Reading, Writing & Research Methodologies 2013-TM3.01

ABSTRACT
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.
INTRO
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.
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 electronic 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 a referent that only 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 in the dark underexposed zones of an image as the autonomy of the image itself? Where do the subtle movements inside the frame come from?
CONSTRUCTION OF THE IMAGE
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(annotation), he furthermore refers to Henri Bergson(annotation) who also came up while studying Gilles Deleuze's Cinema 2(annotation). 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 does according to Bergson matter and memory mean 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.
ATTEMPT TO FORMULATE MY METHODOLOGY
Before looking at my second field of research The Gaze, that has some similarities in how approaching a project, it might be useful to first deconstruct my methodology. This is a primary attempt to break down my method in single components, what might allow a clearer overview of the entire process.
Already the trigger for a new work is difficult to define, because everything links automatically to the prior body of work, where several interests and points of research over the years have built a background that serves as constant reference, on which a specific situation then leads to the concrete creation of work. Also the intention varies through the development and can not be clearly extracted from it, by which I want to say that all has to be considered as a complex structure, in which each part influences mutually the others. Basically the decision to work on something more intensely is based on intuition, fed by all different kinds of inputs, that end up in a deeper research of a subject. Then the combination of several aspects allows slowly perceive the body of work as an abstract idea and consequently guides to formal questions, which are then executed to create the actual outcome. Everything depends on the inspiration that initiated the project as well as the inspiration emitted during the working process. This division of steps cannot be seen strictly in a fixed order, sometimes, visual aspects interfere while conceptualizing a work and then deviate the whole in a slightly different direction. But mainly the intention-research-combination-formal-execution string helps to recognize certain patterns in my methodology. Personally I feel, that what makes an artwork attractive is not to see behind every detail and that a complete transparence might diminish the works independence, what is in my opinion as important as the input from the artist.
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(annotation), 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 all the more important, especially when considering Henri Bergson's idea that the image is an artificial product of mind(annotation). The theme of the gaze is introduced in my second area of investigation in the form of filmed portrait. As references therefore serve literature about the gaze in theory of cinema, such as Laura Mulvey's Death 24 times a second(annotation) and Kaja Silverman's The threshold of the visible world(annotation). 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(explanation). The changing of the perspective provokes a subtle movement, barely recognizable. The look in the camera, 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(annotation) leads here together with E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Olympia(annoation) 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.
CONCLUSION
link between first and second field of research
similarities in each approach
definition of methodology

REFERENCES
Maurizio Lazzarato, Videophilosophy
Henri Bergson, Matter and memory
Gille Deleuze, Cinema 2
Jonathan Crary's Techniques of the observer Laura Mulvey's Death 24 times a second Kaja Silverman's The threshold of the visible world