In the digital world we live in, we are inundated with images and information at every turn. It becomes difficult, even impossible, to parse even a small quotient of this data into any semblance of meaning. It is part of that double edged sword that technology's advance presents to each of us. On the one hand, we have a plethora of choice, and at our very fingertips, there is quite literally the answer to nearly any query we can conjure, not to mention the ability to peruse nearly any film, television show, song, periodical or book we desire on demand. With this bounty comes the burden of constant bombardment from all sides with ads, noise, and demands in return for our time, personal information and mental capacity. Modern life almost cries out for some escape from time to time into a world free from email, texts, social media and the like, if nothing else for a moment of relaxation and reflection on the more basic needs of human welfare.
It is in this frame of mind that I have been pondering my own readings of John Belton's interpretation of video's history and Tess Takahashi's article on the material nature of film in an era of digital breakthrough. There are several common threads that run through both pieces, though each takes a slightly different approach, and of course were written in different contexts. Belton's view of video as a medium takes the interesting angle of looking at its shared history not with cinema, but with the transmission and recording properties of technologies such as the telegraph and telephone, as well as the phonograph. In his view, "video is not cinema, it only looks like cinema."
One of the features of video and television that he sees as distinguishing it from film is its inherent immediacy. Television broadcasts can be sent around the world instantaneously, allowing for the transmission of events as they take place. As I write this, millions of videos are being recorded on cell phones and as quickly as they are recorded, they are then uploaded to the internet for all the world to view them. A film on the other hand takes more careful preparation, time to light and shoot for proper exposure, and then processing and editing and more processing before it can be viewed at a later date.
Now many would look at the quality of most videos on You Tube and by comparison say that what is found in a movie theater is of a much higher ilk, and therefore worth the time and effort taken to produce them. While I would generally agree, according to Belton, the two have very little relationship to one another. He does make a distinction between the use of video as a medium of transport for television broadcasts and its direct relationship to the process when used as an artistic medium. Video art, like film, has the power to transform, but in his view, this is despite the medium rather than because of it. Video art is an outgrowth of art that was previously made by artists in other media, such as film. When video is used in this transformative way, it ceases to be television, but rather a copy of film.
In the piece by Tess Takahashi, there is no discussion of television and video per se. Her concern lies more with the divide between the analog materiality of film and the computerized format of digital media that comprises video. Her points cross over to many of the avenues that Belton proposes in his study of the subject. Like Belton, she invokes the seminal ideas of Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin. Barthes' idea was that film is indexical, that it implies a guarantee of presence at the time and place a photograph and likewise a film was made. This is not necessarily the case with digital media, which can be manipulated with ease, creating a seeming reality out of fiction. Takahashi also brings into question the paradox of Benjamin's arguments about the nature of film as he wrote about it in his famed essay "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction". Benjamin had argued that for film and photography to be called art debased the very notion of art, saying that by its very nature it falls more into a category of "common entertainment". The fact that it can almost endlessly reproduce identical copies and be viewed en masse as opposed to the more solitary experience of looking at traditional works of art such as painting also made it less valuable.
Takahashi turns that argument on its head, citing a number of examples of artists employing alternative practices with film such as hand processing, physically manipulating the film itself and using various chemicals and substances to achieve unpredictable and one of a kind results. She almost directly challenges Benjamin's position essentially asking the question, is this not art? She goes on to question how much we can trust the veracity of digital media, which can so easily be manipulated and possesses none of the material qualities that film has. Perhaps by this logic we should also differentiate between films made with traditional analog methods, and modern films, which are digitized, altered in various ways and then committed back to their medium of origin.
In many ways, these points are made moot by the fact that most of us base our decision to use digital technology for reasons of availability, cost and efficiency rather than any ideological basis. That is not to say that the discussion is not a useful one to have. I think it's important to consider these ideas as we delve into the making of art using digital technology. Too often, we take for granted the difference of sitting down on the couch and watching a movie on DVD versus getting in the car and heading to the theater to see one. That is not to say that DVD technology should be looked down upon, or that film is inherently preferable to digital video, but that we need to understand the differences in the application of each and consider the history of that technology as we use it in our work.
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