III


 * < WEEK 3: >**


 * Film I -** **//Man with the Movie Camera// - Dziga Vertov - 1929 - [See also: Fritz Lang’s, //[|METROPOLIS] (1927)//]**

//(An excerpt from the diary of a cameraman)// //FOR VIEWERS ATTENTION:// //THIS FILM PRESENTS AN EXPERIMENT// //IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION// //OF VISIBLE EVENTS// //WITHOUT THE AID OF INTERTITLES// //(A film without intertitles)// //WITHOUT THE AID OF A SCENARIO// //(A film without a scenario)// //WITHOUT THE AID OF THEATRE// //(A film without sets, actors, etc.)// //This experimental work aims at creating a truly international absolute language of cinema based on its total separation from the language of theater and literature.//

The verbal summarization of a visual communication. //Man with the Movie Camera,// along with //Alphaville, Code46,// and //Videodrome// to name but a few from this course directly, all make use of this approach towards the conveyance of a conceptual construct of a complicated nature. Here it is the attempt at utilizing the then new media of film. Attempting to not only divorce it of direct context, but to actually go so far as to suggest that there is no scenario, no set, no actor. This is a falsity, but a naïve one. It was meant in earnest; therefore it should be taken as such. But naivety must give way to maturity, and the maturation process is one in which critical discourse must be applied from without and within. The same externalization of internal abstractions that was discussed in relation to //Videodrome// applies equally as explicitly here. It is through the processes and experiments of each form of externalization that individuals as well as humanity en general are able to learn and develop, yielding greater understandings of ourselves and the universe. It would most likely be impossible for any development, cultural, intellectual, spiritual, to occur without the utilization of such processes. And it is through these processes that ever increasing complexities of self realized constructs are brought to life, along with radical new modes of expression at vital moments/intersections of a range of variables, but all stemming from the sources implicit within the externalization of the internal life. These, Manuel Delanda (//Non-organic Life)// would term as bifurcations, phase shifts, or sea changes. Language in this instance should be viewed as a tool of development. Tools in turn are used to fashion more precise tools, and it is this process that describes the emergence of new modes of communication and expression such as film and computers. Even the act of typing on a computer versus that of typing on a typewriter alters the experience, and quite possibly the content of the endeavor. Visual communication of symbols, to that of verbal communication, to that of written texts, to that of type set, to personal typewriters, film, painting, photography, computer typing, digital art, internet posting/interaction and emails, even text messaging on cell phones as opposed to instant messaging on computers. Everything is slightly different, and therefore offers variants on the respective experiences and the appropriate modes of expression, the language used and adapted to specific purposes. The film, //Man with the Movie Camera// does in fact have a scenario, as it does actors and sets. It even makes us of a language, though not a literary one in the classical sense of subject in art. It is in fact quite theatrical. The movements, the sounds, the subjects. The film follows a //Day-in-the-Life// of two characters: the macrocosm of the city as a living entity, and the microcosm of an individual inhabitant of the city – following their daily habits and rituals, labors and leisure’s, The man is not in fact the man, but the city, and vice versa. The viewer is viewing the viewed while being viewed and recorded by the film-operator (cameraman). The society as subject. The conventions of the day, the activities of a nation that no longer exists, the insight into the Russian life. The machine labor force, waking up the city/waking up the woman, blinking of eyes/blinking of blinds/pulsing flow of traffic. The end is the beginning is the end. The //[|METROPOLIS]// of Fritz Lang, without the exact storyline and protagonists, but still designed to convey a universal message of a similar nature. Therefore, was the professed statement really necessary, was it even truly accurate? From the point of view of convention, it would be a statement to set it aside from its contemporaries, experimenting as such with the possibilities that the medium of film presents in editing, not in the actual linear act of filming. And these actions are even made transparent when the music stops, the movement ceases. The film is temporarily reduced to still frames-still photography-the medium that gave it birth, which enabled this even newer, more complicated mode of expression. It is about post production. The material itself is filmed with intent, but the editing is where the true manipulation of the medium comes into play. The cut-scenes and correlations that are made in juxtaposition to each other enable the director to suggest implications and implicit relationships merely by arranging two actions in a linear sequence, bound together. A relationship in double. They are linked as pairs. A series of pairs. The film as primarily a progression of paired microcosms with macrocosms. This was the message, and that was the solution. A Mechanical solution. Mechanized, spliced, linear. A day, in the order of the day. Sleeping, waking, working, playing. In that order. It is sequential, and linear. A story. A //Day in the Life//.


