After the brief discussion with Ed Kelly, I think I am on the right track when it comes to the essay, although I have to admit I am very much all over the place. I have started from chaos and now the order seems so difficult to achieve. No doubt this is the worst part of the essay - trying to mash everything together into an argument.
The problem was that the reading got slightly out of hand. I kept finding more and more material and just reading and underlining, and now I'm not sure if I have enough time to log it all. I still have a couple of journals I need to log and see if they fit with the rest of the research.
Amid all the confusion however, yesterday I came up with a structure which would involve three chapters in the essay:
The first part will deal with an intro on classical Narrative which will then lead to a discussion on Modular and Database Narrative and how it is perceived by the audience. Most of the disadvantages of new narratives seem to be the lack of meaning, therefore I will link this to Chapter 2 which deals with Chance, meaning and the author. Chapter three will continue from a discussion on the open-ended nature of chance and lack of meaning, and will lead to new interactive narratives, games, and contemporary modular films.
This is likely to change, however I think it should be a good starting point. Chapter one will have to be written this week.
"Cinema, which was the key method to represent the world throughout the twentieth century, is destined to be replaced by digital media: the numeric, the computable, the simulated. This was the historical role played by cinema: to prepare us to live comfortably in the world of two-dimensional moving simulations. Having played this role well, cinema exits the stage. Enters the computer."
So my developer, Maria has just put up some tests (which I will post soon hopefully) of three videos of different sizes playing, and four audio pieces playing simultaneously on command. I am in the process of editing another video however the logging of the reading material is slow, plus my reading list seems like it will never end.
I am currently logging Umberto Eco's "The Role of the Reader" as well as Lev Manovich's "Database as a symbolic form". It feels like the more I read - the more there is to know, however I cannot keep reading forever so this week or next week latest I will finally start putting my essay together. This week I will also email Antoine Beuger with some questions regarding John Cage and works of Chance.
Today a student presented an HP video where they launched some kind of touch technology back in 2007; it reminded me of my project in its database presentation, as in one could move and scale videos up and down, as well as turn music on and off at any desired time. The difference is that I want mine to be more of a whole than just an abstract representation of multimedia. and rather than having random videos, these will be based on stories since of course the whole exercise is a quest for meaning. In general, this HP project got me excited to work on my own, however made me long for a large touch screen which would made the experience so much more exciting! I still have to discuss these options with Maria to see what is possible.
I have just put up my Abstract. It is still under construction however the basic idea for the essay is there. Today I have also met a girl who will be my developer for the project. We have decided to use Jquery and to create the project as a web application that can be viewed on screen / mobile / tablet. She will be sending me a test of how everything will work as a whole. Even though she's taking care of the development, she will be explaining how she did everything to me so I know how the application was constructed.
This is of course great news, because it will give me plenty of time to work on the videos.
We have also discussed the idea of making the website/application open to the public, whereas anyone can upload videos etc... however I felt that this would be a completely different project (although this could be done in the future perhaps). So instead we're thinking of letting the user share their chosen combination of video/audio/music.
So there was one element which wasn't particularly making sense in my project (well... perhaps more than one) but this was was annoying me because it just had nothing to do with the idea of chance, and just picking bits and pieces and putting them together to form some kind of meaning (or not).
This was the music. I felt that just finding ready made pieces of music and 'throwing' them in my interface would be too easy. Too easy in the sense that music facilitates the manifestation of emotions and meaning generation; therefore asking someone to give a piece of music would just take over the whole project.
So instead I have come up with another mini project which involves sound. My idea came from this 'Secondhand Sureshots' video that I had come across around a year ago.
"This documentary film by the dublab.com creative collective is an experiment in sound recycling. Secondhand Sureshots features four amazing, LA-based beat makers: Daedelus, J-Rocc, Nobody and Ras G in a secret mission to create new musical magic from the dusty remains of thrift store vinyl. dublab.com/secondhand"
So I thought what if I did something similar, but based on Chance?
