Part One: The Audience and the Myth of Entertainment

Chapter one of Gene Youngblood's Expanded Cinema is a refreshingly transcendental and surprisingly erudite discussion of cultural evolution and the need to use cinema, as well as Art in general, to aid in the necessary change from what Youngblood terms a “Paleocybernetic Age” to one which is self-nourishing, or “negentropic”, and which generates new ideas. “Part One: The Audience and the Myth of Entertainment” starts out by questioning man’s perception of reality and points to the probability that we are unable to comprehend our place in the Universe. Youngblood pontificates on the reconvergence of art, science, and metaphysics that was occurring in the 1970’s and the associated technological growth which created an accelerated transfer of knowledge. Much of what Gene Younglood describes in this chapter is prevalent and even more pressing today.

“The Audience and the Myth of Entertainment” illuminates a time in which there is an urgent need for change in order to survive, but also one that is rife with opportunity for a global expansion of consciousness, both outward and inward. Youngblood quotes Pierre Teilhard, using the term hominization, as a description for the manifestation: “the process by which the original protohuman stock becomes increasingly more human, realizing more of its possibilities” (47). Youngblood then critiques the iniquity of commercial media in juxtaposition with the evolution of the natural world. He states “Art is the language through which we perceive new relationships at work in the environment, both physical and metaphysical. Indeed, art is the essential instrument in the very development of that consciousness” (47). Youngblood then writes of the need for a new vision for the exchange of ideas, the beginning of which he terms expanded cinema.

In the next portion of the chapter, subtitled “Radical Evolution and Future Shock in the Paleocybernetic Age”, Gene Youngblood deciphers that change, or revolution, is the only constant, experienced ubiquitously by modern man; he thus refers to the phenomenon as radical evolution (50). As the lines between nature and technology, science and metaphysics, become increasingly intertwined, the lack of knowledge or idea expansion, transferred via the “global intermedia network” becomes more and more acute. “The Intermedia Network as Nature” makes the case that “man is conditioned more by cinema and television than by nature” (54). Gene Youngblood envisions the intermedia network as the cinema, television, radio, magazines and newspapers that inform and define the social organism.

“Art, Entertainment, Entropy” explores commercial cinema’s formulaic prescription and the viewer’s conditioned response, made mandatory by a profit motive. Harnessing the power of the conditioned response, or memory, Youngblood argues that commercial entertainment capitulates a backwards-looking audience that is robbed of their power to think for themselves. He states, “Art is freedom from the conditions of memory; entertainment is conditional on a present that is conditioned by the past... To confront a work of art is to confront oneself— but aspects of oneself previously unrecognized” (60). Youngblood then observes that a “healthy” mind will regard the most important information as entertaining, and defines a healthy mind as one “capable of creative thinking” (61), or artistic thought. As new information is not circulated in the current commercial entertainment environment, change does not occur, and entropy, the “state of increasing chaos due to misinformation about the structure of the system” (62), accelerates in our society.

If the cinema can create an active participation with the audience, it can be regenerative. Youngblood states “If the information (either concept or design) reveals some previously unrecognized aspect of the viewer's relation to the circumambient universe— or provides language with which to conceptualize old realities more effectively— the viewer recreates that discovery along with the artist, thus feeding back into the environment the existence of more creative potential, which may in turn be used by the artist for messages of still greater eloquence and perception” (65).

“Retrospective Man and the Human Condition”: Man is Retrospective because the ideas he is currently circulating are recycled and redundant. This degeneracy is apparent in all aspects of our society, including our educational system (68). The current Human Condition for man is that of total confrontation of what we do and do not know about ourselves. The Artist is the Saviour as he or she creates new Symbols with which Man can explore themselves and their existences. An artist may be an artist, poet, scientist, philosopher (67)...

Finally, in “The Artist as Design Scientist”, Youngblood makes exceptions for several films working within the bounds of conventional cinema, resting their transcendental qualities in the design aesthetics created. Youngblood notes that the word “design” indicates “to remove the symbol of”, and charges artists/design scientists with the creation of a language that reveals the hidden meaning or potential within some aspect of our Humanity, and/or our relationship to the Cosmos. He states “The artist does not point out new facts so much as he creates a new language of conceptual design information with which we arrive at a new and more complete understanding of old facts, thus expanding our control over the interior and exterior environments” (71). And this, My Friend, is how we change the world.

TOWARD COSMIC CONSCIOUSNESS

Part three of Gene Youngblood's paper, "Expanded Cinema," discusses the idea that art and science have exhausted our image language from traditional earthly/ tangible schemes of awareness. Stating that, "the end of fiction, drama, and realism as they have been traditionally understood. Conventional cinema can be pushed no further. To explore new dimensions of awareness requires new technological extensions." (line 2-4, pg.135) The article also discusses that to move to new levels of awareness and new bounds of artistic expression, we need to look beyond our senses, showing that majority of our life experiences are based around non-visible objects. The author writes, "What we "know" conceptually has far outstripped what we experience empirically. We are finally beginning to accept the fact that our senses allow us to perceive only one-millionth of what we know to be reality— the electromagnetic spectrum. Ninety-nine percent of all vital forces affecting our life is invisible." (pg. 136) Simply put, we can see the telephone cables and wires run, but not the conversation that is being taken place over them. We can see the outer parts of a plane or car, but nothing truly tells us how we are moving or hovering 10,000 ft above the ground. These are all things our senses cannot understand.

