Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

50 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics51ReferencesBaudrillard, Jean. ‘Simulacra and Simulations’, in Mark Poster (ed.) Selected Writings, Stanford:Stanford University Press, 1988.http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html.Bourriaud, Nicolas. Postproduction: Culture as Screenplay: How Art Reprograms the World, NewYork: Lukas & Sternberg, 2001.Colomina, Beatriz. ‘Enclosed by Images: the Eameses’ Multiscreen Architecture’ in Stan Douglas andChristopher Aemon (eds) Art of Projection, Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, (2009), pp. 36-57.Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1968.Elseasser, Thomas. ‘“Constructive Instability”, or: The Life of Things as the Cinema’s Afterlife?’, inGeert Lovink and Sabine Niederer (eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam:Institute of Network Cultures, 2008, pp. 13-33.Gunning, Tom. ‘The Long and the Short of It: Centuries of Projecting Shadows, From Natural Magicto the Avant-Garde’, in Stan Douglas and Christopher Aemon (eds) Art of Projection, Ostfildern,Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2009, pp. 23-36._____. ‘The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde’, in Thomas Elsaesserand Adam Barker (eds) Early Film. British Film Institute, 1989.Nietzsche, Friedrich. ‘Reason in Philosophy’, in Twilight of the Idols, 1888.http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html#sect3.Pfaller, Robert. ‘Interpassivity and Misdemeanors: the Analysis of Ideology and the Žižekian Toolbox’,International Journal of Žižek Studies, 1.1 (2007): 33-50.Plato. The Sophist. http://philosophy.eserver.org/plato/sophist.txt.Žižek, Slavoj. ‘The Interpassive Subject’, Centre Georges Pompidou, Traverses, 1998. http://www.lacan.com/zizek-pompidou.htm.AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the editors for their helpful remarks and Chris Chemerchak for proofreading.Special thanks are offered to Johan Grimonprez, my colleagues of the Royal Academy ofFine Arts (KASK), University College Ghent (i.e. Hilde D’haeyere, Edwin Carels) and Dominiek Hoens(Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht) for the inspiring discussions.The DivX ExperienceVito CampanelliSince the launch of Napster in 1999, more than 10 years of the diffusion of file-sharingplatforms have radically altered the modalities of distribution, and the fruition of cultural objects.1 From this standpoint, the question that arises for me is: How is aesthetic perceptionaffected by the altered distribution and production of cultural materials exchanged in P2P(peer-to-peer) networks? I believe that this issue can be approached from two points of view:first, these practices seem to preclude new forms of aesthetic experiences that I have termed‘disturbed’; second, it is also possible to observe an increasing taste for imperfection in thebroader media system. By identifying the historical premises of these two developments, Iwant to trace the distinguishing features of the new aesthetic sensibility being formed beforeour very eyes. This analysis is dependent on a series of examples, each of which leads me tothe hypothesis that a taste for imperfection is growing in all fields of visual culture, includingcinema, art, pornography and advertising. As we credit truthfulness only to imperfect imagesand sounds, we have increasingly developed a sort of generalized distrust of the cold perfectionof the cultural industries.Imperfect Cultural ObjectsWatching a movie downloaded from the internet offers a wide range of experiences. There arecountless grades of quality available, all of which are strictly dependent on the processes aparticular video file has gone through in order to be made ready for downloading and sharingin a digital environment. To make things clearer, it is necessary to make a distinction betweenfiles realized directly from an original support, such as Screener, DVD-Rip, Disk image, orHDTV-Rip, and the so-called cam. In the first case, what we usually have is a simple copyof material already in a digital format, which has been compressed through special codecsso as to be able to fit into the often limited bandwidth of a domestic connection. Camming iscompletely different: cam files are realized by recording screen images with a camera. Mostof the time, cams are videos recorded by a compact digital camcorder inside a movie theatre,but there are many other different, and more imaginative, modalities. 2Cams are the product of a remarkable chain of processes intervening between analogue anddigital formats. In fact, even if the shots are captured on film, editing and post-production nowtake place in a digital format. Subsequently, the digital images are re-converted to film, so1. This paper is adapted from a talk given at Video Vortex 4 (Split, 21-23 May 2009) and theresearch on the aesthetics of web forms which has resulted in my book, Web Aesthetics: HowDigital Media Affect Culture and Society, NAi Publishers, Rotterdam and Institute of NetworkCultures, Amsterdam, 2010.2. See Wikipedia for a fuller definition and description of cams: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_(bootleg).