Captured, A Thesis

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CAPTUREDA Thesis

Presented in Partial Fulllment o the Requirements or the Degree o Master o Fine Arts in Digital Mediain the Department o Digital Media o The Rhode Island School o Design

By

Serena KuoRhode Island School o Design

2008

Masters Examination CommitteeApproved by:

Teri Rueb, Digital + Media Associate ProessorRhode Island School o Design, Primary Advisor

John Terry, Dean o Fine ArtsRhode Island School o Design

Amy Kravitz, Film/Animation/Video ProessorRhode Island School o Design

Dietrich NeumannProessor or the History o Modern Architecture and Urban Studies, Brown University

Vincent Scully Visiting Proessor or the History o Architecture, Yale UniversityDepartment o the History o Art and Architecture, Brown University


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CAPTURED

Capturedby Serena Kuo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States Liscen


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The word shot can be reserved or xed spatialdeterminations, slices o space or distances in relationto the camera. [] It is then the sequence o shots which inherits the movement and the duration. Butsince this is not an adequately determinate notion, itis necessary to create more precise concepts to identiythe unities o movement and duration. [] From ourpoint o view or the movement, the notion o shot

[plan] has sucient unity and extension i it is givenits ull projective, perspectival or temporal sense. Inact a unity is always that o an act which includes asmuch a multiplicity o passive or acted elements. Shots,as immobile spatial determinations, are perectlycapable o being, in this sense, the multiplicity whichcorresponds to the unityo the shot, as mobile section or

temporal perspective. The unity will vary accordingto the multiplicity that it contains, but will be no lessthe unity o this correlative multiplicity.1

1 Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema 1: Movement-Image. University o Minnesota Press, 1986. PP. 25-26


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IllustrationsAbstract

Captured

Introduction

Theory

5/4The Water

The Bicycle CameraTranspositionsIce ApartmentBody LandscapesCaptured

Work

Conclusion

Bibliography

I.Experiencing Geography, Architecture & Constructed SpaceThe Origin o Cinematic SpaceObjectiying the MediumExcerpt: My Visit to Pompeii

II. Construction o RealitySynthesis o Science and ArtMise-en-scene & CinematographyStructural Fragmentation in Cinematic Space


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Fig 1. Michael Snow, Wavelength, 1967.

Fig 2. Michelangelo Antonioni, The Passenger, 1975.

Fig 3. Sergein Eisenstein, October/Ten Days that Shook the World,1927.

Fig 4. D.W. Gri ith, The Birth o a Nation,1915.

Fig 5. Ren Clair, Paris qui dort, 1915

Fig 6. Dziga Vertov, The Man with a Movie Camera, 1929.


Fig 8. Eadweard Muybridge, Galloping Horse, 1878.

Fig 9. F.W. Muranu, The Last Laugh, 1925.

Fig 10. F.W. Murnau, Noseratu, 1922.

Fig 11. F.W. Murnau, Sunrise, 1927.

Fig 12. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941.

Fig 13. Chris Welsby, Windmill II, 1972.

Fig 14. Michelan gelo Antonioni, The Passenger, 1975.

Fig 15. Alred Hitchcock, Rear Window, 1954.

Fig 16. Alred Hitchcock, Vertigo, 1958.

ILLUSTRATIONS

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Fig 17. Serena Kuo, Script diag ram or5/4, 2007.

Fig 18. Serena Kuo, Set still rom 5/4, 2007.

Fig 19. Serena Kuo, instal lation vizu alizat ion or The Water, 2008.

Fig 20. Serena Kuo, The Water, instal lation view, 2008.

Fig 21. Serena Kuo, narrativ e brainstorm or The Water, 2008.

Fig 22. Serena Kuo, scenario maps or The Water, 2008.

Fig 23. Serena Kuo, Documentat ion o i lming process, The Bicycle Camera, 2007.

Fig 24. Serena Kuo, sketch exploring the inverted relationship between

speed and distance, The Bicycle Camera, 2007.

Fig 25. Serena Kuo, Transpositions: Nathaniel, 2008.

Fig 26. Serena Kuo, Transpositions: Lauren, 2008.

Fig 27. Serena Kuo,Ice Apartment, ilm, 2007.

Fig 28. Serena Kuo,Ice Apartment, installation view, 2007.

Fig 29. Serena Kuo,Body Landscapes, 2007.

Fig 30. Serena Kuo, Composition timeline and corresponding scenes,

Body Landscapes, 2007.

Fig 31. Serena Kuo, Captured,2008.

Fig 32. Serena Kuo, Captured,2008.

Fig 33. Dziga Vertov, The Man with a Movie Camera , 1929.

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ABSTRACT

My current work ocuses specically on the depiction o action traversing through spaceand creation o spatiality in cinema. Using the camera as a physical extension o the eye,the viewer is asked to bridge the conventional unction o a shot with real-experiences operceiving space as an immersive environment during the process o travel. In my body

o thesis projects, this endeavor is maniested in various ways:

1. Reerencing the traditional narrative lm ormat in a purely two-dimensionalprojection, where the audience expects a beginning, middle, and end, and hencerestricting the lm space and temporality to one nite entity

2. Placing the lens at the position o the eye to visually simulate the experience omoving within real space

3. Establishing a more active spatial environment or cinematic spectatorshipthrough a change in the placements o its projection suraces

4. Inverse to point 1, removing narrative and temporal niteness to imitate themundane and seemingly innite nature o reality

Through the work examined in this brie thesis, my attempt is not to interrogate the all-encompassing question o reality in cinema, but to articulate a body o work that bothstems rom and expands the mediums conventions. With my work, I wish to acilitate acritical engagement with the mediums process o constructing reality by using its veryconventions to move outside the constraints and traditional parameters.


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In several ways, representational media such as lm can be deemed non-generative. Theimages we see, printed or projected, are markings made by light reecting o o pre-existing objects onto chemicals and sensors. The stories we delineate rom these imagesare altered personal experiences, adaptations, ables, and common human logic. We are

handed visual and textual components, pieced together in specic ashions, that direct usto re-imagine what it is like to be within a certain real world, real place, real time, andreal situation. Nothing is made rom nothing.

When looking at an action taking place within the letterbox o a lm, we are not alwaysaddressed with what exists beyond this rame, yet two phenomena take place during ourviewing experience: (1) We gather inormation rom the characters, the set, and the storyto inorm what kind o a world contains this limited space presented beore us, and (2) Weplace ourselves within this world in the role o an ally, a witness, or a passive spectator.While these are the two certain goals or any lm work that engrosses the viewer, theparameters within which they occur are exible and subject to inventiveness. This is howlm is in actuality completely generative, its execution absolutely original to each maker.

While lm reproduces pre-existing material, it is more so the reiteration o that materialas opposed to its replica. The changes that take place in a lm work rom the reality thatoriginates its visual content are the result o layers o capturing a selective process thathighlights and obscures acts and emotions. The moving image captures a reality andcontains it within a cinematic space, shaped by this selective process. The viewer capturesa reality construed and impressed by the resulted lm, and is reciprocally captured within

the reality she has just created. In other words, lm is the art o capturing captured-ness.

As a nal note, the title Captured is also inuenced by my own obsessive indulgence withthe crat o lmmaking. The empty rames o the unexposed lmstrip or a blank miniDVtape (and recently, portable hard drives that directly connect to the camera) are voidseager to be lled with a certain angle o the outside world. The camera apparatus providesthe maker with access to a specically conceived construct o reality, and simultaneouslycaptures the physical world it photographs and the lmmaker into its mechanisms.

The term ilm here encompasses all time-based photo-realistic media.

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INTRODUCTION

I create narrative and non-narrative lms with altered parameters o space, time, andmovement. My work questions the spatial reality constructed in traditional cinema. The

basis o my work is inormed by a synthesis o traditional and avant-garde lms, newmedia, architecture, and the intrinsic symbiosis between mobility and time-based media.The thematic thread that runs through my work examines personal interactions as theproduct o specic spatial and temporal constraints and the emotional ragmentation thatcharacterizes these interactions. It is my goal to reerence traditional cinema in my work- to provide a amiliar reerence point or the viewer in order to acilitate examination oexperimental elements rom a reinvented context.

