Latest revision as of 12:32, 10 December 2013

Nicole Hametner, Trimester 2, april 2013

Self Directed Research

Description

My ongoing field of interest lies in a comparison of photography and video, from stillness towards moving image, shifting from analog to digital. The construction of the image itself and the meaning of it will be looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expresses some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. The investigation is based on questions about how time and space behave in a so-called time-based media. Besides the theoretical study stands an empirical research of the practical examination, which leads to the core of each element and results in an artistic outcome.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE IMAGE
Initially coming from photography my work was always based on the singularity/ behavior/ nature of the medium itself. The confrontation with the video image allows me to go further with this investigation. Through thinking about the construction of the video image the idea emerges that the image as such is never present as a whole and therefore never exists all at once. What does that mean compared to photography, the frozen, petrified frame with the referent that left its mark on the film? What do we recognize on the surface while zooming closer in the video or on the other hand blow up the negative? Can we consider noise at the limit of perception as the autonomy of the image? Do we see leaves shaking in the wind or where do the subtle movements inside the frame come from? For all these questions serve on one side an observation of underexposed videos depicting nightly landscapes in a fixed frame and on the other side its counterpart, long time exposed photographs existing also at the limit of perception. While the latter is a collection of different layers of light in one single frame, the video is constructed continuously in time and space. As theoretical reference for this purpose serves Videophilosophy from Maurizio Lazzarato, he furthermore refers to Henri Bergson who also came up while studying Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2. The main interest here is a philosophical approach to the image and the notion of time. The self-referential language allows asking abstract questions about the dematerialization during the analog digital conversion and the loss of indexicality. What means according to Bergson matter and memory and how can these questions be guided towards an artistic examination? The latter should then open space for associations and invite the spectator to a precise contemplation on the images surface and beyond.

THE GAZE
The theme of perception has a prominent part in my self-directed-work, this leads subsequently to the role of the observer. For this line of research I am basically influenced of Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the observer, his presentation of different devices in the 19th century and the shifting in perception. The implication of the spectator and his part while looking at an artwork become important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind. The theme of the gaze is introduced in my third area of investigation, filmed portraits. As references therefore serve literature about the gaze in theory of cinema, such as Laura Mulvey's Death 24 times a second and Kaja Silverman's The threshold of the visible world. Both are linked to concepts of psychoanalysis and the uncanny. For this project the aim will be to reflect about the form of a video installation with three projection screens. They show portraits of three women filmed in a fixed frame with an additional counter-zoom (vertigo effect). The changing of the perspective provokes a subtle movement, barely recognizable. The look back to the audience and the slight deformation of the faces leave the spectator with an uncertainty about who is the one that is shifting. The Oval Portrait from Edgar Allen Poe leads here together with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Olympia to the idea of a model that floats between human and automated mannequin. The petrifying art of photography is examined in the filmed portraits, where subtle agitations interrupt the stillness of the model and thereby the spectator.

Media

Construction of the image 01

Construction of the image02

Construction of the image03

Construction of the image04

The Gaze

Thematic Project - Encyclopedia of Media Objects

Personal entry - Black Box
Visitors entry - The Alphabet

Essay

This research was initiated by the look of an old folded up viewcamera that reminded the shape of an alien box. The theme of the black box was the subsequent thought, brought with the fascination for the unknown within, where only input and output is known, but the transition between remains ambiguous. Besides a short overview of the technical image in media history, the main subject in this entry will be the analog digital conversion. The construction of the analog photographic image and the digital video image will be juxtaposed and serve as foundation to examine the idea of the so-called loss of materiality. This process of transformation will be looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expresses some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity.

>>> Black Box

Reading, Writing and Research Methodologies

Keywords and reading list
Transmediale and position vis-à-vis new technologies

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-  Nicole Hametner, Trimester 1, 2012
+  Nicole Hametner, Trimester 2, april 2013
-= Prototyping =
+= Self Directed Research =
-== Description ==
+==Description==
-The confrontation in prototyping with coding had in this first trimester the most prominent part and I have tried to synthesize this experience of learning a new language.
+My ongoing field of interest lies in a comparison of photography and video, from stillness towards moving image, shifting from analog to digital. The construction of the image itself and the meaning of it will be looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expresses some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. The investigation is based on questions about how time and space behave in a so-called time-based media. Besides the theoretical study stands an empirical research of the practical examination, which leads to the core of each element and results in an artistic outcome.<br>
-The following small projects can be seen as an attempt to relate some of the pieces in which I include my personal interest in perception and try to visualize with the learned means my reflections. I now have slightly a more concrete idea of what is possible in using code, but my skills have meanwhile reached their limit for the final realization, therefore everything stays at that moment in a state of a draft and potential starting point for continuation.
+<br><br>
-The basic idea was to bring up the decision inside of a loop and how a shift in direction can be made perceptible. After having programmed in Javascript the structure I now want to include an animation fed by the Internet inside the blue hallway. I would like to pass an input through the hallway, which is changing direction, a signal that comes from online and goes into my file that stays offline. I was intrigued with the thought to use an html file against its purpose. Questions from the thematic project about rhythm came up and merged with my research. During the construction of the first canvas and its idea of introducing a timed rhythm from the Internet, the thought about heartbeat was the next association and the reason for the implemented green colored structure of an ECG. The subsequent red pulsating circle becomes consequently the source of the ensemble and allows the whole to be seen as a RGB triptych. The notion of additive color finally closes the circle to perception and leads to the Thaumatrope, a device from the nineteenth century that is threaten in the text about Jonathan Crary’s Techniques of the observer.
+CONSTRUCTION OF THE IMAGE<br>
+Initially coming from photography my work was always based on the singularity/ behavior/ nature of the medium itself. The confrontation with the video image allows me to go further with this investigation. Through thinking about the construction of the video image the idea emerges that the image as such is never present as a whole and therefore never exists all at once.
+What does that mean compared to photography, the frozen, petrified frame with the referent that left its mark on the film? What do we recognize on the surface while zooming closer in the video or on the other hand blow up the negative? Can we consider noise at the limit of perception as the autonomy of the image? Do we see leaves shaking in the wind or where do the subtle movements inside the frame come from? For all these questions serve on one side an observation of underexposed videos depicting nightly landscapes in a fixed frame and on the other side its counterpart, long time exposed photographs existing also at the limit of perception. While the latter is a collection of different layers of light in one single frame, the video is constructed continuously in time and space.
+As theoretical reference for this purpose serves Videophilosophy from Maurizio Lazzarato, he furthermore refers to Henri Bergson who also came up while studying Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2. The main interest here is a philosophical approach to the image and the notion of time. The self-referential language allows asking abstract questions about the dematerialization during the analog digital conversion and the loss of indexicality. What means according to Bergson matter and memory and how can these questions be guided towards an artistic examination? The latter should then open space for associations and invite the spectator to a precise contemplation on the images surface and beyond.<br>
+<br><br>
+THE GAZE<br>
+The theme of perception has a prominent part in my self-directed-work, this leads subsequently to the role of the observer. For this line of research I am basically influenced of Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the observer, his presentation of different devices in the 19th century and the shifting in perception. The implication of the spectator and his part while looking at an artwork become important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind.
+The theme of the gaze is introduced in my third area of investigation, filmed portraits. As references therefore serve literature about the gaze in theory of cinema, such as Laura Mulvey's Death 24 times a second and Kaja Silverman's The threshold of the visible world. Both are linked to concepts of psychoanalysis and the uncanny.
+For this project the aim will be to reflect about the form of a video installation with three projection screens. They show portraits of three women filmed in a fixed frame with an additional counter-zoom (vertigo effect). The changing of the perspective provokes a subtle movement, barely recognizable. The look back to the audience and the slight deformation of the faces leave the spectator with an uncertainty about who is the one that is shifting. The Oval Portrait from Edgar Allen Poe leads here together with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Olympia to the idea of a model that floats between human and automated mannequin. The petrifying art of photography is examined in the filmed portraits, where subtle agitations interrupt the stillness of the model and thereby the spectator.
+== Media ==
+[[File:Park08_still.jpg]]    [[File:Park08.jpg]]
