User:Eleanorg/1.2/RWR/Annotation: Versions / Vvversions

Annotation of 'Versions' and 'Vvversions' by Oliver Laric

Oliver Laric's two short films 'Versions' and 'Vvversions' offer a series of meditations on digital visual culture, in the form of photos and videos accompanied by a polemic voiceover. The two films attempt to contextualise phenomena such as remixes, memes and infinite duplicates with reference to other historical events and ideas.

Protestant iconoclasm, for example, is revisited as an early form of remix culture: "Icons are defied by an iconoclastic destruction, that is also simultaneously productive" (Laric, 2010a); "Stone statues were used as cobble stones... or were modified to represent something new" (Laric, 2010b). Laric suggests that the present-day condemnation of pirated films, on the other hand, may have its origin "in the monotheistic religions' declaration of idolatry as a major sin. Passages prohibiting the depictions of God in the Koran, Torah and Bible negate the authenticity and validity of variations, and could be read as the original dogma of a copyright manifesto" (Laric, 2010a).

Laric also experiments with several different ways of conceptualising the phenomenon of internet memes and remixes. The infinite repetition (with minor modifications) of a single image is conceptualised as a performance, playing the original like a musical score; as a growing organism which evolves faster than official corporate versions; and as a multiverse where every conceivable variation on a given starting-point is realised.

The form of the films themselves contributes to their content, the two films working over similar issues, and in several scenes, re-using the same images and fragments of text, so that they are arguably two variations rather than separate works. Remixes of the first Version by other people are also hosted on Laric's website.

• Laric, O. (2010a) Versions. [online] Available at: http://oliverlaric.com/versions.htm (Accessed 1 March 2012).
• Laric, O. (2010b) Vvversions. [online] Available at: http://oliverlaric.com/vvversions.htm (Accessed 1 March 2012).