Film as a medium constructs reality partly through the cinematic conventions employedto represent space and time. These conventions are the oundation o all categories:narrative (story or the text), mise-en-scene2, cinematography, assemblage o shots,special eects, and space o spectatorship. For example, conventions o a narrative includegenre, character, orm and time. Low and high angles, close-ups and extreme wideshots, dolly, and point-o-view are some o the most requently utilized cinematographicconventions. Assemblage o shots can be conventionalized by collisional or conict-drivenmontage. Lastly, the space o spectatorship is culturally ostered into multiplexes, black-box art house theatres, televisions, and recently, personal computers and portable mediaplayers all o which generate dierent levels o social and intellectual interactionsbetween the image and the viewer. The sense o space and time a spectator translates

rom a lm is inormed by preexisting experience and the knowledge o cinemasstructuring o time and space. Both seeing and cinema occur within a culturalcontext rom production to reception. This is what contemporary theorists reer to as theimpression o reality3 it is actually an image and not the reality it appears to be anact osignication. Upon equating the act o signication with ideology, Louis Althusser

2 Francois Truaut reers to mise-en-scene as comprised the camera position, the angle selected, the shots length,an actors gesture. In other words, at once the story that is being told and the manner o telling it.Truaut, Francois. The Films in My Lie. Da Capo Press, 1994. PP. 13-14

3 Allen, Richard. Projecting Illusion: Film Spectatorship and the Impression o Reality (Cambridge Studies in

Film). Cambridg e University Pre ss, 1997. P. 9


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describes that the eect o the impression o reality in the cinema upon the spectatorwas likened to the eect o language upon the individual in its ideological impact. Inthe case o the analysis o signication, it was necessary to turn to a distinctive use o

language literary language in order to nd a way to expose the ideological eects olanguage.4 This process is central to Structuralist lmmaking, which P. Adams Sitneydescribes as cinema o structure in which the shape o the whole lm is predeterminedand simplied, and it is that shape which is the primal impression o the lm. 5 Jean-Louis Baudry respondsto Althussers theory by breaking down its eect on the spectatorinto three parts6: perspectival positioning, identication, and believing in the illusoryworld presented by lm as truth.

As lm is a representation o a reality within which the spectator exists, it represents (andenorces) ideological assumptions about the nature o that reality. Since lm is a time-

based medium that is rst invented with the purpose to document and examine actions in other words, a representational medium - it reects the nature o space and timethrough the synthetic application o its conventions. For instance, the progression o timein narrative is cinematographically captured by exposing the action onto the lmstrip ata specic rame rate, which is then coupled with editorial dissolves that convey a passageo time. The selective raming o an interior space, repeated rom a multitude o angles,distance, is cut together to establish a specic physical environment that both reveals andobscures the action. In other words, the process o communication or the lmic mediumis the organization and construction o space and time.7

This process o re-organization and reconstruction o space and time in cinema alwaysruns along two tracks: delity to reality versus the desire to revolt against the verytransparency o this constructed reality. This is the conict between classical cinemastransparent mise-en-scene and a lmmakers conscious eort to objectiy and bringattention to the orchestrated content within the lm rame. Toward the rst approacho mediation, Baudry writes that [] cinema is ideological in its orm because it is notauthentic art; that is, it does not present the world to us in a manner that appears mediatedby artistic orm. Whereas the latter, a conscious objectication o the medium, accordingto Theodore Adorno in his inuential writingCulture Industry8, elevates lm to art.

4 Allen. P. 95 Sitney, P. Adam s. Visionary Film: The American Avant-Garde, 1943-2000.

Oxord University Press, USA, 2002. P. 3486 Baudry, Jean-Louis. Ideological Eects o the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus. Film Quarterly, Vol. 28, No. 2

(Winter, 1974-1975). PP. 39-477 Russian i lmma ker Lev Kuleshov, noted or his causal editing montage techniques, considers ilm not as

photographic recordings but as purely spatial manipulation within a projective geometry.

8 Adorno, Theodor. Culture Industry (Routledge Classics). Routledge, 2001.

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Fig 1. Let, Michael Snow, Wavelength, 1967.Image courtesy o http://www.greylodge.org

Adorno uses Michelangelo Antonioni as an example o this latter methodology, where thelmmaker consciously distills the photography o the environments in The Passengerto

the point that the motion that accompanies the perspective o a moving perceiver thecamera and the viewer is entirely removed. Michael Snows renowned Wavelength bringsattention to the unction o zooming in with a camera lens, which, in contrast to walkingcloser to an object, elicits a more visual, less physical spatial experience. In the realm oassemblage, Vsevolod Pudovkin believes that the montage is the only way through whichlm can translate reality: the isolated shot is not even a small ragment o cinema; itis only raw material, a ragment o the real world. Only by montage can one pass romphotography to cinema []. Broadly dened, montage is quite simply inseparable romthe composition o the work itsel.9 Whereas Pudovkin strives to maniest realismwith his cuts, Sergei Eisenstein reuses to submit to any type o ow in his work, andconsciously opposes descriptive realism with Kuleshov-inspired collisional montage,the juxtaposition o visually conicting shots.

With a minimalist approach to narrative, my work brings awareness to the lmic mediumspecically through the portrayal o space and time. My methods o approach encompassvarious aspects o the ve elements previously mentioned.

The ilmic medium emerges in the late 19th century when depictions o stillnessno longer suice to translate human experience with surrounding environments,

when mobility by the means o automobiles is required to ulill an expandingurban liestyle. Drawing rom this correlation, I question how our perception ospace changes in accordance to our increasing reedom to traverse through diverselandscapes, and how ilm evolved to acilitate the articulation o these travelexperiences. I also question the mediums capacity to simulate the experience ocrossing through a spatial environment: how does the medium successully construct

9 Metz, Christia n. Film Lang uage: A Semiotics o the Cinema. University o Chicago Press, 1990. P. 32

Fig 2. Right, Michelangelo Antonioni, The Passenger, 1975.

Image courtesy o Sony Pictures Classics


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the experience o physically intersecting a three-dimensional reality throughtwo-dimensional means? How much o the spectators preexisting knowledge

contributes into understanding this construction? How much can be altered beorethis construction becomes completely incomprehensible?

In ways o content and orm, my work links the ideological signatures implicit inthe lmic medium (such as the psychological eects o cinematographic styles, shotduration, sound perspectivization, assemblage, o-screen space, etc.) and incorporatestechnology/techniques in video installation and site-specic cinema. My work aims todiscuss the perception and conception o action in space and time in these ormats in thetraditional sense, and these medias deliberate departure rom the normative. Originallyeducated as a lmmaker, I was once completely submerged in the content o lm as atraditional medium. Through these two specic types o installation-based new mediawork, my goal is to generate new syntaxes as ormal ltration o the content. I wish toreinvent both the spectators and my personal relationship with the medium.

Fig 3. Sergei Eisenstein, October/Ten Days that Shook the World, 1927.Image Courtesy o http://www.youtube.com

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THE


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RY

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1.

EXPERIENCING

GEOGRAPHY,

ARCHITECTURE AND

CONSTRUCTED SPACE


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THE ORIGIN OF

CINEMATIC SPACE

The invention o the cinema comes rom Eadweard Muybridges desire to reveal the truthabout a racehorse. Animals are regarded as machines, whose close analysis requires the

more acute perception o another machine, the camera. In such a way, the early unctiono lm is scientic and revelatory; it brings its subjects to the audience or urtherexamination. The Lumieres consider lm to be no more than a scientic curiosity,nature caught in the act. Unnoticed by the Lumieres, stylistic visual motis are presentthroughout their work that veer the lms away rom being purely objective observations.

Around the beginning o the 20th century, countless screen tests, short lms, andlm experiments test the capacity o the lm camera. On one end o the spectrum areobservational shots o events and landscapes by technological pioneers such as ThomasEdison and W.K.L. Dickson. These lms, oten reerencing panoramas or dioramas (that

were popular in Europe in the 1800s), break away rom the theatrical proscenium o-thepre-cinema screen. Panorama rom Times Building, New York (Edison, 1905) exposes anexpanse o cityscape using the lm cameras primitive ability to pan and tilt. Panoramao 4th St., St Joseph (A. E, Weed, 1902) uses the mobile and rst person perspective o amoving vehicle to couple the experience o travel to that o exploring landscape in cinema.The marriage between cinema and mobility is instigated by the same curiosity thatMuybridge possesses to see more and to be immersed in the experience o world travel.As a lmmaker strives to communicate the emotional journey o encountering a newplace, lm transorms rom a scientic device to a medium that incites both intellectualand emotional response. This is where the technical conventions o lm become essential

to acilitate the expansion o the mediums communicative capacity. This is where earlylmic experimentations enter and broaden the language o the medium.

In describing this social trend that orms around tourism and cinematic viewer-ship, ItalianFilm Theorist Giuliana Bruno comments [lm] and the house in which its motion dwelt was a way o urther extending this cityscape, ragmenting it, reinventing its assemblage,expanding its horizons.10 Just as an actual site o travel is ltered through ones subjectiveperception, broken down into moments paired with personal meaning, the authorship o

Fig 4. D.W. Gri ith, The Birth o a Nation, 1915.

Image Courtesy o Henderson, Robert M. D. W. Griith His Lie and Work , 1972.