-Keywords: unseen connection/ offline/ dependence/ animation and communication/ deviation and distraction/ feedback loop/ decision-making/ tree-structure/ dematerialization/ illusion of space/ mental spaces/ afterimage/ perception/ color theory/ rhythm and time/ impulse/ disconnection/ duration of life/ growth and decay/ process vs. product/ canvas triptych
+[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/photovideo01.html <font color="black">Construction of the image 01</font>]
+<br>
-== Media ==
+[[File:Park10_still.jpg]]    [[File:Park10.jpg]]
-[[File:01R_tree&thaumatrope.jpg]]<br>
+[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/photovideo02.html <font color="black">Construction of the image02</font>]
-[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/thaumatrope01.html <font color="black">thaumatrope</font>]
 <br>
-[[File:02G_ecg.jpg]]
+[[File:Park12_still.jpg]]    [[File:Park12.jpg]]
-<br>
-[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/ecg01.html <font color="black">ECG</font>]
-[[File:03B_corridor.jpg]]
+[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/photovideo03.html <font color="black">Construction of the image03</font>]
 <br>
-<br>[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/corridor01.html <font color="black">corridor</font>]
+[[File:Park30_still.jpg]]    [[File:Park30.jpg]]
+[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/photovideo04.html <font color="black">Construction of the image04</font>]
+<br>
+<br>
-== Essay ==
+[[File:TheGaze01_Still.jpg]]
-Media seen as interface between body and event leads automatically to questions about perception and therefore to the role of the observer. This relation has moved all the more into focus since the beginning of the twenty first century and the permanent ubiquity. Where comes that necessity of being constantly connected with media? To which point we are getting unable to simply use our body to experience the world? How has the act of perception changed through the overall access to media? The practice to see reality the more and more through a screen increases the disconnection to it in a way that perceiving the world through permanent virtual reality might be only one step away. Is it by now an inevitable process that the more we are using media, the more we assimilate a practice that separates us from the awareness about its omnipresence and that we all the more become addicted to its illusion?
+[http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/~nhametner/thegaze_01.html <font color="black">The Gaze</font>]
+<br>
+<br>
+= Thematic Project - Encyclopedia of Media Objects=
-[[Media: RWRM_NicoleHametner_Trimester1_2012.pdf‎|<font color="black">Techniques of the observer</font>]]
+[[/Encyclopedia of Media Objects - Black Box | <font color="black"> Personal entry - Black Box </font>]]<br>
+[[/Encyclopedia of Media Objects - The Alphabet | <font color="black"> Visitors entry - The Alphabet </font>]]<br>
+==Essay==
+This research was initiated by the look of an old folded up viewcamera that reminded the shape of an alien box. The theme of the black box was the subsequent thought, brought with the fascination for the unknown within, where only input and output is known, but the transition between remains ambiguous. Besides a short overview of the technical image in media history, the main subject in this entry will be the analog digital conversion. The construction of the analog photographic image and the digital video image will be juxtaposed and serve as foundation to examine the idea of the so-called loss of materiality. This process of transformation will be looked at in a rather metaphorical way and expresses some philosophical and poetic aspects of its media specificity. <br>
+<br>
+>>> [[Media: NicoleHametner_TM02_BlackBox.pdf|<font color="black">Black Box</font>]]
+<br>
+<br>
-= Thematic Project =
+=Reading, Writing and Research Methodologies=
+[[/Keywords and reading list| <font color="black">Keywords and reading list</font>]]<br>
-[[/How long does it take to get from zero to one | <font color="black">How long does it take to get from zero to one </font>]]<br>
+[[/Reading, Writing & Research Methodologies 2013-03| <font color="black">Transmediale and position vis-à-vis new technologies</font>]]<br>
-== Description ==
-I have seen the workshops of the first thematic project as an experimentation field where I got in contact with different aspects about mainly network media.
-During the first week the questions turned around how to represent movement and how physical labour is being transformed through digital media. The animated pictures of a hand copied with a xerox machine is an attempt to investigate the different layers of media and how the transition from the body to the machine can be seen. On the Erasmus Bridge the different vehicles and passersby were registered and the counting was then visualized as an abstraction of their movement.
-For the theme of Chain Reaction the initial idea came from the thought to avoid working toward something visual and instead using acoustic signals to observe how they react to each other, thinking about the notion of instability and failure.
-The third workshop Rhythmanalysis delved more into the notion of time and allowed a wider view about not only network media. In that week I wanted to observe by filming a static shot of different scenes, how rhythm can be perceived. Lefebvre's text Seen from the window served as an inspiration.
-In the fourth and last part of the thematic project we looked at the question why it is difficult to communicate duration with a digital image. That issue was probably the most appealing theme for my self directed work, where I would like to juxtapose photography with video and observe how time behaves in those two different media. The result of that week is a draft for a planed personal research in filmed portraits. An underexposed video from a tree moving in the wind, filmed during the night refers with its flickering of the pixels to the constant construction of each frame of the video, what evokes further interesting thoughts threaten during the workshop. Similar to the first insight in prototyping, these workshops allowed me to gain several appeals which may find their continuation in my self directed research.
+<br>
+<br>
 [[Category: 2012/2013]]
 [[Category: Trimester Projects]]
-[[Category: Graduation Projects]]

User:Nicole Hametner/Trimester2: Difference between revisions