Steina and Jackie Hatfield

Both of the readings as well as watching the film Violin Power, explained the order of the history of Expanded Cinema more completely as a still evolving art. Film, then Electronic,then Digital. And yet each medium combines with each other or continues to experiment with ever changing digital means to continue to create something new. I especially liked Jackie Hatfield's explanation--" that artists were free-flowing individuals experimenting with different kinds of media,and more often than not were working with-and expanding both technologies". ( video and film ). -that's what Steina was doing while her husband was busy creating and programming the waveform--talk about mixing old and new!  As a couple they seem more "present day kind of artists"...combining art and technology--with old and new experiments--rather than more history..
The electronic part is still a bit over my head but I am interested.- Interested especially in how it relates to a new kind of music...technology's music making itself is very much like Steina's cameras "seeing" for themselves. Cool.

PD tutorials: Click HERE List of GEM/pd objects + tutorials: Click HERE

Steina Respons.

Its hard enough to come up with ways to artistically rework ways to use a camera in a non conventional way today, let alone doing the same thing with the heavier and bulkier cameras back on the 70s. Thats what really impress me about Staina's work, coming up with work way aged of her time that even now by todays standards we find it as a creative art piece. The fact that she did this with the technological limitation of her time as well just makes it all the more inspiring.

Line describes a cone

this installation is awesome, and it's inspired by Line describing a cone. I'd like to do something like this for my second project, check out this video, but turn the speakers down, it is quite abrasive
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXx8qnt4MYg

Week 9 Readings

   The Bordwell reading was very strait forward and basically just gave a history of cinema, talking about what things put it in motion up until the early days of successful motion pictures.
     These readings were very interesting and I actually happen to be learning about this same thing in my Computers in Art class, where they fully buy into the myth of the audience's terror at the film of the train. The Gunning reading talks a lot about the thoughts behind early cinema and is much more thought provoking. It mentions the Lumiere's Arrival of a Train at the Station, and though he doesn't completely deconstruct the myth of the extent of people's reaction to it, ( namely running out of the theatre in terror), he does question it. He talks about the astonishment of the audience not being in fear for their lives but mainly more out of the amazement that such a display could be caught on motion picture. Gunning quotes a Montpellier journalist who says about the Lumieres' projections cause "an excitement bordering on terror." There astonishment was more due to the excitement and curiosity of the medium.
   The Gunning reading was overall good and informative, a little hard to digest at times. I liked getting to read more in depth about the thoughts of viewers and film  makers of that time, rather then just getting cut and dry facts like the Bordwell reading.

Reading Response on Bordwell & Thompson and T. Gunning

I actually preferred the Bordwell reading with the history of cinema the best. I think both articles point out that times have not changed much since the Victorian age as far as movies being the top entertainment and terror and imagination or astonishment being the favorite subject of those movies.
What I found the most interesting was the fact that Edison's assistant actually took film "out of the box" with his inventions and innovations....cutting the film to 35mm size and punching sprockets influenced the history of cinema to this day..pretty cool...except nobody remembers Dickson's name and everyone knows Edison... considering that Dickson made the best camera and projector for 70mm also keeps him in genius category especially since he no longer worked for Edison at that time...
Favorite new word!! Black Marias!  named after the police paddy wagon -ha!
 And smart people who figured out the "slack" in the film loop was the most important thing in becoming full-length movies...Bravo slackers Latham Group :)

Oh final favs!  Annie Oakley one of first Edison films and Alice Guy, first female filmmaker . And wondering how that filmmaker in Gunning's article got his train shot straight on...without mishap...or did he?

Peppers Ghost