832 by Joseph Plateau. An unknown Chinese inventor designed the first known Zoetrope in 180, but William Horner is credited with the invention in 1834. The Zoetrope consists of a drum with a removable paper band of images placed on the inside. When spun the images inside the drum creates a looping animation.

Film

Eadweard Muybridge produced many series of images for use with the Zeotrope in the 1870s and was intensely interested in the science of motion and in capturing motion through photography. He and his assistant devised a system that triggered 24 individual cameras to take pictures at precisely the right moments to capture believable motion.

Thomas Edison is credited with developing the first single camera system for capturing motion pictures in 1889. He developed a system that used a camera called the Kinetograph that captured images onto specially designed 35mm film. The film was displayed on a device called a Kinetoscope that was an upright wooden cabinet with a 50 foot continuous loop of film, a lamp, and a shutter. The Kinetoscope had a single eyepiece. Later projection was developed so that an audience of many could see the images captured by motion picture cameras.

Video

Video has its roots in the television image. It makes sense then to begin looking at the history of video with Karl Ferdinand Braun’s 1897 invention of the CRT, the first cathode ray tube, scanning device. A CRT can be used to display patterns produced by an electrical signal.

Philo Farnsworth’s 1927 transmission of an image, the dollar sign, through air was the next major development. His research into converting optical imagery into electric signals laid the foundation for all modern televisions. Because of the high cost of producing and distributing video imagery in the early days, video became the sole domain of the television industry.

Video became a more accessible, albeit still expensive, tool for art making beginning in 1968 when Sony introduced the first consumer black and white video cameras. One of the principles that drove early video artists included a desire to compete with, or provide an alternative to mainstream television stations. The goal of many early video artists, to make video a more democratic medium, has been a motivating factor in the development of many interactive video based works. By the late 1970s Beta and VHS tape formats began to emerge as standards. Cable and satellite technology as well as video discs, similar to today’s Laser Discs and DVDs, began to emerge in the 1970s and 80s.

Quicktime, a computer based platform for video that allows small video sequences to be played on the computer’s desktop was introduced in 1991. These technologies allowed for some of the earliest interactive video experimentation. Viewer participation was often limited in these early works. However, several groundbreaking pieces were developed utilizing these interactive forms. These interactive video works also provide a context for my project.

Video Installation Art

Video has had a presence in art, particularly installation based works, since the late 1950s. Multimedia artist Wolf Vostell’s 1958 installation into a Paris store front, TV De – coll / ages, included among household furniture several television sets displaying distorted imagery. TV De – coll / ages was a declaration of the Fluxus idea that art is the total merging of objects and experiences; sound, movement, color, form, as well as the mental and physical state of the viewer. The piece was also a comment on televisions intrusion into the modern individual’s life and home.

Many early video installations included surveillance techniques that made the viewer a part of the work. Les Levine’s Slipcover, shown in 1966, was the first work to show images of the viewers on a series of monitors.

Bruce Nauman’s Video Corridor, shown in 1968, was a very narrow hall formed by two floor to ceiling panels. Two monitors were at the opposite end of the hall. As the viewer stepped into the hall and walked toward the opposite end they were shown live surveillance footage of themselves in the hall.

Analog and Digital Video Mixers

Electronics engineers and enthusiasts were responsible for developing the first analog video synthesizers in the mid 1960s. Dan Slater, Bill Hearn, and Stephen Beck were responsible for some of the earliest video synthesizers. They were often huge, up to 30 feet long, and had very limited capabilities. They often didn’t have video inputs so the video image was simply created by colorful light waveforms and the source was often an audio signal. Video Synthesizers that did contain video input were often limited to simple scale, rotation, and color changes. Naim June Paik and Shuya Abe developed a video synthesizer in 1973 that included 7 video inputs with individual gain controls, feedback, magnetic scan modulation, non-linear mixing capabilities, and color control.

One of the first digital video synthesizers, SAID ( Spatial and Intensity Digitizer), was developed in 1975 by Don McArthur. SAID had two modes of operation. In the first mode, a user could input programs through a keyboard and preview the results. Once satisfied with the imagery, the user could switch the machine over to an automatic mode that would run through the program and generate video signals in real time. SAID could generate video from strictly internal signals or process and synthesize video from an external source.

Satellite and Cable Television Programs

In 1974 Douglas Davis began experimenting with live satellite broadcasts in Austria. In these works Davis addressed the distant audience, asking them to come to the television set and place their lips against it. He invited viewer participation at a level generally nonexistent or at least discouraged in mainstream broadcasts. In 1977 Davis, Nam June Paik, and Joseph Beuys aired Documenta VI, a satellite telecast, in over 25 countries. Davis’s piece, The Last Nine Minutes, addressed the distance in time and space between himself and the audience.

Good Morning Mr. Orwell, a collaborative video comment on George Orwell’s dystopian future, was produced by Nam June Paik in 1984. It featured numerous live and recorded video performances by Paik, Salvatore Dali, Laurie Anderson, and Allen Ginsberg among others. It was not so much a chance for viewers to participate in the authorship of video, but it was an impressive technological demonstration of the power of collaborative networked expression through satellite video.

Video Disc Based Art and Games

Lynn Hershman’s Lorna, the first interactive video disc based work, was produced in 1982. The participant is asked to assume the role of Lorna, a middle aged woman who has been made agoraphobic after watching too much television drama, news, and advertising. Objects in Lorna’s apartment can be manipulated by selecting them from a remote control. As Lorna, you may traverse her life however you see fit, turning on the television, using the phone, or shooting a gun. A branching nonlinear narrative is created that ultimately leads to one of three endings.

Graham Weinbren and Roberta Friedman’s The Erl King utilizes three video disc players, a computer, and a touch screen, to produce an experience where the viewer can touch the screen at any time to change what they are seeing. With each touch, the story, a fairy tale about a father who would not listen to the fears of his child, branches in a new but relevant direction. The structure of the narrative is derived from the structure or lack of structure inherent to dreaming.

Video disc based arcade games began to appear in arcades in the early 1980s. One of the first, and certainly the most memorable, Cinematronics’ Dragon’s Lair, was released in 1983. The game featured about half an hour of animation by Don Bluth spliced into 30 randomly arranged adventures. The goal was to make your way through each stage, eventually slaying a dragon, by memorizing a series of commands; jump, duck, swing sword, etcetera, and performing them at precise moments in the game. The narrative was based on a very simple branching structure and the player had very little control over what happened.

Development of video disc based arcade games eventually came to a halt after the novelty wore off, because of the high cost of development and manufacturing. The genera made a comeback with the arrival of CD-ROM based computers and video game consoles. ICOM Simulations Sherlock Holms Consulting Detective was released for NEC’s Turbo Grafx CD home video game system in the early 1991 and later on PCs. The player could solve a murder mystery by watching live action video clips of suspects, witnesses, and informants. Choices could be made that might allow the player to collect evidence and bring the perpetrator to trial.

Live Video Performance Art

Robert Rauschenberg’s 1966 performance Open Score (Bong) is one of the first elaborate uses of video in performance art. Footage of five hundred people performing simple gestures were gathered and projected onto three screens all the while a tennis match was going on with rackets wired for audio.

Many musicians have used video to enhance live performances, and VJs often create visuals for music, but few have brought sight and sound together in live performance as effectively as DJ Shadow. On stage Shadow brings his cut & paste style to the audio and video he is mixing. Shadow controls his motion graphics sequences with a series of video sampling and mixing devices.

Web Based Video

Bertrand Gondouin’s Mixnbrew is an online video lab that creates software for real-time online video editing. Mixnbrew’s primary application, Symtonic Suite, allows users to mix up to 6 video channels from a large database of media from within a web browser. The final compositions can be uploaded to personal “bins” on the Mixnbew server.

Alberto Bordonaro’s FLxER is a Flash based video mixer that allows the user to mix videos from up to 4 channels in a web browser. Many basic video mixing capabilities, such as transparency, scale, color, and text controls are available to the user.

Concept

Video as a Democratic Medium for Storytelling

Many past and present video artists have had a desire to make video a more participatory or democratic medium. Making this aim a reality has been central to my thesis. Cinemélange is a suite of motion picture players, mixers, and editors that encourage the viewer to become more active in their experience of motion picture based media. Once viewers become more active in their experience of film and video, new narratives will emerge taking the place of the passive story.

Cinemélange consists of a series of experimental video manipulation tools and a library of sample video material. The viewer is encouraged to explore the different tools and experience video from the library or import their own material. These tools provide an intuitive interface that allows the source material to be playfully seen and manipulated in many unique ways. The viewer can recontextualize the material, creating new narratives, by adjusting properties of the video clips such as size, position, and transparency, by creating short loops from longer sequences, and through juxtaposition by generating spatial and temporal montages.

Old Storytelling Media Versus New

Traditional storytelling techniques generally tell simple narratives about someone whose situation is supposed to symbolize our own. We are supposed to connect with the individual the story is about and apply the experience to own life. Cinemélange creates an opportunity for new stories to be told by the viewer that more directly express his or her own interests. These stories need not resemble traditional narratives at all. They do not have to present cause and effect, define good and evil, or adhere to the traditional narrative arch.

Traditional narratives often have a moral or point. This moral is seldom the view of the one experiencing the narrative and often the precept of the narrative’s author. By empowering the viewer to become a narrative creator narratives can become more honest and fulfilling for the viewer.

New narratives might consist of motion picture samples taken from popular culture mixed with material of personal experiences to form a new whole. Loops and montage are likely to become essential parts of modern stories. New narratives will likely combine the techniques of chaos theory with the style of hip-hop culture. These new narratives will replace the traditional story with something that is more in line with our modern sensibilities and understanding of the world.

The limits of traditional mainstream drama, film, and television make viewer participation impossible or limited because:

Solutions to the inherent limits of traditional drama, film, and television are now possible through new technologies and new narrative techniques: