Television Delivers People

Response to Richard Serra and Carlotta Schoolman's "Television Delivers People" 1973
First of all, it was nice to see that Richard Serra has done or thought about other things besides huge steel arcs. Working in the same media or style (in this case television) as the entity the artist is criticizing (corporations) is a trick artists have used throughout the 21st century and continue to use. Depending on how this technique is employed, it can work against or in favor of the artists' intentions. In this case, I see it being a successful way of emphasizing the tools that corporate media uses to control it's audience, and since it's what one may call "mass media", that is the majority of the population. The use of a seemingly non confrontational melody playing in the background of friendly scrolling text presented on the blue screen, points at mass media's "soft propaganda" methods used to consume the people. I also felt it was useful, because those individuals in society that are accustomed to giving into this form of presenting information are probably the individuals that most need to be exposed to this type of alternative information. However, by using this media that Serra and Schoolman are criticizing, their criticisms are somewhat illegitimatized. Are we supposed to buy what they're saying. My tendency is to first buy into it, and they reject it because I realize what propaganda tools they're using. Whether or not my free mind agrees or disagrees with the content, I will proceed to reject information presented in this television- like soft propaganda method.
On the other hand...............
I felt the very few beginning statements especially rang. When they talk about the viewer paying for the privilege of having oneself sold, one can realize that they are selling themselves, rather than the commonly believe thought of purchasing a television and cable or satellite for themselves to consume. Television was described as an "instrument of consumer demands," which is so true. No longer does the consumer decide what he or she wants or needs. We now have television, a media editing by corporations that are selling consumer goods, telling the "consumer" want he or she wants, creating the demand, controlling society. I'm sold.

Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Observations on the Longtake" response

Reading #2

The assigned reading on the longtake was a little out there I thought. Out there in the fact that the author was trying really hard to back up his points with legitimate evidence, but for me he failed at doing so. He made some very broad assumptions on nonspecific abstract theoretical ideas, that many times had almost nothing to do with the longtake in film.
He also failed in half supporting his theories with one real-life example; the assassination Kennedy video.
Briefly in the beginning of his short essay on long shot and death, Pasolini makes a few interesting points that I haven't considered when thinking about longtake. For instance, he explains how longtake creates subjectivity because it's from one point of view literally. I never really thought that this was true, in fact I thought the latter. I think because the camera is fixed and there are no edits or panning, it makes a film less subjective. However, in a very literal was I can see how he thinks longtake is subjective and singe-viewed. He also tries to explain how longtake is always in the present tense because it views exactly what is happening at that moment in time in front of that particular camera. This is also one of those abstract and not clearly defined ideas he discusses. Like what he mean exactly by present tense. The present tense for the viewer, for the film maker, for the subjects?
While reading this article I yearned for more connectivity among subject matter and more thourough explanation of the thesis.

Response to Lev Manovich's "What is Digital Cinema?"

So when I was reading this article at times I was trying to relate it to our 1st film montage project. And I was thinking, in the case of montage, are all films prior to the digital age narrative, as Mertz believes? But then I was thinking, because our montages were created with still images, are these even considered film or cinema. Then I realized how these are some questions that I just have assumed the answers to and never contemplated them for an extended period prior to this assignment. I proceeded to then "wikipedia" (as those of us from the digital age would say) film, cinema, and montage so see if my previous assumptions regarding these topics agree with what the ever-so-trusted wikipedia says. Here's what they had to say (just to give to meat to where I'm going with this):
"Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or special effects."
And then they go into it further recognizing certain early forms of the film making that we're accustomed to, such as animation or putting individual photos together to create some sort of motion. So I suppose our montage films would be considered films. But I don't see all of them being narrative. Some of them portray a narrative more than others, however many were a mish-mash of images and textures.

The very nature of pre-digital film as a medium is to record reality. Tarkasky even goes as far as saying that film can never be abstract, because it's always a record of something that happened in real space and real time. I don't know if I completely buy it, but he makes a valid point.
Now when we have the option of digital editing and animation, the possibilities have expanded tremendously. Now we can make technically abstract films. And the narrative nature of conventional films has become more dimensional we the possibilities of interactivity exist.

I also thought it was mentioned how digital animation isn't film at all, but a sub-genre of painting.

3 influential time artists

Carolee Schneemann... here's her video meat joy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6AK9TI3-LU

Mona Hatoum... here's one of her works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQGnFbzszrg

and more recently saw some of Joan Jonas's work that I was very engaged with:
(no video)