 * Film II - //Roma// -** **Federico Fellini - 1972 - [See also: Fellini’s, [|Satyricon] (1968) - as well as: Pedro Almodóvar's, [|what have I done to deserve this?] (1984)]**

__Food and Shit__

//-He’s written from America. –What’s he say? -They eat everything out of cans over there.//

//- Just bring the soup here, you idiot! - Stay where you are! - But Severino, it’s a papal blessing. – So put it on the salad!//

//You afraid of Chinamen? He is one and he’s even got kitchen privileges. My God, it stinks in here. Why don’t you open the window when you cook?...Let me out of here before I throw up. Bucatini matriana. Yeah, for pigs.//

//Ma, I don’t want to eat today.//

//You know the saying: “The devil takes whoever eats alone.”//

//You know what they say: “The more you eat, the more you shit.”//

//- In Rome we say, “No matter what you eat, it all turns to shit.” - And what you eat tastes like shit. Excuse me.//

//Talk about a small portion. This plate’s practically empty.//

//Slowly. Don’t eat so fast or you’ll choke to death. Nobody’s going to steal your plate.//

//-You silly, stupid shit. – You’re the stupid shit. – Not me. You. That’s who. – You are both stupid shits.//

//Hey, shit-face! You here too, huh? Will you move your big feet.//

//Get back in the toilette you piece of shit.//

//If you keep standing there, it’s gonna drop off from old age and not even the cat will not eat it then.//

//- First he has a drink before he eats an egg…then he has a drink while he’s eating the egg…and now he wants a drink because he’s eaten an egg! Jesus! - Won’t he get sick from eating all those eggs?//

__Rhymes and Phrases__

//Now we’ve got another meanie by the name of Mussolini. Julius Caesar took a chance and led his army into France. Those days the French were Gauls and Caesar a man with balls.//

//Bet your granny’s not that little. Bet your granny’s not that little.//

//Mary had a little sheep, with the sheep she went to sleep. The sheep turned out to be a ram, Mary had a little lamb.// //Pinochio’s nose was as long, as long as Pinocchio’s dong.//

//Maybe so, I don’t know. I don’t know, maybe so.//

//Balloons for you. For children and for grown-ups too.//

//Who knows why, why we live. And why the fuck we die.//

//- There’s only two things you can be sure of. – That’s right. Death and taxes.//

//How about you? You think there’ll be a war?//

//- Who’s that, Lallo’s daughter? - Whose do you think, the priest’s? - She’s that big already? Isn’t she cute? Can’t tell her face from her behind.//

//-He’s written from America. –What’s he say? -They eat everything out of cans over there.//

//You know the saying: “The devil takes whoever eats alone.”//

//You know what they say: “The more you eat, the more you shit.”//

//In Rome we say, “No matter what you eat, it all turns to shit.”//

//Ah, yes, why, even today there was an audience with people…who want to tell the Pope how to run the church. What can you do? Be patient, I suppose. “Fire’s for burning and patience for learning”…as we say in Rome.//

//The world must follow the church and not vice versa.//

//But church bells are the voice of God.//

//They won’t bomb us as long as the pope’s in Rome.//

//Experience, my dear. That’s what counts in life. If your son’s experienced, he’ll never have any problems. I think that dark guy wants you…but if he’s not experienced all he’ll get is a royal screwing, right?//

__Death and Taxes (Threats and Violence)__

//Barbetti! Stacchiotti! Barilazzi! I’ll beat you to death, by God!//

//Whoever looks will go to hell! Keep your eyes closed!//

//–There’s a blessing from the Pope. - Shame on you. You’ll go to hell. – On your knees. Don’t pay attention to your good-for-nothing father. – Drop dead, you old bat!//

//Sir, you are an ill-mannered boor, that’s what you are. And you don’t seem to realize who I am. I’m the school principal, that’s who. The principal, understand?//

//Quit fucking around and get out of my way.//

//David, I’m gonna beat the hell outta you.//

//There, stupid! You always do it wrong.//

//He says to me, “You kidding me or are you really stupid?” “What do you mean?” And he says, “Aw, come on. You must be kidding.” I say, “What do you mean?” - So? - What do you mean, so?//

//I’m gonna throw the cat out the window!//

//One of her ovaries is inflamed.//

//Oh, my God! What have I done to deserve such suffering?//

//Look me in the eyes, boy. There’s to be no fooling around in this house. We’re churchgoing people. We respect others and want respect in return. I wouldn’t come to your house and do anything dirty. So lets live in peace and not bust each other’s balls.//

//- But it almost killed him. – Then I guess it’ll kill me too.//

//Come here before I beat the hell out of you. Come on. Tell your sister to get down here before I throw her off that balcony.//