10 Bruno, Giuliana.Atlas o Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film. Verso, 2007. P. 77

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conveying specic ideas in experiencing space is characterized by the process o organizingthe visuals to resonate with intended meaning. This process engenders progressively moremethods o establishing space in cinema. On the opposite end o observational panoramic lms

are lm experiments that explore the eect o new cutting methods, camera movements, andnew compositions by D.W. Grith, as well as the methodical approaches to creating meaningthrough the conict and collision between images by Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, and LevKuleshov, which are calculated to a state that can be described as mathematical.

As the originator o American narrative cinema, D.W. Grith is known or his explorationo urbanism and the country lie. The increasing tempo o editing in his historicalepic,Birth o a Nation (1915), endows the viewer with a sense o mobility that traversesthrough separate yet connected physical landscapes o America through parallel editing.The rhythm o editing, in this context, supplies the experience o travel with increasing

emotional eect. His lmic style reerences the expositional structure o 19th centurynovels, where subplots overlap and jump back and orth through the pages, especially inhis editing o parallel actions, which is one o the rst attempts or cinema to tackle thenotion o simultaneous actions in multiple spaces.

During these two decades o prolieration, ilm enters into the masses as a popularmedium. A series o City Symphony ilms that emerged in the 1920s used thebirth o cinema to explore the mediums intrinsic link to mobility with a revelatoryagenda. French Filmmaker Ren Clair remarks that the main aesthetics o cinema ismovement the objects external movement and the inner movement o the action.

In Paris qui dort(1925), a laser ray accidentally reezes the entire city o Paris in time.Film theorist Annette Michelson describes Clairs work (along with the work o DzigaVertov) as metacinematic11, a conscious analysis o the ilm apparatus throughthe metaphorical use o the narrative. Thematically, the ray illustrates how themovie camera constructs the relationship between corporeality and motion. It is theinstrument that translates the meanings o actions through suspending them, raming

Fig 5. Ren Clair, Paris qui dort, 1925.

Image Courtesy o http://www.youtube.com

11 Michelson, Annette. Dr. Craze and Mr. Clair. October, Vol. 11, Essays in Honor o Jay Leyda . (Winter,1979). PP. 30-53.

A technique in ilm editing to suggest simultaneity o actions in separate locations by placing oneaction ater another.


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them in space. This is perhaps what Bruno reers to as the perceptual interplay thatexists between immobility and mobility.12 Those that are spared by the ray maneuverthrough the rozen city, exploring its various corners, in a sense assembling together

the staged ragments o a complete narrative.

Films spectatorship is thus a practice o space that it dwelt in, as in thebuilt environment. The itinerary o such a practice is similarly drawn bythe visitor to a city or its resident, who goes to the highest point a hill,a skyscraper, a tower to project hersel onto the cityscape, and who alsoengages the anatomy o the streets, the citys underbelly, as she traversesdierent urban congurations. Such a multiplicity o perspectives, a montageo traveling shots with diverse viewpoints and rhythms, also guides thecinema and its way o site-seeing. Changes in the height, size, angle, and scale o the view, as well as the speed o the transport, are embedded inthe very language o lmic shots, editing, and camera movements. Travelculture is written on the techniques o lmic observation.13

Dziga Vertov was the ounder o the Kinopravda movement o 1920s Soviet Russia.Kinopravda (lm-truth) describes the reality captured by a camera without articial

creative input by the screenwriter. The Man with a Movie Camera (1929) documents,with creative air, a day in the lie o a Russian city (shot in Moscow and Odessa). Thesequence o the edit is chronological. There is also an absence o titles, which removesnarrative specicity rom the work. Vertov regards drama to be an opiate or the masses, yet stylistically, his lm reects the emotive rhythm o traveling. American VideoArtist Doug Aitken describes the lm as a kaleidoscope o visual impressions and a

12 Bruno. P. 55.

13 Ibid. P. 62.

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rapid-re montage o city lie in split screens, reeze rames, double exposures, anddissolves.14Furthermore, the movie theatre contextualizes the viewing o the meta-lm,

which begins with the parting o the theatre curtains and the unolding o theatre chairs.The journey o the cameraman/camera through the city in turn carries the movie audiencethrough the cityscape.

In addition to The Man with a Movie Camera, and Paris qui dort, numerous other citysymphony lms establish the intimate association between cinema and urban travel onboth a documentary and an emotional level. Mobility also becomes a necessary part oreinstating reality, whether it is in the staging or in the production. Motion, rst introducedto realistically render the gesture o moving in space, becomes a creative element used tosimulate the physical sensation o movements, grand or minute. The technically maturelm subjective movements movements, that is, which the spectator is invited toexecute constantly compete with objective ones, states Bruno. The spectator may haveto identiy himsel with a tilting, panning, or traveling camera which insists on bringingmotionless as well as moving objects to his attention. Or an appropriate arrangement oshots may rush the audience through vast expanses o time and/or space so as to make itwitness, almost simultaneously, events in dierent periods and places.15

Soon, as the movie camera becomes portable, the cameras movement through spacealso gains the added reedom to simulate any mode o travel. Once bound to a car or a

train, the camera is now handheld and organically expressive. The cameras course oaction transorms rom raming the audience into its spatial construction to becomingthe extension o the eye. Its very presence within the lms physical environmentacilitates the telepresence o the viewers body. Traversing through the lmic space,the viewer becomes immersed and inormed by the perspective and conguration o theenvironment. As a result o this propagation o visuality, the engagement between thescreen and the viewer becomes progressively more experientially immersive.14 Aitken, Doug. Broken Screen: Expanding the Image, Breaking the Narrative. D.A.P./Distributed Art

Publishers, Inc, 2005. P. 28715 Bruno. P. 34.Fig 6. Dziga Vertov, The Man with a Movie Camera, 1929.

Image Courtesy o Kino Video.


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OBJECTIFYING

THE MEDIUM

German Film theorist Siegried Kracauer qualies lms that are regarded as art as those thatorganize the raw material to which they resort into some sel-sucient composition instead

o accepting it as an element in its own right, that their underlying ormative impulses are sostrong that they deeat the cinematic approach with its concern or camera-reality.16

Art in the orm o lm, or any other medium that exemplies the science o lm, ormetacinema, is the deliberation o ormative lmic techniques. Using the conventions ocinema its staging, its cinematography, and the phenomenology o cinema spectatorship artists requently explore the perception and construction o spatiality by borrowingrom our amiliarity with popular lms.

Michael Snows work builds heavily rom the process o lmic objectication, thespotlighting o cinematographic conventions (camera zooms, actions occurring outo rame) to imply the existence o a narrative that is actually rarely present. Snowswork oten relies the on viewers analysis o the process and mechanisms involved in themaking o the work. In his lmic work, Back and Forth (1968-1969), a camera swingsback and orth in the path o a pendulum within a room. Primarily, the work emphasizesthe presence o the camera as a traveling object within the space. Its route is concrete andpredictable; its limited view o the room does not construct the space o the room anymore than the viewer is capable o placing the motion within the actual space withinwhich the ootage is lmed. The distension, repetition, and aggressive use o movement

[] is an attempt to orce discursive and analytic unctions rom the mind, thus creatinga timelessness within a temporal structure, or more exactly, a temporality ground in theperception o space rather than in narrative.17

InLa rgion centrale (1970-1971), Snow once again highlights the movements o the camera byrevealing compositions o a Quebec landscape unperceivable by the human eye. The camera,moving along various axes at dierent speeds, transorms the raming o the space into abstract

Kracauer describes two ways o cinematically constructing reality: motion and staging.16 Kracauer, Siegried. Theory o Film. Princeton University Pres s, 1997.

17 Taubin, Amy. Double Visions in Michael Snow Almost Cover to Cover. Black Dog, 2000.

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shapes. With no narrative center to ocus on, the interaction between the image and its ramebecomes the lms most accentuated action. Unlike city symphony lms, Snows work seeks to

separate the rst-person immersion within the lmic space, but nevertheless imparts on theviewer the sensation o experiencing the physical riction o movements through space.

Film and video installation artist Doug Aitken reerences traditional cinema primarilythrough the lmically aestheticized rendition o his subject matters. One o his earliestworks, Infection (1992), displays the ootage shot rom a 16mm lm camera mountedonto a rocket roaming over the landscape o a Caliornian suburb. The work strives tocommunicate an imagined point o view, unable to be directly experienced by the humaneye much like La rgion centrale. Aitken consistently looks to lmic technology as anenabler o alternative perspectives. A later work,Diamond Sea (1997), contains the worldsoldest desert, only reerred to as Diamond Areas 1 and 2. Shot on lm, scored with orchestralmusic, the three-channel video installation juxtaposes the grandeur o vast landscape inlm with the sensation o social desolation. The deserted natural space also contrasts theinstallations overt display o technology. Aitkens design orDiamond Sea calls attention torole o camera as both a revelatory instrument and a bridge between the out-o-reach andthe accessible space within the museum.

Aitkens multi-channel video work challenges the temporal and spatial linearity otraditional lm by both inheriting the look o cinema and breaking apart the rame into

multiple acets. This is not unlike a new iteration o Griths cross-cutting o simultaneousactions, or Eisensteins purposeul collisional montage. A body o installation work,includingElectric Earth (1999),I Am Into You (2000),Blow Debris(2000), andNew Ocean(2001), conveys change and transormation in the orm o narrative, character, andlandscape. To access and capture the reality o these installations, the viewer is either


Image courtesy o http://www.greylodge.com


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enguled by a panorama o the lm, or conronted by an array o screens, togetherorming a eld o ragmented imageries, while individually segregating elements rom

the whole o the lm to induce unpredictable rhythmic change. In writing about his work,Aitken makes a direct correlation between the linearity o a lmstrip, its implication ontemporality, and his desire or a broken screen.

Film and video structure our experience in a linear way simply because theyre movingimages on a strip o emulsion or tape. They create a story out o everything because itsinherent to the medium and to the structure o the montage. But o course, we experiencetime in a much more complex way. The question or me is, how can I break through thisidea, which is reinorced constantly? How can I make time somehow collapse or expand,so it no longer unolds in this one narrow orm?18

18 Birnbaum, Daniel. Doug Aitken (Contemporary Artists Series). Phaidon Press, 2001. p. 51

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Walter Benjamins description o the theatrical character o the townscapeo Naples is an exact picture o the combined stage and auditorium inRear Window: Buildings are used as a popular stage. They are all dividedinto innumerable, simultaneously animated theatres. Balcony, courtyard,window, gateway, staircase, roo are the same time stage and boxes. 19

The eld o vision has always seemed to me comparable to the ground o anarcheological excavation.20

I have always harbored a deep passion or architectural cross-sections. For as long as I can

remember, their aesthetics and design have mesmerized me. Its a very specic interestor which I previously had no rationale. In July o 2007, I traveled rom through Italy,rom North to South, with a close riend, Heather McPherson, who is a painter. We beganto discuss the reasons behind specic aspects o our artistic passions. These discussionseventually led to an important personal discovery

I was walking in the ruins o Pompeii, Naples. It was late in July, during a shade-lessaternoon. Pompeii was one o the last destinations o my Italy trip.

I was glad that all the artiacts were either excavated or looted, because the barenesso the architecture was honest and un-staged. Moving past the rooess walls, down akilometer o streets that were simultaneously anonymous and specic, layers o rooms,common halls, and courtyards shited past me. I witnessed multiples at the same time,a strange clash o vacancy and society. The rectangles and squares in the walls ormedinnite congurations o lmic compositions. It was the highlight o my year.

MY VISIT TO POMPEII

19 Pallasmaa: Geometry o Terrorp. 14720 Virilio, Paul.Lhorizon Negati : Essai De Dr omoscopie (Debats). Editions Galilee, 1984. p. 1


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The next day, I began to investigate precisely why I was so moved. I listed several topics that havealways ascinated me and driven me to sel-expression. I wrote this response in my sketchbook:

Ater this reection, projects that I have never considered personal have become quietintimate. My lm work attempts to describe the conict between isolation and coexistence.The situation is oten mundane, or at least nothing happens. The dramatic tension inthe narrative exists not in the subjects, but in the physical void between them.

To build a theoretical map o an architectonics as mobile as that o motion pictures,one must use a traveling lens and make room or the sensory spatiality o lm, or our

apprehension o space, including lmic space, occurs through an engagement with touchand movement. Our site-seeing tour ollows this intimate path o mobilized visual space,erring21 rom architectural and artistic sites to moving pictures. Haptically driven,the atlas nds a design or lmic space within the delicate cartography o emotion, thatsentient place that exists between the map, the wall, and the screen. 22

This real-lie cross-section o an entire society is something that has ascinated me since childhood. I was perpetually drawn to it withunexplainable orce. As I aged, this attraction did not subside. I anything,it grew stronger and more complex. Even now, I am xated on exploring space, breaks and continuums in space, simultaneous actions within andaround spaces the visible and invisible sense o space. I ully recognizemy passion, but rarely asked why. Its been with me or so long. Standingagainst the ruins, I suddenly began to wonder it was the rst time I have

been immersed within a dreamscape-like arena where my usual sense ospatiality was challenged. It has never happened beorewhere I could soclearly see multiple planes o divisions simultaneously. I could visualizethe people that used to possess these spaces moving about, all together, inone continuous web o interspersed strings. The story o the place suddenlybecomes about the inter-relationships, the energ y o transitions, as opposedto any singular object. The simultaneity o actions perormed by multiplepeople is a orm o calm rhythm.

- July 7, 2007, on the train to Cealu

21 Bruno reers to erring as strayin g rom a path.22 Bruno. P. 16

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2.

CONSTRUCTION OF

REALITY


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SYNTHESIS OF

SCIENCE AND ART

One shouldnt be astonished that the cinema has always elt the natural,unavoidable necessity to insert a story in the reality to make it excitingand spectacular. All the same, it is clear that such a method evades adirect approach to everyday reality, and suggests that it cannot be portrayedwithout the intervention o antasy or artice.23

When lm was rst invented as a practical technology, it observed reality through oneangle and one composition. It was conceived as a machine that more acutely revealstruths in the world unperceived by the human eye. Muybridges zoopraxiscope dissectsmotion into individual moments as to oer scientic evidence or the moment whenthe horses our legs are suspended in midair. Right rom the start, lm is regarded notjust as a medium that sustains movement, but as one that generates movement rom theassemblage o single moments. This concept is the springboard or decades o lmic stylesto come the methodical and scientic assignment o images onto a continuous timelineconveys premeditated thoughts and triggers planned sensations.

At its birth, the lm cameras role as a spectator simulates that o a theatre audience. Intheatre, actions are pantomimed and speech is exaggerated or practicalitys sake, so thatthe audience member sitting at the urther rows away rom the stage can still understandthe gesture and the message. In a sense, the narrative is communicated through symbolic

and mimetic means. Familiarity with theatrical arts allows the audience to lter out theexaggerations and extract the intent o these gestures, then assemble them into a story.Beginning cinema sought to do the same. Film theorist Noel Burch calls this mode opresentation in cinema primitivism, where the bare-bone construction o lmic realityunctions when the spectator is centered within the illusory picture at crucial moments oaction. This immersion, as dened by Burch, is o a single space-time continuum and o

23 Zavatti ni, Cesare. Some Ideas on the Cinema. MacCan n, Richard Dyer, ed.Film: A Montage oTheories, 216-228. New York, Dutton, 1966.

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the spectator as a unied subject o vision who moves rom one vantage point to anotherwithin the continuum is created by the many converging codes o representation: linear

perspective, camera ubiquity, camera movement, eye-line matching [] and so on.24

During the period that Burch describes as primitivism namely beore the introductiono sound lm in the late 1920s, or movable camera (by dolly tracks and then by hand) the raming o a scene generally resembles a theatrical stage, where the lm audience isplaced in ront row center. In order to maintain the time-space continuum o the action,this stationary shot persists, sometimes with small degrees o panning on a tripod, untilan important plot point in the narrative calls or the insertion o other inormation, suchas a text-card or a close-up. Ater this insert, the composition returns to the originalmaster shot as the story succinctly ends.

Beginning in the 1910s with Kuleshov, Eisenstein, and Grith, cinema was soon ableto realize that the xed distance and viewing perspective between the subject and theaudience can be abolished. This is where mise-en-scene takes a ront seat in creativelycontrolling the visual content through spatial organization, design, orientation, andragmentation. The audiences identication with the actor is really an identicationwith the camera, Walter Benjamin comments on the shit toward the use o cinematictechnology to break up the careully maintained temporal and spatial continuum in earlycinema. [C]onsequently the audience takes the position o the camera; its approach is

that o testing. This is not the approach to which cult values may be exposed.25

24 Burch, Noel. N.d. Correction Please or How We Got into Pictures.(Pamphlet accompanying ilm o samename.) ___ _. 1978 1979. Porter, or Ambivalence. Screen 19, no. 4: 19-105.

25 Benjamin, Water. The Work o Art in the Age o Mechanica l Reproduction, in Illuminations: Essaysand Relections. Schocken, 1969. P. 228.

Fig 8. Eadweard Muybridge, Galloping Horse, 1878 .

