Forget about it being "ART"
Al Razutis (Al Razutis@GULFNETPINC. COM)
Sun, 3 Nov 1996 17.48:J1 GMT


Posted on FRAMEWORKS

Forget about it being "ART":

Thirty years ago we didn't care if someone called "underground film" art, because it was screened in lofts, university halls, garages. Shot on the streets, edited, screened later that week as 'newsreels'. In the late 60's (especially in Vancouver, Canada where I had moved to) it was the ART GALLERY that came to film-makers, and requested that it be presented "as art " within the GALLERY walls. Some jumped at the chance to be "artists"; some (myself included) could care less. (Although later on, I also wore those labels "film artist" and "professor"). So, now, predictably, we can read offerings on this board as commentaries on film "art", on modernism, post-modernism, personal testimonials on favorite art works, preferred theories and pre-book publishing disclosures abound (some in the name of 'avant-garde' inquiry). Fortunately, this board is not run by academics (although such conceits abound from time to time).

Fortunately, bulletin boards such as FRAMEWORKS don't have a set of binding rules where:
all contributions have to be:

a) 'critically relevant' to the presumed consensus, which exists only amongst those contributing
(chatting) on a regular basis;
b) constantly reaffirming their 'historical base', as distinct from being "un—historical";
c) 'theoretically informed' (we know what analysts couch that refers to);
d) 'politically correct' and backed by a shifting consensus of dribbled in gender-opinions;
e) and feature, 'oh let me quote you...', 'no, please, let me quote you first', 'no, I agree...', 'Oh
please! I agree with you first!' - in other words, fraternal-academic gibberish-crap attesting to its
'in the know class-worthiness'. (Does 'technique' of speaking, criticizing, contain 'content'? What do you think?)

Fortunately, we are free to offer any transgression, seek out people and film-makers who are interested in the 'un-critical, un-historical, un-theoretically informed', etc... possibilities of an experimental and avant-garde practice that is forward looking and not rear-quard. Free to come and go at our leisure. (If the term 'rear-guard' is a mystery to anyone who has practiced avant- garde film, think 'salons' and 'conferences' and tenure and 16mm libraries...)

We are anarchists if we are anything. The second we become "artists", "intellectuals", "cultural analysts" we become attached to some kind of institutional nexus (it better be real, otherwise who is paying the bills for being on-line?)

Transgress. Re-define Experiment and kick ass with the new theater of possibilities: the cyber one. The advertisers have definitely figured out how to sell games to every kid on AOL ('be a beta tester!'). And no one, except the academic rear-guard masquerading as sensitive to 'avant- garde' issues, seems concerned about 'definitions of high art' and 'technique versus content' dualities which are ancient Greek by now.

Thirty years ago we used to hear 'don't trust anyone over thirty!' - and for good reason!

Ten years ago we were lectured by the 'theoretically informed psychoanalysts of the cinema' academics, typically from comparative literature, and neither qualified psychologists, analysts, nor intellectuals able to actually state the case for cinem-as-'patient' - but richly entrenched in film writing, university faculties, book publishing, and we grew to forget them - and for good reason!

What price this freedom to create and exist, outside of 'art', outside of institutions? Typically, the price is poverty. My motive (to respond to the idea of a "chip on (my) shoulder" horse-shit offered by Douglas) is to keep on rocking with the arts of the motion-picture. I always find it bizarre that ANY writer to this board can make presumptions about anyone's 'intent' without either knowing them or their work. But presumptions are easy to make behind the virtual screen and safe haven of someone's personal computer while invoking the linguistic conceits (eg. "uncritical", "ahistorical", etc.).

It turns out that the "holonet" site I referred to in a previous post was trashed by hackers and is in the process of being restored. The site administrator is in a funk and will not respond to inquiry. Vandals and viruses on the net! Nothing new, not even to the CIA home-page.

Where are the interesting web-publishing experiments in moving images? More information on this, whenever it is encountered, is needed. If you don't believe that we will have real-time motion picture & sound publishing on the net and in everyone's face then you've forgotten (assuming you were there) what 16K of memory was like in computer graphics in the early 70's.

When I first found "WaxWeb" the rules seemed to be 'make them up as you go'. It is definitely a different form of motion-picture publishing, viewing, inter acting, etc. Check out also Mark Pesce's Chapter #12 in VRML for constributions as to designing inter-active VR sites. And obviously, these ideas have a bearing on any project featuring motion-picture texture-mapping in VRML space. For example:

"In cyberspace, the concepts of space and time are collapsed and compressed beyond recognition, and so the concept of place requires redefinition." (This is now being re-defined as where "interchange can be founded").

Utopian? Uncritial? Ahistorical? An old Cartesian funk on the part of those trying to figure out how the fractal square-root-of-minus-one figures in their desktop history dilemma:.. .'oh, letme quote you...' "no, let me quote you first!"...'oh no, you first!"... "no, please..."

Xal razutis