//Shove that spotlight up your ass.//

//Goddamn bastards. Won’t let decent people enjoy an evening of theater.//

//What a son of a bitch. – All right, you asshole. I’m gonna bust your head. I’m gonna rip your arms off. Gonna rip ‘em both off.//

//Cram it up your ass.//

//He’s beating the hell outta him! He’s killing him!//

__Sex and Masturbation__

//- And no need to play with yourself. That’s what’s nice about Rome. It’s big and nobody knows you. You are free to come and go. – What about the Roman women? What are they like? - The Roman women? They’ve got an ass as wide as that.//

//One bite of these and you’re up like a shot. Just ask your girlfriend.//

//If you’re not having fun, go home and play with yourself.//

//All right, no fuckin’ around, you lousy bums! You act like you just got outta jail. Go lay your grandmother!//

//You got blood in your veins or water?//

//If you wanna stand there and jack off, then go home and do it.//

__Fascism and Dogma (Monologue as Social Programming)__

//I refuse to believe that the people of Great Britain, always friends…feel it their duty to lead Europe into a catastrophe…by defending an African nation…Universally branded and without the shadow of any kind of civilization…against this nation of heroes, artists, poets, saints, navigators…If the Mediterranean is a shortcut for England…and a permanent zone for Russia, for us Italians it is like life itself.//

//- There I was, sound asleep, if it wasn’t for that idiot. – Excuse me. What did you say? “If it wasn’t for that idiot”? - What did I say? I don’t know. – Speak up. What did you mean by that? - He didn’t mean anything by it. – I didn’t mean anything. – It’s unforgivable! Certain people ought to be ashamed of themselves. Especially now, with our country united as never before…on the verge of victory, and you still hear defeatist remarks! Shame on you! Fascist Italy. The Duce. They’re your only hope. And we must win. –Yes. – And we will win. – Right.//

__Modernity and the Stratified City__

//- The piazzas, the streets, people on their way to work. – If you see people on their way t work, it ain’t Rome. You’re up so high you must be seeing another city.//

//We merely wanted to solve the traffic problem…with a subway like Munich’s or Dublin’s…but here the ground has eight strata…and we’re forced to become archaeologists.//

Food and shit, Rhymes and Phrases, Death and Taxes, Sex and Masturbation, Fascism and Dogma, Modernity and the city as stratified. This merely addresses the verbally fragmented communication of the film, offering vignettes into various faces of the city as experienced. The movie is not a chronological telling of the city's history, or of a day in the life of the city or person, but a series of fragmented memories and associations of Rome as recalled by Federico Fellini. Ultimately it succeeds in communicating his thoughts, and what fragments of speech and convention have been imprinted upon him. For people generally make use of such conventions of speech and common sayings, as has been documented above. This is what makes Fellini so successful, for he does not really need to fabricate anything. The material that is used existed in one form or another very similarly to how it is expressed in the film…just at times slightly exaggerated…but not really. It is a truth. A reality. And that is what makes it so captivating, not to even mention the visual techniques, correlations, and languages utilized. This is an excellent example of the maturation process from Vertov’s //Man with a Movie Camera//. He had made an earlier attempt at disjointing reality and drawing correlations between apparently unrelated subjects and actions. It is in Roma where rather than splicing two individually filmed sequences together to establish a paired relationship, these correlations are articulated within the scenes themselves, allowing for movement to be continuous relying less on post production and more on the actual filming of the sequences. This continuous-shot technique is well exemplified by a scene towards the beginning; where a butcher’s truck passes the camera with a man sitting on the back while sides of beef hang behind him. As the camera pans to the left, an obese man is standing shirtless on the curb lifting the mounds of flesh hanging from his chest to allow for fresh water to penetrate from the fire hydrant to the deepest crevices of his corpulent upper body. The manor in which his flesh hangs and its visual appearance are suggestive of the hanging slabs of beef that had only just passed the camera, as well as the mannor in which he handles himself being similar to how one prepares meats for a meal, and this all done with a continuous sweeping shot. The mechanical processes of splicing and editing were not required for that connection. The sequence of the film however did, but in its fragmentation, it managed to alter the subject of the film from being less pertaining to Fellini himself, to more what and whom he was surrounded by and the ensuing experiences. It functions as memory and dreams function. The surreal, based mostly upon the real, or how people experience waking realities. But it certainly begins to approach that potential goal of successfully expressing concepts in a non-linear fashion, where they no longer require a traditional chronological order confined by conventions of society and modes of communication, but where such things fragment, fray and are montaged to bring about new meanings that already exist, and to transmit certain understandings in ways that have not been done. That is the genius, and this is the reaction.


 * Film III - d//emonlover -// Oliver Assayas - 2002**

Issues of control and power. The reversal of power, and the illusions of control. They can be very misleading and quite detrimental to one’s being. Diane is both a predator and a victim. Willing and unknowing. Driven to extremes out of desperation and then finally broken. Broken to be used in the very product she had engaged in espionage for. Broken, used and then consumed by people, veritable children who could barely even care about the very real torments that she endures. She is a victim of her own ambition. A component in a machine never fully exposed. People, whom she at one point believes herself to dominate, turn out to be the true masters of the situation, not all that unlike the Borges story of //The Dead Man.// In it a young man of humble origins believes himself to be in control, and to have usurped the bosses’ power, only to find out the moment before death that he was in fact never in control, and was only permitted his transgressions for he had already been marked for death. “Otálora realizes, before he dies, that he has been betrayed from the beginning, that he has been sentenced to death, that he has been allowed to love, to command, and win because he was already as good as dead, because so far as Bandeira was concerned, he was already a dead man.” [__The Aleph and Other Stories__, "The Dead Man", Jorge Luis Borges, (1949), pg. 25] And Diane a dead woman.


 * Text I – “Leader of the Free World: How Linus Torvalds Became Benevolent Dictator of Planet Linux, the Biggest Collaborative in History” - Gary Rivlin - 2003**

A brief history of the successful self-education of a Finnish man who programmed a now widely used alternative operating system. There is little else to report on. It is interesting to know and based on love of task as opposed to required of work.


 * Text II – “noise in formation” - Mark Taylor - 2001**

//For the invention of writing actually gave birth to information itself, engendering the first information revolution. Writing created new entities, mental objects that exist apart from the flow of speech, along with the earliest, systematic attempts to organize this abstract mental world. Here we find the roots of the activity that would ultimately lead the Greeks to correlate the order of the mental world with nature. Thus when we tear ourselves away from the engrossments of electronic culture, we discover that our information age is but the latest of several. From a historical perspective, perhaps the only ‘information age’ truly deserving the title is the original, primeval one some five thousand years ago.//

The information of communication. When interrupted by a third source, information becomes noise. When inundated by too much, information becomes white or background noise, indistinguishable/indecipherable from the rest. For, “the voice of the stranger remains noisy until it is translated. Forever unsolicited, noise is given as if from without and remains merely data until it is processed.” The internalization of external data/lived experience then is required to be re-externalized as a result of and at times as a part of the methods involved in the processing of information. To externalize internal notions begins to render them understood, and offers them up for re-processing and further development at a later date, possibly through varied means - though not necessarily. “Redundancy functions as a constraint that increases the likelihood of the message’s arrival at its destination…The more rigid the rule, the greater the redundancy, and thus the less information is conveyed…If everything is predictable, no information is conveyed; if there is no redundancy, which can determine the parameters of possibility and probability, uncertainty cannot be resolved and once again no information is conveyed.” Thus it is a fine balance between redundancy/established conventions of language deriving from relatable common experience with that of relatively new concepts conveyed through methods understandable to the person of destination or the receptor of the message. For if a message were to be coded with a multiplicity of meanings within a written context, and the person reading is unaccustomed to interpreting the information on more than one level, much of the intended information is lost in translation. For the audience is not capable of relating to the information being conveyed. The new information is too varied from the lived experience and the conceived perceptions of the world around, or merely of how to interpret information and to view external constructs. A simple example of this would be that of the Christian text __The Holy Bible__. In it, the text is encoded with multiple meanings; therefore the literal reading of the stories and timelines given transmit only a limited amount of information, whereas the understanding of most of the stories as analogous and translatable to behavioral patterns of human existence, and possible situations recurrent within individual’s lived experience lends itself to yet more information. Furthermore, the understanding of the symbology and even the knowledge of the derivation of most of the Christian symbols from the Pre-Christian world allows for an even further comprehension, and therefore greater amount of information conveyed…however, this also limits as discussed above, for too much redundancy transmits little information, due to the simple fact that it is already known or understood from a parallel perspective, and when a person possesses too much of an understanding, the text becomes little more than that - a text - that may be worth reading, but that does not further ones understanding of the world and the universe, of human nature and the lived experience. A Jewish interpretation of __The Old Testament__ finds incredible amounts of meaning through the translation of words and phrases into numerical values and subsequently back into recombined/reduced concepts and words, rendering what they believe to be a level of meaning hidden from most, for it lacks even an analogous interpretation. But that is less so further development of understanding and externalization than a speculative venture, assuming that within the original composition of the text, numerical codes were woven in to conceal meaning from all but the most astute of scholars. Messages therefore can possess interpretive meaning, where the receptor of the message may misinterpret, or construct an elaborate system atop a confused conceived notion. Where there is consensus though, there is a reality. And concepts of reality are transmittable as information to others of a similar disposition and experience.