Image courtesy o http://www.digitaljour nalist.org


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Beore diving into the techniques that accompany this shit away rom cinematicprimitivism, one must keep in mind that the role that reality plays in dierent genres and

movements o lm. In his seminal essay, written in 1967, Andre Bazin26 opposes two kindso lmmakers in the orchestration o the cinematic image: those that put aith in the image,such as Russian Constructivists, and German Expressionists, Hitchcock, and lmmakerso the French New Wave; and those that put aith in reality, such as Renoir, Antonioni,Murnau, and Angelopoulos. In the rst grouping, the image is assembled jarringly andmanipulated to communicate an intellectual and emotional message. In the secondgrouping, the cinema is used to, as commented by David Bordwell, capture the concreterelations o people and objects knit into the seamless abric o realitywhich conveys thelmmakers unique conceptions o the world.27 Yet the two groupings o lmmakingare not polar opposites, within the tension-packed visual compositions by Eisenstein,imageries and rhythms reerence instances o reality and the collision resulted by eachabrupt cut certainly recalls some type o real emotional experience. Likewise, within thecanvas o seamless portrayals o reality, aberrant elements occur to set things awry inorder to direct the viewers attention toward specic visual and narrative threads.

This ollowing chapter is dedicated to addressing the primary methods through which cinemareerences and constructs reality with an emphasis on spatiality and temporality. The discussion will be broken down into the production components o mise-en-scene, cinematography,and assemblage. The second part o this chapter investigates the reality within the narrative

context as created by these components and the message that the spectator receives.

26 Bazin, Andre. The Evolution o the Lang uage o Cinema, in What is Cinema? Vol. 1. University oCaliornia Press, 2004.

27 Bordwell, David. Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. University o Caliornia Press, 2005. P. 11

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Mise-en-scene

Expanding rom Franois Truauts denition, Bordwell outlines mise-en-scene assetting, lighting, costume, makeup and perormance within the shot.28 These elementswhen combined orm the visual style o the lm. They serve our main purposes:

1. To denote a ctional or non-ctional realm o actions, agents, and circumstances (thenarrative)

2. To generate expressive qualities to inect viewers with strong eelings29

3. To yield more abstract, conceptual meanings symbolism4. To work somewhat on its own unctioning decoratively

Together, the elements within a rame construct the world o the lm. While it is mostlikely reerential o reality in appearance or example: earthy landscapes, identiablearchitecture, illuminations that imply sunlight or practical lighting, class-appropriateclothing, non-pantomimic acting, and so on it is also a completely believable uniqueentity. An extreme example is Star Wars (1977, George Lucas), where every visual elemento the lm helps to establish a culture very removed rom an ordinary lie on earth. Rightrom the start, the lm announces that it takes place in a galaxy ar, ar away. Thisstatement not only sets the antastic tone or the trilogy, but also immediately suspendsthe audiences belie in establishing that the visual uniqueness throughout the lm is not

unusual or articial to the civilization it seeks to create. Hence, the visual content withinthe lm is compatible with the parameters set or the reality within the lm. In addition,while this araway galaxy is a departure rom lie on earth, the behavior and sociality oits inhabitants, as shown through the perormance, is signicantly comparable to that oearth. Uniormity o the mise-en-scene is what ultimately makes this separation possible.

28 Ibid. P. 16

29 Ibid. P. 34


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This is what Bordwell means by his rst point. It is also easy to see that the our unctionso successul mise-en-scene work hand-in-hand with one another. In other words,narrative emotes, symbolism reinorces narrative (as it does in literature), and aestheticsincites specic sensational responses.

Eisensteins meticulous study o montage is partnered with his detailed analysis ocinematography, which he calls mise-en-cadre, or mise-en-shot. Art is alwaysconict, according to its methodology and cinematography is, rst and oremost,montage.30 The conict, which Eisenstein extensively breaks up into several categories(which will be addressed later in this chapter) entail the relationship ormed between

images, or rames o a lm. Instead o seeing each image as placed laterally in relationto one another, Eisenstein perceives one as on top o the other. Motion emerges rom this juxtaposition. By motion, Eisenstein does not simply mean the physical act o movingthrough space, but also emotional and intellectual movements, which establish thetonality and narrative content o the lm. These movements, working symbioticallywithin the lm rame, construct reality in all aspects that relate to the human experience.This is the reason or the phenomenon o spatial depth, in the optical superimposition otwo planes [...]. From the superimposition o two elements o the same dimension alwaysarises a new, higher dimension.31 The content within the rame is analyzed in both apainterly (orm-oriented) and intellectual (content-oriented) ashion.

30 Eisenstein, Sergei. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Harvest Books, 1969.31 Ibid. P. 49

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Fig 9. Let, F.W. Murnau, The Last Laugh, 1924.Image courtesy o Kino Video.

Fig 10. Center, F.W. Murnau, Noseratu, 1922 .Image courtesy o Kino Video.

Fig 11. Right, F.W. Murnau, Sunrise, 1927.

Image courtesy o Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertain ment.


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Cinematography

There are two important qualities that dene cinematography:

1. Subconsciously or consciously, it is a decision2. It is motivated by the text o the lm.

Cinematography is the visual ramework through which the lmmaker interprets andexpresses events, which, unless it is a purely abstract idea, possesses temporal, spatial, andemotional continuity. It is clear why the movement o a camera, the granularity o thelm stock, and the depiction o the image through the choice o lens and ocal length all

the attributes that make up cinematography work to create motion and spatiality in thesame ashion, i not collaboratively, with assemblage or montage.

To more closely investigate how mise-en-scene and cinematography contribute to theconstruction o reality, whether it is spatial, textual, social, or aesthetic, I will identiytheir unction within several stylistically distinctive lms that heavily employ space aseither a metaphor or a direct component o their text. This theoretical analysis serves toexplicate both the reerential aspect and the point o departure in my own work.

Two entirely dierent directions o lmmaking suraced in Germany during the 1920s,

particularly in relation to their dissimilarities in mise-en-scene. Robert Wienes mostnotable work, Cabinet o Doctor Caligari (1920), is characterized by sets painted withshadows, corridors, and light. In conjunction with its stylistic title cards and crypticstoryline, Caligaris mise-en-scene is overtly abricated and non-representational. Whilethere is no spatial realism in Caligari, the lm implies depth and apertures on blatantly atplanes, a process that calls attention to the artice o lm as a two-dimensional projection.

Fig 12. Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941.

Image courtesy o Warner Home Video.


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AterNoseratu (1922), F.W. Murnaus lms, albeit remaining expressive and surreal, takea realistic turn. The success oThe Last Laugh (1924) which will be discussed urther orits cinematographic signicance leads to Sunrise (1927), a lm that visually articulates

the experience o travel through the imitation o realistic rural and urban landscapes.During a dramatic narrative sequence, the lms protagonists transition rom a ruraltown into the city center via a train. The moving vehicle enables continuous visibility ochanging exterior a trope rom beginning cinema, and undoubtedly resonant with theurban movement mentality o its time. With this staging, Murnau not only addresses thespatial reality and the world oSunrise, but also juxtaposes the character development withthe setting, emphasizing the importance o this architectural shit in the narrative. Thisis how visual inormation is both passive and active: the landscapes around the train serveboth as background inormation and analogize the emotional change that the charactersare about to experience in Sunrises narrative arc.

Going back to The Last Laugh, the relationship between mise-en-scene and cinematographyplays a crucial part in the lms narrative. The afuent city o Berlin rises over itsprotagonist, gloriying his role as a proud hotel porter and diminishing his status whenhe is emotionally devastated by his demotion to a janitor. To communicate the diminutivespatiality that accompanies the characters psychological low point, two shots take place:

1. The physical gesture o buildings alling over the porter, as i they areanthropomorphized to the role o villains. This is what Eisenstein reers to asconfict between matter and its spatial nature which is achieved by the distortiono the lens.

2. The placement o the porter to the lower right corner o the rame the leastnoticeable area o the composition removes his power over the situation.

Here, the construction o space goes beyond addressing the certain cultural or geographicalidentity o Berlin. The lms spatiality is not just the architecture that contains actions,but the active tension between the environment and character. Mise-en-scene and thecamera activate this psychology.

The our-minute opening shot in Orson Welles Touch o Evil(1958) is a signature exampleo how the realist director dramatizes lm space.32 As a wideshot, the moving compositionexplores the US-Mexico border with deep ocus and clarity. The space is depicted concretely,33

since geographies o both the border and the town play important parts in the narrative.Within the space ramed by this shot, layers o actions take place, some setting cultural

32 Bordwell. P. 172

33 In act, Welles demands that the il m be shot in a real space as opposed to a i lm set.

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context, some the noir aesthetics that resonates throughout Welles work, some establishingmoral identication or the male protagonist, and some building up the narrative plot point

that is about to take place the explosion that interrupts the shot.

Actions are ramed within and outside o the lm rame; the continuity o the shotreinorces the idea that narrative extends beyond the visible realm. The motion o thecamera describes Eisensteins third conict o motives: the projection o conict into space,a zig-zag movement traveling through space. While the camera work orients the viewerwithin the world oTouch o Evil, the mise-en-scene implies the presence o acts yet to berevealed, i.e., a lurking danger that sets the world o-balance, a common theme o FilmNoir. As the audience, we are now keyed into the multi-layering o action and space.

Welles employs deep ocus shots constantly to ll his raming with inormation. The slowdolly-ing back rom the snow in Citizen Kane (1941) is another amous example. A youngCharles Foster Kane playing in the snow is ramed by the window, placed center screento emphasize his importance and entrapment, the bleak interior o the Foster residencecounterbalances the blissul childs play, while the actual dialogue exchange takes place inthe oreground. In one shot, Welles collapses three spaces into one in order to create conict.The emotional experience o moving through this lm space also increases in tension.

The works o Italian Neorealistic (and later) New Wave Director, Michelangelo Antonioni,

challenge the way o seeing the environment by stripping away dramatic elements,cinematic style, and the artice o studio lms.La Notte (1961), or example, is lmed withdocumentary aesthetics. The visual tension is subtly conveyed through ones prolongedobservation o the mise-en-scene.Blowup (1966) takes an alternate approach through usingthe photographic medium as a metaphor or the cinematic construction o spatial reality, which also translates into the construction o truth in the narrative. Ater all, what is

Fig 13. Chris Welsby, Windmill II, 1973 .Image courtesy British Film Institute.


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revealed by the camera is what inorms the reality o the situation; what is hidden is onlyinerred by the visible, and is otherwise non-existent, as i it never happened. Antonioni

describes that his goal orBlowup is to question the reality o our experience, and thatone o the lms main themes is to see or not to see the correct value o things.34

Events hidden rom the eye o a camera are either non-existent or presumed to have takenplace in an unexplored space, which is nevertheless existent within the spatial reality othe lm. In other words, what Antinioni means by questioning the reality o experienceis or the viewer to decide between these two possibilities implied by this act o obscuring.

Three scenes inBlowup demonstrate the method o its spatial construction. In the park,when Thomas the photographer rst encounters a man and a woman having an aair,his visual perception is driven by the couples actions. With the couple situated in thecenter o his line o vision, he captures the moment with his camera, casting both thecouples behaviors and the physical structure o the park into the mise-en-scene. In thesecond scene, these ragmented images are printed and arranged to recreate the physicalreality o the park. What is noteworthy o this assemblage is the motion that motivatesThomas to begin this endeavor the womans eyeline. Her gaze extends the space beyondthe camera that rames her in a two-dimensional plane. This raming inorms thephotographer (and the lm viewer) o a counter-action that occurs opposite her gaze. Thisis the Eisensteinian conict between viewpoints, which is directed by camera angles35.

A requently used convention is the shot-reverse-shot, which constructs a causalrelationship between shot A and B purely by placing one ater another in editing. Beorerevealing the subject o her gaze, space is constructed outside o the rame. Antonioniasks us to have aith in our speculation about a reality that is more oten deduced thanrevealed. This is what the lms nal scene is about: believing in a reality separate romthe norm through piecing together dialogical actions.

34 E nato a Londra ma non e un il m ingelese, rom Corriere della Sera, 12 February 1982. Translated byAllison Cooper.

35 Eisenstein. P. 54.

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Film and video artist Chris Welsby, oten described as a British Structuralist lmmaker,illustrates this shot-reverse-shot causal eect with Windmill(1973). In Windmill, a mirrorizedwindmill is placed in close proximity to a 16mm lm camera. The camera is set on a tripod

situated in a park. As the windmill rotates in response to wind ow, three layers o spacesare recorded by the lm: the deep space beyond the windmill (the park), the space behindthe camera reected by the mirrors, and the in-between space, the visual plane that appearsas a merging o the abstract ashes o colors and light captured by the quick movements owindmill, acting almost as a camera shutter that both obscures and reveals. The work is amaniestation o the editing process and its unction to cohere and construct spatiality.

Being, says Heidegger, is being-in-the-world. When David senses the end(although probably not even he himsel is sure o it), he is no longer in the

world. The world is outside the window.36

Michelangelo Antonioni, in response to the end shot o The Passenger.

The last shot o The Passenger(1975) is one o most theorized moments in Antonioniswork. Spanning seven minutes, the shot begins rom within protagonist David Lockeshotel room, moves steadily out the gated window, pans over that empty arena outside thehotel, and nally turns around so that the window is now in its view and we are nowlooking inside at Locke, dead. This is done in one long take with no edits. Like his other

work, The Passengerunravels slowly and naturally, without dramatic high points, music,or even extensive dialogue. Natural and man-made architectures, which demarcate theexpanse and connes o physical space, are heavily explored by the camera. In slow, widecompositions, Antonioni prolongs the process o staging, orcing the audience to speculateon the scenes purpose. The architectural mise-en-scene, in this context, removes visualcues indicative o drama by obscuring the actions to dedramatize the situation, asBordwell puts it. What is signicant about this seven-minute shot is its preservation otemporal continuity, and in turn spatial continuity. Throughout the entire lm, Lockeis a character out o place, yet shaped by his oreign environment. By integrating theinterior o Lockes world with the exterior environment with which he cannot connect,

Antonioni stresses the multilayered nature o space.

36 Il mondo e uori dall a inestr a, in Filmcritica 252 , March 1975. Translated by Dana Renga.


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Fig 14. Michelang elo Antonioni, The Passenger, 1975 .

Image courtesy o Sony Pictures Classics.


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STRUCTURAL

FRAGMENTATION INCINEMATIC SPACE:

CINEMATOGRAPHY &

MONTAGE

The isolated shot is not even a small ragment o cinema; it is only rawmaterial, a ragment o the real world. Only by montage can one pass romphotography to cinema, rom slavish copy to art. Broadly dened, montageis quite simply inseparable rom the composition o the work itsel.37

Drawing rom the beginning o this thesis, Gilles Deleuze expresses in his writingCinema 1: The Movement-Image that cinema depicts motion as a unity o multiplicity.Not only does sequence o shots describe an action, it places us, the audience, within

motion to provide a sense o perspective and time. Deleuze goes on to describe two typeso mobility: the mobility o the action, and the mobility o the camera, which are bothembedded into the nature o shots. As previously discussed in this chapter, shots areplaced within the mise-en-scene, which is given orm by editing and by cinematography.Yet, it is the assemblage o shots that orients the action. In other words, visual editingis capable o ragmenting and reconguring lmed or staged physical space into a newspace that conveys a deliberate emotional and intellectual message.

In his inuential writing, The Production o Space, French philosopher Henri Leebvredescribes that space is socially constructed in a ashion comparable to Eisensteins

explanation o the role conict and Deleuzes emphasis on multiplicity. The ormo social space is encounter, assembly, simultaneity.38 Leebvre includes everythingthere is in space as what creates space, objects, movements, and signs. Natural spacejuxtaposes and thus disperses: it puts places and that which occupies them side by side.It particularizes. By contrast, social space implies actual or potential assembly at a singlepoint, or around that point. In this light, the process o assembling ragments o spaceas captured by lm into a sequence, providing an implicit movement and convergence operspectives, accumulates and transorms the natural space into a social space.

37 R. Barthes. In Communications, no. 4, 1964 (special issue: Recherches semiologiques). p. 47

38 Leebvre, Henri. The Production o Space. Blackwell Publishing Limited, 1991. p. 101


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Motion exists in space. As it drives through space, it possesses a certain kind o rhythm,a temporality. This driving orce is the mobility o the action within the mise-en-scene.Since montage is the superimposition o one image onto the next, a second motion arisesout o the change between the two images. The concept o the moving (time-consuming )image arises rom the superimposition or counterpoint o two diering immobileimages.39 This is a phenomenological projection o motion. Above and beyond creatingemotional undertones and addressing the orientation o ones movement through lmspace, the rhythm ormed by visual conict is, at its best, an intellectual montage.

Composition takes the structural elements o the portrayed phenomena and rom thesecomposes its canon or building the containing work...In doing this composition actuallytakes such elements, rst o all, rom the structure o the emotional behavior o man,joined with the experienced content o this or that portrayed phenomenon.40

The intellectual message o this type o montage is integral to the narrative. Instead odirectly addressing the textual components and hard acts o the story, the phenomenologicalapproach o intellectual montage is to reerence the mental experience simulated bythe design o an assemblage o shots, as to contextualize the actual narrative. Throughthis contextualization, the relationship between space and its subjects becomes morecomplex. A quick illustration: Alred Hitchcocks Vertigo (1958) uses interspersed cutting oexpositional visuals and stylized graphics to weave together a simultaneously anxious andnarrative experience. This is how the lm appears at a glance. Upon deeper examination,one can easily identiy the thematic and structural emphasis on the staircase o the church where the accidental all o the emale protagonist proceeds to haunt James StewartsDetective Ferguson or the rest o the lm as a space whose presence resonates throughout

39 Eisenstein. P. 53.40 Eisenstein. P. 151.

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Fig 15. Alred Hitchcock, Rear Window, 1954.Image courtesy o Universal Home Entertainment.


