Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

30 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics31at Ben, the focal point. In this case, the composition is not based on the imprisoning andisolating effects of vertical and horizontal lines. The common element in all these scenes isthat the frame within-a-frame both articulates and separates; facilitating a smooth transitionbetween inside and outside.In addition to the frame-within-a-frame, the multiple frame and multiple screen formats areable to juxtapose multiple points of view. As Friedberg notes, ‘While the single-screen movingimage offers multiple perspectives through the sequential shifts of montage and editing,the multiple-frame or multiple-screen moving image offers the same via adjacency andcontiguity’. 16 In this context, a discussion of Mike Figgis’ 2000 film Timecode is essential. Inthis film, Figgis constructs an experimental narrative from a screen divided into four frames.The story unfolds in parallel, with each frame showing different events in real time. The actionculminates in a final scene in which all four frames, and all four narratives, come together.In the DVD version of this film, the viewer is able to interact with the film by choosing whichframe will be accompanied by a soundtrack. In this way, sound opens up yet another dimensionof the frames, as the viewer becomes aware of the way in which Figgis uses the soundto guide the viewer through the four parallel narratives.To this point, the discussion has remained within the context of the ‘classical screen’. Andyet, modern visual culture is characterized by the existence of a virtual space enclosed withina frame, and situated within our everyday space. The frame, therefore, separates two coexistingspaces. 17 While television, video, telephone and the internet converge, multiple framesproliferate. Single screen devices already embed multiple screens. In a way, it is only thephysical object that is single. A computer screen, a telephone, and a television each providemultiple frames through which to interact with sounds, images, or typographical elements.These windows can collapse into a single moving image, or expand into a sequence of adjacentmultiple frames, either closely or loosely related to each other. A single image mightbe re-sized, so that it contains the dimensions of a full cinematic representation. The arrangementof single windows or framed images might be arranged in a simple, left-to-rightreading order, or rearranged so as to simulate a three-dimensional space, from which onecan select with the tip of a finger. In 2010, most web browsers remain in a two-dimensionalpresentation. Online video is represented by key frames or images, each of which is selected,marked and extracted. These images act as summaries of, placeholders for, and links to digitizedmoving images. They are both tagline and proposal. Beside these key frames are otherboxes, which link to related images or moving image content. It seems logical to analyse suchbrowser windows in terms of their graphical content, and the principles of graphic design.Nevertheless, thinking cinematically enables us to account for the fact that the frames withina larger frame – the browser – are placed in a meaningful relationship of adjacency. Thisrelationship might convey information, aesthetic pleasure, or both. To better understand howthis works, it might be helpful to consider another form of visual narrative – that of comics.Will Eisner describes comics as sequential art: ‘When part of a sequence, even a sequenceof only two, the art of the image is transformed into something more: The art of comics!’ 18 Heelaborates upon the concept of a comic as a sequence of frames:The fundamental function of comic (strip and book) art to communicate ideas and/orstories by means of words and pictures involves the movement of certain images (suchas people and things) through space. To deal with the capture or encapsulation ofthese events in the flow of the narrative, they must be broken up into sequenced segments.These segments are called panels or frames. They do not correspond exactlyto cinematic frames. They are part of the creative process, rather than a result of thetechnology.As in the use of panels to express the passage of time, the framing of a series of imagesmoving through space undertakes the containment of thoughts, ideas, actions,and location or site. The panel thereby attempts to deal with the broadest elements ofdialogue: cognitive and perceptive as well as visual literacy. The artist, to be successfulon this non-verbal level, must take into consideration both the commonality of humanexperience and the phenomenon of our perception of it, which seems to consist offrames or episodes. 19For the comic artist, the panel is a device that controls the flow of narrative. The panel is acontainer and a timer. Its border is an element of the visual language, the frame a structuralsupport with an emotional function. And yet, the real border is the border of the page, themeta-panel that encapsulates the visual narrative as a whole: ‘Comic panels fracture bothtime and space, offering a jagged, staccato rhythm of unconnected moments. But closureallows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality’. 20A browser constructing an online video site is influenced by variables such as user choice,tags and comments. The single video is framed in such a way that it is viewed in relation to arange of linked contents, as well as comments and quotations. It is framed to stay inside thewindow. As a frame, the browser provides a closed context; an area with a rigid border. It isa clearly marked entrance. The digital window provides a filter to narrow the ever-expandinguniverse of moving images. That is, the design of browser windows has failed to confront whatactually happens after a user enters the space – the possibility of gaining access to an evermultiplyingnumber of windows. Some online video providers allow the user to look inside thevideo through image placeholders; others allow us to look at related preferences. New AppleInc. applications use a graphical interface called ‘Cover Flow’, a sorting wheel of images in a3D presentational context (as I may call it here) not only moves us towards the images, butmoves these placeholders or openings towards us. Flipping and tipping on images, bookmarks,documents, or icons results in a leap of the graphical object or image representation16. Anne Friedberg, The Virtual Window: From Alberti to Microsoft, Cambridge: The MIT Press,2006, p. 202.17. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002, p. 99.18. Quoted in Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, New York: Harper Collins,1994, p. 5.19. Will Eisner, Comics & Sequential Art, Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985, p. 38.20. Will Eisner, quoted in McCloud, Understanding Comics, p. 67.