We need to move beyond our physical environment and move to a meta physical or further off environment. I'm not a proponent of saying things like mysticism, but what he is going for is turning and going after art that describes the invisible and inconceivable. His example is drama and how it is a finite concept, limited to human emotion and the physical environment that we place it in. He states that the, "concerns of artist and scientist today are transfinite." (i.e "things that are"infinite" in the sense that they are larger than all finite numbers, yet not necessarily absolutely infinite." wikipedia on transfinite)

The authors main example of moving toward cosmic consciousness and thinking beyond our physical realm is with Einstein's equation E=mc^2. This equation is an example where the meta physical took precedence over the physical. Another example he used was with Nam June Paik, the GrandFather of electronic music where he writes "Electronics is essentially Oriental... but don't confuse 'electronic' with 'electric' as McLuhan often does. Electricity deals with mass and weight; electronics deals with information: one is muscle, the other is nerve." This is where the meta physical, intangible, invisible object of information transference takes place over the tangible.

In all of this, YoungBlood is saying we need to broaden our horizons because we have stretched the physical realm to the end. As artists or scientists, we need to look beyond the past existence of media and press forward into a deeper realm of creativity. Looking into things we cannot see, hear, smell, or touch but yet we still experience. Pushing the limits of our conceptual intake by raising our gaze to things beyond and unexplained phenominons. Its an interesting idea he is pushing. I'm not 100% sure I am behind his statement but it is interesting.

I immediately thought of surreal art work when reading this. I assumed this article was about looking at new and beyond perspectives in art and entertainment. Check it out

I also can't help but think about science fiction art work that focuses on undiscovered elements and expounds on them. I know the article was about cosmic consciousness and for our understanding to transcend the physical confinements that we conventionally allow but regardless, here is what i initially thought about when reading this.

Corny music I know...

-Tim

P.S. You all better post, cause I'm not coming to class:)

Response to Holographic Cinema: A New World by Gene Youngblood

Partial explanation of holographic images “Each point on the surface of an object reflects light waves inconstantly expanding concentric circles in much the same way that rings are formed when a pebble is dropped into a pool of still water. A collection of these circles and the interference pattern resulting from their intersecting trajectories constitute the wave front of light from the object.” I believe if you can understand the previous quote, you can understand the rest of the chapter.

Youngblood begins this chapter by explaining his first experience with holographic motion picture and an analogy holographic to conventional cinema circa 1900. The next section discusses how true holography does not use lens or is an optical image. The insert from above explains why this is so. This recognition of wave patterns was discovered by Dr. Dennis Gabor. Because there was no lights strong enough at the time, Dr. Gabor's work had to be postpone until the 1960's when Dr. Maiman invented the Laser. Leith and Upatnieks then took this new invention and with the help of Dr. Gabor's theory created the first 3 dimensional image. Also mentioned here is knowing that there is a difference between 3D films that require polarized glasses (stereoptic process) and true 3D projection.

Later Dr. Alex Jacobson invented the first holography with motion. It was basically tropical first in an aquarium. The holography was tented red because no other light source or laser was could emit burst of the required magnitude. After a length explanation of how Jacobson produced his holography, Youngblood explains some of the limitations of holographic images of the time. As mention before the lasers strong enough to work were ruby laser so the images were red in color.

I thought this written was fascinating to say the least. It reads relatively recent because not too many significant advances in holographics have been made. Granted we have exploited 3D movies as of the past 2-3 years, but those are still stereoptic films. I did a little research on the topic and found that in Japan that have actually advanced holographics to a personal level. Below is a video that explains it.

 

Thomas Wilfred "LIGHT AND THE ARTIST"

The idea of watching a "performance" of light, without an accompanying score of sounds or music seems quite ascetic --the pursuit of a purist. Thomas Wilfred is quite clear in his discussion about the emerging "eight art form", that to include music along with Lumia (the Art of Light) somehow distorts the work or misses the point completely. He does not believe that there is a scientific scale that links the frequencies of light to the frequencies of sound and therefor seems not to be interested in the endeavor. What he did seem to be interested in though, was developing a philosophy and goal through which to develop instruments and compositions of light.

Wilfred breaks down art into 3 essential components of form, color and motion. He believes that form and motion are the "two most important" contributors in the art and that a lumia artist is able to compose in black and white if they so choose. The aim for Thomas Wilfred's easthetic seems to be the illusion of a 3d space, projected on a 2d surface. I did not understand Wilfred's differentiation in the division of "Lumia's theoretical space-stage" as divided into a "FIRST FIELD: the visible section of space (screen surface), and SECOND FIELD: the remainder of space, not visible to the spectator" (pg. 254). Wilfred's life's wish to discover the artists that would bring lumia into it's full splendor is quite interesting. I am not sure the Art of Light has ever attained the status Wilfred so dearly envisioned for it.

Jitter @ Coachella~

Some of you might find this interesting
http://cycling74.com/2009/04/30/jitter-on-the-mainstage-at-coachella/

check this too

http://cimatics-masterclass.blogspot.com/

Vague Terrain

http://vagueterrain.net/journal09

Stan Brakhage Dante Quartet

As it's all been said before, Stan Brakhage is a very influential non-narrative American film maker and an important member of experimental films. Most of his film consisted of painting each frame on 35 mm film. This technique is painstakingly slow and to him it was well worth the wait. One of the four film from Dante Quartet, Hell Itself, was created in this very manner. The film is about 6 minutes long so thousands of frames to be painted. The film consist of random timed frames with variations of the same color scheme of mostly part reds, browns and greens. As am artist myself, I really appreciate the time and dedication to what Brakhage does in his films.

With that said, I don't get his work. I personally do not like abstract art in the least. It has no context regardless of what anyone says and can be created by anyone. Granted Brakhage works takes a lot of time it could easily be duplicated. Its really only innovative because no one else had done it before in the context of film. I get that its passionate and possibly meaningful to the artist but we as audience can only assume what the context, which in most cases are implied in the title. And when pieces are untitled they really should be considered "art for art sake" and nothing more.