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the entire lm. Vertigos main graphic, spiraling out o control, is a good example whereHitchcock uses collisional montage to iner the desired phenomenological experience

associated with the staircase (its association with vertigo, repetition and transition), andin turn situates the audience in a certain direction o narrative. We know that the staircaseis physically threatening to the protagonist, who has vertigo. We understand that the acto looking down the staircase induces neurosis as it recalls tragic memories, triggeringconict between matter and its spatial nature (the distortion o the lens when the characterlooks downward41), but most signicantly, we also, through Hitchcocks rather abstractassemblage and production o spatiality, expect the staircase to be a vital part o theresolution. From this case, we can see how the symbiotic connection between assemblage/editing, cinematography, and mise-en-scene is crucial to what, in my introduction, Jean-Louis Baudry reerred to as the impression o reality.

41 The shot is achieved by a simultaneous zooming in and moving away rom the object, so that therelative sizes o the oreground object and the background constantly change achieving a renzied,dream-like visual eect. Oten reerred to as the Vertigo Shot.

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Fig 16. Alred Hitchcock, Vertigo, 1958.Image courtesy o Universal Home Entertainment.


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5/4

Moving along with the history o space, cinema denes itsel as anarchitectural practice. It is an art orm o the street, an agent in the

building o city views. The landscape o the city ends up interacting closelywith lmic representations, and to this extent, the streetscape is as much almic construction as it is an architectural one.42

5/443 uses an innitely rising staircase to demarcate and map a physical continuum. Froma visual stance, each ight o stairs is as nondescript as the next. During the six-minuteloop, the central character continuously walks upstairs to imply that the path is innite.While her uninterrupted motion cuts through this spiraling physical construct, actionsaround her take place in loops with varying lengths. For example, a man waits next tohis ances door every our ights o stairs on a loop. Another woman taking her dog ora walk descends in a ve-ight loop, thus intersecting with the man at dierent pointso her descent during each loop. Each character occupies separate temporal continuumslike dierent durations o melodic ostinatos in a musical composition44. Their spatialoccupation, in turn, become individualized and isolated, despite the sharing o thestairwell. This work visualizes the multi-layered quality o time as dened by actions inspace using lm and architecture as means o organization into a logical narrative.

This work is rst conceived to take place in a circular corridor. Soon, because o the naturalspiraling architecture o a staircase, the narrative and characters are designed to t its

structure instead.

The metaphorical connection between the dierent layers o temporalities and the narrativemakes the construction o a linear script dicult. To clariy the visual dynamic o the screenspace (to acilitate storyboarding), a chart is constructed to display where any character isat any time with minutes spanning the x-axis, and ights o steps (20 being the end o oneloop) spanning o y-axis.

42 Bruno. P. 27.43 Denotes the musical time signatu re that is ive beats per measure, one beat being one quar ter note.

44 Sets o continuous variat ions in a musical composition.

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In this chart, the sociality within the lm space is excavated rom what the camera doesnot reveal, as continuity o space and time is assured. From a secondary glance, it isapparent how the structure o the work takes ater a musical composition, where multiple

partials o requencies and melodic components are assembled in changing but orderedashion. The nished composition is usually not overtly structural, but its elements repeatenough to convey their own sets o behaviors. The single diagonal that travels up to theupper right corner indicate both the protagonists presence and the eye o the camera. Thedog and its owner, demarcated by downward-pointing diagonal lines, are deliberatelyarranged to occupy ve ights o stairs, as to generate varied interactions with the camera(protagonist) each time in passing. With this scientic blueprint o a rather abstractconceit, my intended central intellectual experience o viewing 5/4 is the mental act opiecing together spatiality and narrative through implicative cinematic and perormedgestures. The raming o each shot provides visual cues to aid to this endeavor.

In 5/4, the organization o space and action is also likened to the metric montage oorganization discussed by Eisenstein, in that the realization is in the repetition oormula-driven measures.45 Metric montage, according to Eisenstein, diers romrhythmic montage in its adherence to concrete mathematical divisions o time. Themusical composition is written so that each chord change coincides with the crossingo one more ight o steps. Despite the dierent durations o each chord, the impliedtemporal organization o a musical score reinorces a deliberated mathematical methodo spatial organization. The objectication o both the physical environment and the

eeting intersections between paths o motion accentuate the scientic methodologybehind the process o making the work, emphasizing its ormative aspects, removing itrom the representational cinematic approach dened by Kracauer.

We exist in separate layers o reality, prescribed by our own sense o space, time, and thusactions. To say that we perceive our coexistence because we occupy the same physicalspace is negligent o the social interactions that signiy the intersection o our actions.The changing manners o interactions between the protagonist and the surroundingcharacters demonstrates the multilayered quality o time and space theoreticallydiscussed above. On a surace level, the loop structure orms permutations o intersecting

actions. Taking advantage o the spectators amiliarity o lm narrative tropes, theseintersections generate escalating expectations, investment in characters, and build anascending story arc that takes ater traditional cinema. From a metaphysical angle,5/4 questions the social nature o our liestyles as dictated by routines a built-in,programmed personal sense o time our unique metronomes.

45 Eisenstein. P. 72

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Fig 17. Script, 5/4, 2007.

Fig 18. Next spread, sequential shots, 5/4, 2007.


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THE WATERThe Wateris a video installation that comprises o three simultaneous video projectionsonto three suraces within an unlit, empty room. The central projection occupies the

width o the room and aces the other two projections, laid out side by side on the opposite wall. Between these two projections is a ve-oot gap that accommodates entranceinto the viewing space. Together, the videos convey a looped narrative o a charactersexploration o this physical space, ull o straying paths, visual motis, and sounds thatdimensionalize this projected environment.

The two walls that accommodate the side projections are placed diagonally. As the viewerwalks past the initial ve-oot gap, the walls part to suggest o entrance into physicalspace separate rom the rest o the exhibition. The space is consciously congured this way to bring awareness to the gaps transitional characteristics, that it is a conux oingress and egress. In other words, it both invites the viewer to step into an alternatecinematic space and calls upon the lms character to exit the cinematic space withinwhich she exists. Lastly, the inability to perceive all three projections simultaneously where the lm is constantly experienced both directly and in periphery induces a senseo visual ragmentation and ambiguity also present within the narrative.In the central screen, lmed cinematically widescreen, the protagonist is shown walkingtoward the viewer, although her eyes never cross the lens. She is motivated by the soundo water, which grows louder as she steps downhill. The water, as indicated also by thetitle, is the narrative goal and her nal destination.

The sound distribution and music are designed to reinorce the thematic link between thecinematic space and the narrative. The sound o water is positioned at the entrance point,which is situated behind the viewer as she walks into the space, and beyond the charactersreach. Ambient and ootstep sounds pan across the viewing space, transorming themovement-image into action in space.

The two projections acing the central image display what appears to be the characterspoint-o-view, inerring to lms unction as a revelatory medium. As she traverses through


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the orest, this set o moving images inorms her o her location, but simultaneouslydisorients her with their rantic movements and disjunction. At a glance, the whole o the

piece seems straightorward but it is precisely the impression o realism that is used toconuse the understanding o the works spatiality. When juxtaposing the lms naturalspace into the natural space o the installation, the positioning o the three projectionsalso implies that the character is walking toward the gap that leads to the outside world.

The character uses the woods architectural makeup (as provided by the surroundingprojections) as visual cues in an endless attempt to solve the labyrinth. The term labyrinthis used here to imply both some type o organized structure inherent in the orest and themotion o traveling in circles. What the viewer does not notice at rst is that the threeprojections loop seamlessly at dierent intervals, hence creating new spaces as the character

wanders on, desperately trying to break the labyrinth. Through her journey, orestsanonymity instigates conusion and struggle. As we the viewer experience the installation,we too constantly question our construction o the orests geometry. Ater some periodo disorientation, the characters implied goal changes rom trying to nd the water totrying to locate hersel within the inrastructure o the environment constructed by theassemblage o shots amongst the three screens. This constant second-guessing challengesthe traditional sense o lm space shown on a solely two-dimensional plane. With twoadditional moving images protruding toward and wrapping around the spectator, thephysical relationship between the projection and the receptor is reconsidered.