 * Reading III - “Pianos Not Stereos: Creating Computational Construction Kits” – Mitchell Resnick - 1996**

The learning methods championed by the MIT Media Laboratory strike me as akin to the teaching approaches of Montessori schools, in that students are not necessarily taught to memorize information but taught how to obtain information themselves, and in the process retaining a greater understanding of how to operate in the world and be proactive towards any given task rather than enlist a limited mimicry of such. “Design activities engage people as active participants…the things people design (be they sand castles, computer programs, LEGO constructions, or musical compositions) serve as external shadows of the designer’s internal mental models. These external creations provide an opportunity for people to reflect upon- and then revise and extend-their internal models of the world.” Another form of the processes of the externalization.


 * Reading IV – __The Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the Information Age__ - Pekka Himanen - 2001**

“While the hacker work ethic’s precursor is in the academy, Weber says that the Protestant ethic’s only historical precursor is in the monastery….the spirit of capitalism found its essentially religious justification in the Protestant ethic, the latter soon emancipated itself from religion and began to operate according to its own laws.” That of work for works sake. Laborious work...as an end in itself. “Benedict’s monastic rule even explained that the __nature of work was not actually to get something done but to //humble// the worker’s soul by making him do whatever he is told.”!!!!!__ I can think of little else that would offer as appalling a notion to one such as myself. I cannot even fathom the purpose of such absurdities. What is the purpose of a task if there is no purpose??? If it accomplishes nothing, why is it necessary? Merely to display obedience? That is a perverse notion of power and subjugation of the wills of others, much akin to the //demonlover// film viewed for this week, only of a different nature. For the subjugation of Diane, and her ultimate destruction still had a purpose beyond mere plays of power. She was still engaged in tasks under the impression that she was in control of those around her. This goes to another level completely. It prevents the growth of useful people capable of problem solving and application of mental powers to accomplish anything beyond simple mimicry. An Automaton. That is what artificial life is capable of reproducing, but it should be considered no longer necessary to view humans in such a light. We are no longer required to be relegated to such menial tasks as befit machines. Unquestioning machines. If a task can be better accomplished through mental application, then it would benefit a task-master to have well trained servants. Thinking entities in themselves, capable of individual assessment. This allows for emergent phenomenon of a significantly more complicated nature to appear, and reduces the necessity for a hierarchical command, as in a monastery, or governmental system. On that line, the networked activities of what are described to be //hackers//, but might more accurately be termed as programmers, are more appropriate to the human potential and usefulness inherent. Supposedly, the article is attempting to codify hackers as being programmers that are fascinated by and truly enjoy the act of manipulation of code for code’s sake. “Passion conveys more intuitively than //entertainment//…the dedication to an activity that is intrinsically interesting, inspiring, and joyous.”


 * Reading V – “Some Xbox Enthusiasts Microsoft Didn’t Aim For” - Seth Schiesel - 2003**

The emergence of intellectual property as an issue of serious concern to a range of people and industries is not exactly a new concept to Occidental thinking, for a sense of ownership is deeply embedded within the social fibers, but with the most recent developments it is an ever increasing field of curiosity and concern. Ownership of objects and the objectification of people lie at the foundation of the concept of property. For property is a concept in itself. To have ownership of something within the realm of the physical is not an inherent notion to living. It is only one of many possible human conceptual constructs. People in fact do not even possess true ownership of their own bodies, for the body continually alters and grows according to internal processes almost entirely divorced from the mental sphere (though in effect fully influential towards the mental processes and behaviors exhibited at any given time). Therefore it is no surprise that an extension of ownership to environments and theoretical boundaries exists. They must be reduced through a means of representation for they are both too vast, and too abstract to indicate in a literal physical manner. Currently, from a legal standpoint, it could be argued that all property is intellectual, only based upon consensus of means for the establishment of ownership. //Original// concepts as patented in a governmental office would be an example of the Industrial Age’s contribution to the ownership of ideas beyond that of the physical. Leading directly to what is at issue today: the patenting of highly abstract or infinitely microscopic knowledge as in //Code46//. Beyond that, there is also the concern of ownership of an object owned, or after purchase how much of the object is considered to be under the direct ownership of the consumer? “What rights do consumers have to tinker with products they own?”


 * < week ii : week iv>**