Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

54 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics55in sources of disturbance, and a concomitant increase in our ability to distinguish between amultiplicity of noises. Rather than being simply imitated, Russolo insists that we must ‘combinethem according to our imagination’. 7 Clearly, for Futurists, disturbances are both a constitutiveelement of artistic practice and of the aesthetic experience itself. Another Futurist, GiacomoBalla, translates the concept of sound in visual terms, combining with and superimposing abroken line onto a curved one, so as to produce a ‘line of speed’. This solution, along with theanalogy between painting and music, are echoed in the work of Wassily Kandinsky. In his 1926work Punkt und Linie zu Fläche (Point and Line to Plane), Kandinsky specifically refers to thedissonance between a curved line and a broken one, seen as an element of irregularity, ofbreach, of interference- basically, an element that interrupts perceptual continuity. 8Disturbed Aesthetics and SocietyAt this point, it should be clear that the concept of a disturbed aesthetic experience is notnew at all. While admitting, as Lev Manovich claims, 9 that interference resulting from selectivecompression will tend to disappear as technology evolves, we must consider that we arecurrently faced with two different models of digital cultural production: on the one hand the‘model of perfection’ represented by those digital supports, such as CD, DVD and Blu-Ray,that promise the best possible quality in terms of reproduction and archiving of digital data; onthe other, the ‘model of fluidity’ which puts the value of exchangeability before that of quality.Such models assume, in addition, two politically antithetic positions: adhering either implicitlyor explicitly to market rules; or the total denial of those same rules.Within this struggle, it appears to be economic factors that play the most significant role. Infact, the cost of the more ‘noble’ or better quality supports leads large numbers of people to7. Russolo, L’arte dei rumori.8. See Wassily Kandinsky, Point and Line to Plane, trans. Howard Dearstyne and Hilla Rebay, NewYork: Dover Publications, 1979. I discuss the subject of disturbance in aesthetic experience atlength in Web Aesthetics: How Digital Media Affect Culture and Society,9. Manovich writes: ‘rather than being an aberration, a flaw in the otherwise pure and perfect worldof the digital, where not even a single bit of information is ever lost, lossy compression is the veryfoundation of computer culture, at least for now. Therefore, while in theory, computer technologyentails the flawless replication of data, its actual use in contemporary society is characterized byloss of data, degradation, and noise’. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, Cambridge,Mass.: MIT Press, 2001, p.55. Manovich, with the words ‘at least for now’, refers to a near futurein which new compression techniques will further limit the loss of data, or alternatively, the speedof the connections will make it unnecessary to compress a file before sharing it on the internet.In commenting on my presentation of an original core of this essay, during the internationalconference Video Vortex 4 (Split, 21-23 May 2009), Manovich pointed out that technology is,today, close to offering the transmission of video with a quality that tends to perfection throughfaster internet connections. However, these projects are still at an experimental level, andtherefore have no impact on a significant mass of users and, even when they do, it is easy toimagine that they will create a new kind of digital divide between people (primarily U.S. citizens)admitted to the benefits of these new technologies and Third World users that will continue for along time to exchange imperfect materials. Ultimately, until this scenario is realized in practice,we will continue to share ‘impure’ digital materials, recognizing the inevitability, almost thenecessity, of this imperfection.opt for the model of fluidity. This scenario highlights a breach in society with respect to aestheticenjoyment itself. On the one hand, there is a more or less large group of individuals whocan have access to aesthetic experiences that strive towards perfection. On the other hand,there are an increasing number of people who are obliged to cope with disturbed experiences.We are, therefore, witnessing new mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion with important differencesfrom the recent past. Traditionally, the poorer classes have simply been excluded fromfull access to culture. The digitization of cultural products and their proliferation on the internetseems to complicate this reality. As long as they have a broadband internet connection, lesswealthy people have a greater opportunity to access cultural products, even if those productsare more imperfect due to amateur processes of reproduction and archiving of digital data.Here, we face a reality that has many problematic aspects. P2P networks, along with otherforms for the distribution of ‘pirated’ material, allow the cultural industries to spread the dominantcultural model to people and communities who might otherwise have been excludedfrom it, whether because of their social position, or because they have freed themselves fromthe slavery of television for the sake of more modern addictions. At the same time, an opposingforce emerges: through P2P networks and those practices linking to what are laughablytermed ‘non-authorized copies’, small dissenting minorities are given access to new and importantforms of cultural production. Since these products have been created to oppose, orat least have been conceived outside the dominant moulds or ideologies, such products aresystematically excluded from the major film distribution and international television networks.Being able to access non-authorized sources allows us to hear voices alternative to thosewhich bombard us from the mainstream. It also allows us to stay in touch with our culturalmemory, over and above those rare occasions when a window opens in the traditional mediaand allows us a glimpse of something worthwhile. If I want to see a film by Lang, Vertov orBuñuel, why should I have to wait until some under-financed minor local film festival managesto organize a retrospective once a year? Indeed, why pay $20 to Amazon to watch the film,when I can simply type the director’s name into eMule’s search area, and see what other usershave posted for sharing? In addition, video pirating can play an important role in encouragingthe production of independent videos. As Tilman Bäumgartel reports, this is the case inSouth East Asia where there has, in recent years, been an incredible explosion of independentproductions. 10A New Aesthetic SensibilityIt is perhaps possible to radicalize the symmetry between digital tools and independent productions.The hypothesis I would like to verify is that the use of digital tools in relation tocinema, and the consequent lowering of product quality, are not necessarily a consequenceof the small budgets of young independent directors. Rather, I believe we are in the midst10. Tilman Bäumgartel, ‘Media Piracy and Independent Cinema in Southest Asia’, in Geert Lovink andSabine Niederer (eds) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Amsterdam: Institute of NetworkCultures, 2008, p. 266. See also Tilman Bäumgartel, ‘The Culture of Piracy in the Philippines’, inShin Dong Kim and Joel David (eds) Cinema in / on Asia, Gwanju: Asian Culture Forum, 2006.Available at: http://www.asian-edition.org/piracyinthephilippines.pdf.