In terms o reerencing the conventions o cinema, The Waterdraws rom the impressiono space in lmic projection and the idea o duration in lmic narrative. Revealing visualclues that strive to complete the construction o physical space, in a way sculpting space,the jumpy editing amongst the three screens, as well as within each screen, sculptstime to bring awareness to the extended temporality that accompanies the experienceo being lost. This deliberate emphasis on editorial structure parallels Stan Douglasexecution in Win, Place or Show (1998) and Suspiria (2002-2003) where, through careullyprogrammed durations o edits, intellectual impressions that contextualize the event aswell as rame the emotional experience, are materialized in spectatorship. The work also

aesthetically echoes Eija-Liisa Ahtilas lmic installation, The Wind(2006), where thenarrative is broken down into ragmented segments, and as a result distort time andcausal relationship rom one action to the next.

The work aims to dispute the viewers impression o the three-dimensional spaceas implied by the various conventions in traditional cinema. In a subconscious andautomatic eort to orient onesel within the works constructed real space, an ideologicaland physical exchange takes place between the viewer and the screen(s), much akin tothat o cinematic spectatorship, which is constantly immersive.

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Fig 19. The Water, installation visualization 2008.


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Fig 20. Let top, instal lation views, The Water, 2008.Fig 21. Let bottom, narrativ e brainstorm, The Water, 2008.

Fig 22. Above, scenario maps, The Water, 2008.

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THE BICYCLE

CAMERA

Part 1To examine the communicative nature and intricate balance between realistic portrayaland emotive interpretation o action in space, my work, The Bicycle Camera, borrows thespectators preexisting visual impression o the road as viewed rom a moving bicycleas a basis or contrast to a manipulated lm that depicts the action. (We all have a xedimpression o how quickly our surroundings pass us by as we bike down a street.)

To briey describe the conceived technical construction o the central mechanism, a gearis positioned next to the ront wheel o the bicycle as well as a 16mm lm camera mounteddirectly on top o the wheel. As the wheel rotates, its spokes drive the gear orward, whichin turn icks the shutter o the camera, one rame at a time. The aster the wheel rotates, the

more rames per second is exposed onto the lm. Playback o this ootage reverses the speedo travel during lming - as portions where the bicycle moves at a aster pace are sloweddown by the higher number rames exposed, and slow portions quickened by the lack orames. The relationship between the speed and action o biking is inverted. In a sense, thephysical continuum o the path traveled becomes the only constant in dictating lms visualcomponent. No matter how ast or slow the bicycle moves, the same amount o imageryis recorded. Additionally, only surrounding actions can reveal this distortion o time andspace, since otherwise it only seems that the revolution per second remains unchanged.

When we enter an environment, we cut into it with momentum and orce. While we do

not make direct contact with the objects around us, a rictional impulse emerges betweenour surrounding objects (and lie orms) and ourselves. I wish to document a variety ourban and rural landscapes with this mechanism, and as a result both accentuate and

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mediate this universally physical and psychological response. As lm originates as acontemporary to and a product o industrialization and mobility, it is the most eective

ormat or generating discussion o the two topics.

The material chosen to create this work is celluloid lm or two main reasons. One, Iwant to emphasize the direct linkage between the motion that characterizes the lmmedium and the application o transportation. The two technologies exist hand in hand,and it is most appropriate to have one quite literally drive the other. Two, the lmstrip,too, is a path, an unbroken continuum that maps out a space.

The lm belongs in the genre o a city symphony, and like lms by Dziga Vertov,Ren Clair, Walter Ruttman, Sheeler, and Strand, simulates our experience withina physical space by mimicking the visual transormation o the city landscape duringtravel. Perhaps more signicantly, like Russian Constructivist and Propaganda lms, thiswork approaches the documentary o reality with the attitude to emote and challenge.My perpetration is enabled by a change o the camera motor technology as opposed toa scripted narrative. The narrative takes place in the city o Providence, Rhode Island, where a diverse group o cityscapes are lumped together into close proximity. Withinthe span o twenty minutes, a bicyclist is likely to encounter rich suburbs, universities,local town stores, grand hotels, shopping malls, boutiques, bridges and waterways, anabandoned downtown, and industrial developments. Such anthropological variance

oers opportunities or a dramatic arch, which urthers my endeavor to embed emotionalmeaning into the activity o travel through the lm medium.

Obviously, the reality o the work is loyally representational o its counterpart realityoutside o lm. As a result, the spectator is invited to project her understanding o thatphysical reality back at the lm in order to comprehend its narrative. The spectatorsprojection ultimately leads to my attempt to reinstate physical signicance into thetransient lm medium. The distance between architectural organization o space and

Fig 23. Documentation o ilming process, The Bicycle Camera, 2007.


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cinematic organization o space can be removed through this return rom projected ormto physical orm. I the spectator is able to project signicance o physical space onto lms

ephemeral space, what level o physical detail is retained or added? In regards to both thearchitecturally or geographically dened and the more abstract, what is the dierencebetween spectatorial spatial reality which exists solely in the mind and the spatialreality represented by the lm in selected bits and parts as images?

Part IITo seek an answer to the question o the reinstatement o the physical, The Bicycle Camerasprouts into its second phase. Ater lming the physical space o Providence with themodied camera, the ootage is projected back onto the road via a bicycle-driven projector.

The projector is wired to the bicycle similarly to the camera, and all the increments arecarried over rom the rst to the second phase. Since the physical continuum o thepath traveled is the constant, a continuously moving and changing cityscape is projectedback onto three-dimensional architecture in the appearance o its original presence. Ina sense, one physical space is translated, through the mode o lm, onto another physicalspace. This phase signies my gesture o physical reinstatement through a quite literalmeans o projecting back, and more extensively explores the multilayered quality ophysical and social space. The actual action exerted or this projecting back also conveysthe active eort exerted by the spectator while creating meaning rom a lm.

The documentary reerence in this work invites the spectator to project her understandingo that physical reality back at the lm in order to comprehend its narrative. Thespectators projection ultimately leads to my attempt to reinstate physical signicanceinto the transient lmic medium. The distance between architectural organization ospace and cinematic organization o space can be removed through this return romprojected orm to physical orm.

time becomes distorted (inverted relationship to speed during playback)

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Fig 24. Sketch exploring the inverted relationship between speed and distance or The Bicycle Camera, 2007.


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At the moment Im ully conscious o my every step being recorded by thecamera and the act that I need to speak o my steps. These irst maybeten steps are in complete camera consciousness. I think at this pothole

here Im ready to switch into just walking and not actingso or thenext ten steps to this series o cracks on the road and this breeze o windagainst my ace Ill recognize that the house next to you is or rent.

He crosses Brown Street and approaches the ence that outlines a eld.

Im gonna cross this ence now that allows entry to Hope High Schooland it surprisingly looks more like a all day today than a spring day. Iremember when we played ootball hereI remember that theres an

entrance in the ence right here, here it is.

He crawls in.

And here I amat the home plate. And you know, I dont think Ive playedbaseball in my entire lieIve never actually stood on a baseball diamond.Im not even sure where oned stand in relation to the base. And the ball wouldcome like this, and Id swing and hit. That was not a very good one. Thatwas a oul ball, maybe? Not growing up in this country it was not part o myexperience.. Like, growing up playing baseball, little league, maybe? I donteven know what to do. I think right-handed is more sure-ooted, right?

He stands over the diamond, pretends a ball is coming. He swings. His bodyspins around ully.

And the pitch is coming, and Im an ATHLETE!!

Fig 25. Transpositions: Nathaniel, 2008.


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TRANSPOSITIONS

Transpositions is a one-channel video that presents the journey o our people walkingthrough an open eld. Each walk is lmed in one continuous hand-held shot to reinorce

its spatial and temporal continuity. Instead o implementing a script, each person is giventhree simple directions that vaguely structure the perormance:

1. Your goal is to traverse rom one end o the eld to the other.2. You should speak instructively and descriptively about your walk, as anything you saywill inorm the ollowing walker o the right course o action during their travel.3. You should not consciously ignore the presence o the camera. As in, you are allowed toacknowledge the gaze o the lens and make visual interactions with it.

Ater the rst walk, the audio inormation o the recorded ootage is passed onto theollowing walker, who is told to respond to what is said about the journey. The deliberatechoice o the transitive verb respond leaves room to explore the relationship betweenthe perormers, who are amiliar with one another on a personal basis. The perormersare given the reedom to connect the ragments o verbal inormation with the variousimpressions associated with the instructor, whether it is a specic past experience or anassumption based on personality.

The title o the piece is derived rom the process o translating one space to another, onemovement to another, and one impression to another. The repeating element rom one

segment to the next is the action o traversing an unchanging space. As the route o thetravel transorms based on a perormers biased interpretation o instructions, the spatialreality that is understood by the previous traveler becomes recongured. In this sense, thespatiality that is ormed by movement becomes an extended metaphor or the recongurednarrative, and vice versa. From a Structuralist standpoint, this work is my attempt toaddress the innite amount o angles one can use to perceive and interact with a naturalspace. Through the cross-examination between each lm segment, not only does the spacebe

Captured, A Thesis

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