The idea is this:
Two of my friends who are both vinyl collectors, and also have a vast library of samples will be creating one looping piece for the interface.
They will be choosing a number of vinyls (not decided yet) by Chance! (the method has still not yet been decided).
They are allowed to add other layers, pads and effects however the body of the musical pieces has to be composed from samples from vinyls picked by chance, to complement the rest of the project.
The 'music' piece, (and I say 'music' because they might just be ambient sounds and effects) will be presented in separate layers where the user can turn them off and on at the same time or choose which layers to have on and which to leave off. The menu for the interface has not been decided upon as of yet, but it will have to complement the recordings menu.
I will be recording this mini sound project and presenting it as well. I'm just curious to see how this will all turn up. This is the great thing about chance; it makes you feel excited for what's about to happen; for what is unexpected.
Working and studying at the same time means having little time to think about my Masters project. Most of the time I brainstorm and generate ideas on my way to and from work (30mins + 30mins = 1 hour daily) which is not bad. So this was an idea I had today coming back from work - what would happen if I had more than one recording going on at the same time? The recordings were slashed randomly and placed in at random points in time. (I don't want to go into the psychological reasoning behind how random these actually were but let's just say they were given little to no thought). This isn't the point anyway - I wanted to figure our how confusing they would sound. As you can see I even slashed words in half, which I must say - produced a nice effect and yet of course, meaning is compromised.
This is the main difficulty here; the aural effect is much more interesting, the recordings almost form part of the minimal music at the background, however meaning is pushed back to make space for this 'effect'. I will surely need to test this to see what the viewer thinks.
The editing of this is not complete, like all other videos I have posted so far. I like exporting incomplete videos though, and often these end up being much more 'alive' than the finished work. I think it's something about the database aesthetic; it cannot be forced.
I just thought... how could I not switch? The structure of this layout is exactly what I am reading about - how culture is becoming - time and space rather than just a single continuous line. Change is good - plus I couldn't find the labels and now I did - I feel that the presented dynamic view is the perfect way of representing my whole project, whilst also allowing for categorization via dates / labels / recent.
Will soon upload a new edited video - this time I have experimented with various recordings at one go since I am thinking about having this available in the final interface: A few keywords & phrases I have been thinking about:
-Ability to enlarge / zoom / fullscreen / view multiple videos at one go
-One layered music piece rather than a variety (I want this to be sampled from different/random vinyls)
-Grid
-Multiple Voice over
-Control
-Search for meaning
-data input
-some kind of result? maybe.
This month I'm having a chat with someone who might be able to help me with all the programming and also to help me choose a platform. I will also try to post my updated Abstract soon.
I have just been looking through the new Dynamic Views in Blogger and must say most look much better than the one I am currently using... the only problem is the label / tagging system... perhaps this will be fixed in the future, but until then I'm sticking with the 'old' layout for the sake of clear organisation.
So.. at the moment I am still editing footage every once in a while but I am mostly just reading and structuring my research paper which is due next month. I have been reading Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters - which I found to be slightly useful but mostly just a guide to 'sell your script to Hollywood' not really what I was looking for. I will be reading the real Poetics tomorrow (well, some of them at least!)
I have read Lev Manovich's Cinema and Digital Media and Database as a Symbolic Form. Moving Image after computerization - extending traditional elements of cinema
Steve Anderson's Select and Combine: The Rise of Database Narratives. Doors to the Labyrinth by Marsha Kinder
I have read Modular Narratives by Allan Cameron Chance from Documents of Contemporary Art
Parts of Cinema of Outsiders by Emanuel Levy
Part of Silence - John Cage
David Lynch - Catching the Big Fish Story and Discourse by Seymour Chatman
There might be others but I have left some books at my workplace so I'll add these later...
Most of the transcripts are ready.
Before I go full-on writing I wish to read parts of Semiotics, the basics by Daniel Chandler and Mass Mediauras by Samuel Weber.
I also have a couple of links to articles in my favourites which I have to go through..
Just a screenshot of the plan I have been following:
