WS 08 – MEDIUMS AND FORMATS PART 2:
UNTIMELY SPECIFICS AND DUAL ARTICULATIONS.
(english below)
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO EXIST IN THE NO-MAN’S LAND OF ‘THE BETWEEN’?
For a long time – during the debates over modernism and post-modernism – we have thought that only one direction was possible: the shared apocalypticism of the tabula rasa of Futurist dreams or the eternal return of allegorical procedures; the structural equivalence of modernist abstraction or post-modernist citation, aesthetic originality or anti-aesthetic repetition, medium-specificity or intermedia hybridity. Such oppositions no longer hold; or rather, at times, they no longer seem opposed. (George Baker, Re-Animations (I), October 104, Spring 2003)
Cinema’s sole specificity is that of collecting images that are no longer made for it. (Serge Daney)
Ausgehend von dem Experimentalfilm „Standard Gauge“ des Avantgarde-Filmemachers Morgan Fisher, in dem das Verhältnis von 16mm- zu 35mm-Film, von Amateur- zu Profi-Formaten, aber auch die Wechselwirkungen zwischen Stand- und Bewegtbild untersucht werden, stehen im kommenden Semester die Begriffe des „Formats“ und – damit untrennbar verbunden – des „Mediums“ im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit. Diese Begriffe werden anhand von theoretischen Referenzen und konkreten künstlerischen Praxen untersucht, um so die Frage nach der „Medienspezifität“ ins Blickfeld zu rücken. Rosalind Krauss’ Kritik am Begriff des „Mediums“, ihre These von der „post-medialen Kondition“ und der von ihr vorgeschlagene Begriff der „differential specificity“ sollen hier als inhaltliche Koordinaten dienen.
The rich satisfaction of thinking about film’s specificity (in the late Sixties) derived from the medium’s aggregate condition, one that led a slightly later generation of theorists to define its support with the compound idea of the „apparatus“ – the medium or support for film being neither the celluloid strip of the images, nor the camera that filmed them, nor the projector that brings them to life in motion, nor the beam of light that relays them to the screen, nor that screen itself, but all of these taken together, including the audiences position caught between the source of the light behind it and the image projected before its eyes. Structuralist film set itself the project of producing the unity of this diversified support in a single, sustained experience in which the utter interdependence of all these things would itself be revealed as a model of how the viewer is intentionally connected to his or her world. The parts of the apparatus would be like things that cannot touch on each other without themselves being touched. (Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on the North Sea)
At the point where the cinematographic image most directly confronts the photo, it also becomes most radically distinct from it. (Gilles Deleuze)
Diese Themen werden anhand der Werke einer Reihe von KünstlerInnenexemplifiziert, deren Arbeiten einerseits die Differenz von Medien, dieWechselwirkung von „Konvention“ und „Material“, und andererseits dieBeziehung zwischen Film und Fotografie, also zwischen Stillstellung undBewegung, in den Blick nehmen. Diese Beziehung stellt die zweitethematische Referenz dar, auf die im Rahmen der Projektarbeiteingegangen werden soll. Bei den vorgestellten Werken handelt es sichhäufig um Produktionen, die im übertragenen Sinn „gegen“ ihr jeweiligesProduktionsmedium Widerspruch einlegen, indem Eigenschaften andererMedien rückübertragen, zitiert oder emuliert werden, und die sich sobewusst in einem terrain vague, in einem Niemandsland zwischenverschiedenen Medien und Formaten positionieren. „What does it mean toexist in the no-man’s land of the „between“?“ ist eine Frage, die zustellen sein wird.
Betweentwo actions, between two affections, between two perceptions, betweentwo visual images, between two sound images, between the sound and thevisual: make the indiscernible, that is the frontier, visible. (GillesDeleuze)
Der Begriff „dual articulation“ („zweifache Äusserung“) wird erstmals vom Autor George Baker in seinem Text Reanimations zum Werk von JamesColeman aufgebracht, in dem er vorschlägt, dass eine „dualarticulation“ nicht von der Kollision zweier Medien als gegensätzlicher„Essentialismen“ handelt, die mit den materiellen Einschränkungen desTrägermediums zusammenfallen – beispielsweise die der Fotografieinhärente Stasis, die dem Fluss der Kino-Bilder den Krieg erklärt. Nochsoll der Begriff mit der verschwommenen Ungenauigkeit assoziiertwerden, den die Rede von der „Intermedialität“ suggeriert. Die„zweifache Äusserung“ steht vielmehr der von Rosalind Krauss an andererStelle entwickelten Vorstellung eines „self-differing medium“ nahe: daskönnte man eine „selbst-entäusserte“ Form nennen, eine Form, die sichselbst an etwas anderes „weiter-gibt“. „Zweifache Äusserung“ hieße dannso etwas wie ein radikales Teilen von Formen: Wir wären also gezwungenuns vorzustellen, dass Medien einander durchdringen können, ohne ihreSpezifizität zu verlieren, ohne „generell“ zu werden.
WERKE VON
Fareed Armaly, Marcel Broodthaers, Charles Burnett, James Coleman,Jeroen De Rijke / Willem De Rooij, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, MorganFisher, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Gordon Matta-Clark, Chris Marker,Christopher Nolan, Louise Lawler, Michael Snow, Felix Gonzalez-Torres,Christopher Williams, Frederic Wiseman u.a.
TEXTE VON
Julie Ault, Roland Barthes, George Baker, Thomas W. Benson &Carolyn Anderson, Raymond Bellour, Christa Blümlinger, MarianneBrouwer, Jean Fisher, Morgan Fisher, Michael Fried, Dan Graham, StephenHeath, David E. James, Philipp Kaiser, Rosalind Krauss, Miwon Kwon,Scott McDonald, Rachel Moore, Michael Newman, Juliane Rebentisch, Bérénice Reynaud, Tim Rollins, D. N. Rodowick, Robert Storr, KajaSilverman, Susan Tallman, Alan Williams u. a.
AUSSCHNITTE AUS
The Wire
Westwing
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Das Semesterthema wird hinsichtlich des Projekts „Monat derFotografie“ vorgeschlagen, an dem Studierende der Klassen Herrmann,Margreiter und Ruhm teilnehmen können. Dieses Projekt findet seinenAbschluss in einer gemeinsamen Ausstellung, die im November 2008 in derAkademie der Bildenden Künste eröffnen wird.
We photograph things to drive them out of our minds. (Franz Kafka)
—
MEDIUM AND FORMATS:
UNTIMELY SPECIFICS AND DUAL ARTICULATIONS.
“WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO EXIST IN THE N0-MAN’S LAND OF THE ‘BETWEEN’?”
For a long time – during the debates over modernism and post-modernism – we have thought that only one direction was possible: the shared apocalypticism of the tabula rasa of Futurist dreams or the eternal return of allegorical procedures; the structural equivalence of modernist abstraction or post-modernist citation, aesthetic originality or anti-aesthetic repetition, medium-specificity or intermedia hybridity. Such oppositions no longer hold; or rather, at times, they no longer seem opposed. (George Baker, Re-Animations (I), October 104, Spring 2003)
Cinema’s sole specificity is that of collecting images that are no longer made for it.
(Serge Daney)
Based on American experimental filmmaker Morgan Fisher’s film „Standard Gauge“ which investigates the relation of 16mm- to 35mm-film standards, of „amateur“ vs. „professional“, as well as reflecting on the interplay of still and moving image, the terminologies of „format“ and (inextricably linked) of „medium“ are at the center of interest. These terms will be investigated by using theoretical references as well as artistic practices, in order to focus on the question of „media specificity“. Rosalind Krauss’ critique of the „medium“ as such, her thesis of a „post-medium condition“, as well as her terminology of „differential specificity“ will orient the discourse.
The rich satisfaction of thinking about film’s specificity (in the late Sixties) derived from the medium’s aggregate condition, one that led a slightly later generation of theorists to define its support with the compound idea of the „apparatus“ – the medium or support for film being neither the celluloid strip of the images, nor the camera that filmed them, nor the projector that brings them to life in motion, nor the beam of light that relays them to the screen, nor that screen itself, but all of these taken together, including the audiences position caught between the source of the light behind it and the image projected before its eyes. Structuralist film set itself the project of producing the unity of this diversified support in a single, sustained experience in which the utter interdependence of all these things would itself be revealed as a model of how the viewer is intentionally connected to his or her world. The parts of the apparatus would be like things that cannot touch on each other without themselves being touched. (Rosalind Krauss, A Voyage on the North Sea)
At the point where the cinematographic image most directly confronts the photo, it also becomes most radically distinct from it. (Gilles Deleuze)
Those subjects will be introduced and discussed by exemplifying works of a number of artists who on the one hand reflect on the distinction between media and the interplay of „convention“ and „material“, and who on the other hand deal with the notion of the relation of film and photography, thus with the relation of still and moving image. This relation constitutes the second focal point in regard of developing a project during the coming semester. The works discussed are productions which „contradict“ their original medium by re-engineering, re-projecting, by quoting or emulating specifics of other media. Thus these take up a position in a no man’s land between distinct media formats. „What does it mean to exist in the no-man’s land of the „between“?“ is the question to be asked.
Between two actions, between two affections, between two perceptions, between two visual images, between two sound images, between the sound and the visual: make the indiscernible, that is the frontier, visible. (Gilles Deleuze)
The term of „dual articulation“ is raised for the first time by author George Baker in his text on James Colemans oeuvre, where he suggests that „Dual articulation is not about a collision of mediums as opposed „essences“ – the inherent stasis of photography, for example, proclaiming war upon the flux of cinema – essences identical with the material limitations of the medium’s support. Nor is it to be equated with the mushy imprecision of what has been called „intermedia.“ It is close to what (Rosalind) Krauss will elsewhere theorize as the „self-differing medium“; call it, rather, something like a „self-exposed“ form, a form that „gives“ itself to others. Dual articulation would be seomthing like a radical sharing of forms. It would force us to imagine that mediums could interpenetrate without losing their specificity, without becoming „general.“
WORKS BY
Fareed Armaly, Marcel Broodthaers, Charles Burnett, James Coleman, Jeroen De Rijke / Willem De Rooij, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Morgan Fisher, Hollis Frampton, Dan Graham, Gordon Matta-Clark, Chris Marker, Christopher Nolan, Louise Lawler, Michael Snow, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Christopher Williams, Frederic Wiseman et al.
TEXTS BY
Julie Ault, Roland Barthes, George Baker, Thomas W. Benson & Carolyn Anderson, Raymond Bellour, Christa Blümlinger, Marianne Brouwer, Jean Fisher, Morgan Fisher, Michael Fried, Dan Graham, Stephen Heath, David E. James, Philipp Kaiser, Rosalind Krauss, Miwon Kwon, Scott McDonald, Rachel Moore, Michael Newman, Juliane Rebentisch, Bérénice Reynaud, Tim Rollins, D. N. Rodowick, Robert Storr, Kaja Silverman, Susan Tallman, Alan Williams et al.
CLIPS FROM
The Wire
Westwing
Curb Your Enthusiasm
We photograph things to drive them out of our minds. (Franz Kafka)