Video Vortex Reader II: moving images beyond YouTube

56 Video Vortex Reader II Moving Images Beyond Youtubetheory & aesthetics57of a new aesthetic positioning – one which, as usual, is picked up by the antennae of artistsbefore becoming obvious to all. 11 The first point to make is that, if economics were the onlyfactors in play, we could not explain why several important European directors have madeuse of low-cost digital technologies when they had the economic means to be use the mostsophisticated analogue technologies. Of course, one might object that in the most emblematiccase, that of Dogma 95, the decision to flexibly interpret the ninth rule (that is, to seeAcademy 35mm film as the standard solely for film distribution), was dictated by the need torespect the third rule, which holds that shooting must be done with handheld cameras (notexactly an easy task with the heavy 35mm). One might thus be tempted to dismiss von Trier,Vinterberg, or Kragh-Jacobsen’s choices to shoot in digital format as merely the result of themore manageable DV. One could also object that, in the case of the Blair Witch Project 12 orthe more recent Cloverfield 13 it is only a narrative expedient. One could also talk of a purelystylistic exercise in the case of Giuseppe Bertolucci’s Probably Love. 14 Indeed, we couldcontinue indefinitely to provide reasons for directors’ decisions not to use film, even whenthey could afford to do so. However, I believe it is quite clear that these are all conscious aestheticchoices, which have nothing to do with the finances available to the production. In myopinion, it is only by accepting the fact that both independent and mainstream directors areopting to use DV cameras and other low-level technologies with respect to international filmstandards as an explicitly aesthetic choice, that we can begin to understand the motivationsbehind such decisions.Certainly, there is a broad fascination with everything digital. Perhaps, however, this is alsoan attempt to produce images which resemble those that are increasingly shaping the tastesof the general public. Indeed, the contemporary visual landscape is constituted by YouTubevideos, films downloaded on P2P networks, television news footage from around the globe,the Islamic terrorist propaganda videos shown on Al-Jazeera, the Twin Towers footage shoton amateur video cameras by shocked bystanders, homemade porn videos posted by jiltedlovers, and by the wobbly images produced by the millions of webcams pointing, it seems, ateveryone, everywhere, these days.Thus, we have a visual landscape characterized by low-resolution images, which are sometimesjumpy, sometimes grainy, and almost always badly lit. This is indeed a disturbed landscape,but one much closer to life than the images depicted in the glossy perfection of themedium of film. Immersed for hours on end in this continuous flow of low-resolution images,it is inevitable that our aesthetic tastes will be affected. Before our very eyes, a new aestheticsensibility is being formed: one which favours speed, immediacy and realism over refinedperfection; the documentary attitude over fiction; Lumière over Méliès. In sum, directors’11. As Marshall McLuhan stated: ‘The artist picks up the message of cultural and technologicalchallenge decades before its transforming impact occurs’.Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, New York: McGraw Hill,1964, p. 65.12. The Blair Witch Project (dir. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999).13. Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves, 2008).14. Probably Love (dir. Giuseppe Bertolucci, 2001).preference for DV over the traditional film camera makes sense as an attempt to be closer toreality - obviously not to reality itself, but to reality as it is appears to us through the media,and through digital media in particular. As it is the only reference we have, this reality shouldnot be subject to judgement, but must be imagined and lived to the full, in the sense that itsimages must in some way be reproduced.Brian De Palma’s Redacted (2007) explores the ‘non-truthful truth’ of video and film images,and offers valuable reflections upon many of these points. Its brief opening sequenceis paradigmatic: a smooth camera movement descending from above (a classic cinematicimage) is overlaid with the recording date (a classic handycam image). Following this is atitle in a semi-professional graphic, while the colloquial voiceover of a soldier (who is alsothe film’s protagonist) states that he is the author of the recording itself; after which a highlyamateurish tracking shot ends with the protagonists looking collectively into the camera;and finally with a freeze-frame. . As this incipit demonstrates, the film is something likea Hollywood milk-shake of DV footage, YouTube fragments, wannabe documentaries andindie parodies. What is particularly worth noting is De Palma’s ability to capture the phenomenonwhich has so radically modified the aesthetic perception of film viewers; he playsat alternating and superimposing classic cinema aesthetics with the DIY aesthetic that hasexploded along with the global spread of digital video cameras. De Palma is fully awareof the present dominant aesthetic. In fact, the very theme of the film, which is the war inIraq, makes this play of alternating and superimposed aesthetics necessary, as the absoluteuntrustworthiness of embedded journalists has made it normal to look for bits of ‘real’ truthonly in that unofficial footage ‘grabbed’ by brave reporters, often at risk of their own lives. Atthis point, we are used to attributing truthfulness only to low-resolution images, such as thegrainy, blurred images from a mobile phone or from a tiny hidden video camera. De Palmademonstrates that he is fully aware of all this, and he stages an intelligent representation ofour present circumstances.Contemporary media art testifies to precisely this evolution of aesthetic taste. Here, wemight consider Julien Maire’s Low Resolution Cinema (2005), a project which presents anabstract vision of the geographical space of Berlin. 15 Using various techniques, includingdrastic resolution reduction, images are decompressed and projected into 3D space. Thisis achieved by a special projector using two black and white, half-broken Liquid CrystalDisplays (LCDs), so that only the upper or lower part of the image is visible. The LCDs constantlymove back and forth, towards and away from the projector’s light source – whichitself alternates between back and forth movements. The effect produced by this complextechnique is of images so de-stratified that they evoke the scrolling lines of code seen inThe Matrix trilogy, or the tight printing of characters produced on the scroll of a dot matrixprinter. In Low Resolution Cinema, the perfection of cinema film images becomes a blurredmemory, but the magic of cinema, that prodigious illusion produced by moving images,remains absolutely intact.15. See: http://julienmaire.ideenshop.net/project5.shtml.