Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

18 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics19can not only conceive a possible work, but also look nostalgically back at our present. Howclumsy and outdated will the coolest smartphone and the latest app appear when viewed 10years from now? Perhaps this is what Maurizio Lazzarato means when he states: ‘We need anostalgia for the future’. 11 But this nostalgia should operate not within the realm of time, butwithin a sphere of possibilities. Our world creates relations of being that comprise a varietyof possibilities. 12 One can imagine these possibilities without relying on a concept of history.They remain possibilities, with no time-stamp, as options for an undefined future. This imaginationwould allow us to turn a discipline of understanding hitherto solely preoccupied withthings past, to engage with things to come.In constructing a possible world we may need to pay attention to an often overlooked factor.Whenever we watch a video, our eyes always tend to follow the moving object; the unchangedbackground is largely neglected. That is one of the reasons why a cut from movement tomovement escapes our attention. We have the impression of gliding smoothly over the visualdisruption. The correlate to this attitude is the approach of trend-research, which focuses entirelyon moving targets. But in order to see the full picture, and to be able to project from thepresent to its future possibilities, all those parameters that remain unchanged are as worthyof attention as are moving objects.EnvironmentAn Ecology of CommunicationThe term environment is not meant to evoke a strictly biological world, nor am I referring tothe current metaphors of bios discussed in relation to theories of bio-politics. Nor is it usedbecause it is simply ‘one of the most expressive terms language currently has to indicate themassive and dynamic interrelation of processes and objects, beings and things, patterns andmatter’. 13 Instead, I want to propose to return to the notion introduced by the biologist Jakobvon Uexküll in his model of ecology. 14 In his sense, an environment connects the physicaland material conditions with the sensual perception and actions of a living being. The environmentconsists of a world full of constraints and possibilities, perceived by the senses andthe memory of a living organism. An ecological system is not meant to create an unspecifiedinterconnectedness, but has a very precise definition. 15Technical media can be seen to constitute an environment in which data of different typescirculate almost as living beings, specified by codes, protocols, and formats, and by the typeof connection these establish with humans. The social sphere is not excluded from this world,11. Maurizio Lazzarato, Videophilosophie, Berlin: b_books, 2002, p. 81.12. Of course, a model of that type includes a different idea of temporality, which relates back to veryold models such as Nicolas of Cusa: Trialogus de possest, 1460.13. Matthew Fuller, Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture, Cambridge,Mass: MIT Press, 2005, p.2.14. For an introductory reading see, Jakob von Uexküll, Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tierenund Menschen / Bedeutungslehre, Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1956, p. 30.15. With political implications, as Giorgio Agamben has shown in The Open, Stanford, CA.: StanfordUniversity Press, 2004, p.39.but appears only behind the input and output of the circulation of information. Both data andhumans are embedded in a situation characterized by technological, economic, and politicalconditions. These constraints affect the ecology of communication, just as the climateconditions affect the natural environment. This comparison implies that climactic factors arerelatively impermeable to eco-systems, even though rare interdependencies might occur.Reversible, IrreversibleThe time of ecology differs radically from the modern idea of historical time, with its linear,progressive movement. Uexküll subscribes to the historical model put forward by Leopoldvon Ranke, according to which each epoch stands for itself, and applies it to his own conceptof an ecological system. 16 This claim cannot easily be transferred to technological environments,as we see two distinct phenomena in relation to time and duration in this sphere.On the one hand, we do see progression in relation to technological developments. Moore’slaw, according to which the quantity of transistors that fit on an integrated circuit will doubleroughly every two years, is one of the most famous progressions. And even if his law does nothold true indefinitely, it is safe to assume that computers will increase in processing speed,rather than slow down. On the other hand, the biological elements of the equation, such asthe human body, can be taken as more or less unchanged.Between these two sides are a field of rapidly changing phenomena, of which some engagein a game of progress or at least claim to do so, others appear only temporarily, and othersremain stable. Some events are irreversible, others are reversible. Thinking in terms of reversibilitycreates a very different idea of the future compared to the modernist myths of progress.A model of progress looks for irreversibilities only. But the imagination of a possible ecology ofcommunication must build on the balance of reversibilities and irreversibilities.Institutions and EconomyImposing a fixed structure on time is linked, on a macro level, to the administration of thearchive, and, on a micro level, to the division of labour. This has always been a matter ofinstitutions: the temple, the state, or the company. One might even reverse this relation, andpropose that institutions – both empires 17 and companies – were invented and could onlyexist as entities that structure and reign over time.What has this point to do with online video? Video operates in time. But this time is not justthere. It is created as an interwoven pattern of duration stretching over very different distances.As much as the length of the feature film was something that emerged at a certainpoint in cinematic history, the historical model of the description of film and other arts itselfemerged at a certain moment in the past. Economic entities require a different approachtowards time than institutions such as the nation state. Whilst, for the latter, historical time isalmost a precondition of its own existence, the company needs only to secure an operationaltime that extends from investment to return.16. Uexküll, Streifzüge durch die Umwelt von Tieren und Menschen, p. 150.17. See Harold Innis, Empire and Communication, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950.