Topic outline

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    4th WEEK assignment

    Write a 4-5-page essay (free form) considering the following:

    Continuing the work and the thought you have gone through in the previous assignment (and readings and examples) – especially those related to "how experientiality of cinematic space can be addressed in (to you) new ways" – read the two texts (attached), and continue developing your arguments, thoughts and ideas of how the issues discussed in them may relate to production designer's practice, and to your thinking as production designer, "the architect and enabler of cinematic space".


    Some of the issues discussed in the texts are

    - sense perception

    - body/embodiment

    - immersivity (old school + recent examples)

    - the different kinds of experiential relationships between the "screen" and the "spectator"

    - touch

    - different ways of thinking of cinematic space / intermediality and cinema

    + any other issues that come to your mind while reading and reflecting the texts!


    The first text (attached in the bottom of this page)

    "Introduction: In Medias Res" (pages 7–20) in a book called SENSES OF EMBODIMENT: ART, TECHNICS, MEDIA (eds. Mika Elo & Miika Luoto).

    It is somewhat more theoretical and complex than the earlier ones. Nevertheless, it relates very much in our examples and discussions in the previous weeks.

    The red thread, if you like, is the question of how media technologies affect sense perception – or, to put it in otehr words: how can we think about the sensations and experiences that we experience when we encounter mediated or intermedial works and situations – or, when media technologies are at play in our practice, and in the things we do and work with.

    The introduction is in a way a collection of the key aspects that come into consideration here: senses/sensing, technics and presentation, body and embodiment, "the Kantian legacy" (many media theorists refer to this old gentleman for he was one of the first philosophers who put a lot of effort in trying to articulate how 'aesthetics' is not just a matter of 'beauty/the opposite of beauty' but rather for Kant asethetics is 'non-conceptual communication' where body and mind cannot be thought as separate sides of human experience. Then there is a short part on touch (in the section "The pathic"), which resonates nicely, I think with your considerations in the presentation last Tuesday.



    The second text (attached in the bottom of this page) is:

    "Immersive Art in Augmented Reality" by Todd Margolis, Chapter 8 (pages 149–160) in a book called Augmented Reality Art. From an Emerging Technology to a Novel Creative Medium (edited by Vladimir Geroimenko).

    (Introduction, p. 149 ->) "This chapter addresses the emerging trend favoring socially immersive artworks via mobile Augmented Reality over sensorially immersive AR that was based on historical Virtual Reality ideals. It will first define the various types of immersion being discussed and make distinctions in how the same term has taken on a new connotation with modern information technology. Then we’ll explore socially immersive artwork by looking at both the empowering head-mounted technologies as well as some early examples using Google Glass. This will lead to a discussion on collaborative locative media by investigating enabling toolkits and tracing its roots back from Land Art of the 60s through early community-created gaming platforms to massively multiplayer online games and ultimately to the current phenomenon of collaborative “Field Art” taking place in the AR game Ingress. Then we’ll conclude with a better understanding on how artists are exploring mobile Augmented Reality within an internet native culture focused on connecting people with each other through information sharing."

    As you see, the second text throws us to the practice of the so called immersive technologies... After reading both texts, I would like you to consider – in the horizon painted by these two quite different kinds of texts (and frameworks) AND in the light of the earlier topics, too: "old school magic", notion of "poetic interruption",  "optical unconscious" (and other Walter Benjamin's ideas), "cinematic 3D sculptures" and Juhani Pallasmaa's "existential image/lived space in cinema+architecture" – how could the prevailing conceptions and considerations of cinematic space of today's film-making production environment be challenged or re-thought if they were thought with more emphasis in the light of the "evolution of cinematic sensations" through different times, tendencies, artistic experiments, technological innovations, and – last but not least – in the light of the very current situation where people are strongly adviced to keep distance?



    3rd WEEK assignment

    ASSIGNMENT FOR FRIDAY 18.12.
    how to expand my understanding of cinematic space / spatiality
    Check the references and read the texts. In Marjatta Oja’s book (in addition to pages 14–19), pick also 1-2 other sections/parts that seem meaningful to you in relation to the assignment. Feel free to look for other sources too!

    Consider the following questions:
    A) In the light of the chosen references, how can the notion of experientiality be addressed in considerations of cinematic space in ways that you perhpas haven’t come to think before?
    B) How could these considerations be addressed or experimented with in practice? Inspired by these considerations, in what kind of context or environment would you like to test or play with the notion of cinematic space – and how?

    Prepare a 5–10 minute presentation where you address A and B.
    Feel free to use texts, images and other means to illustrate your considerations of the thinking process and the ideas of testing them in practice (in actual space or other ”setting”).
    Think of it as an exercise of demonstrating a beginning of a research process. On Friday you are to ”pitch” these first sketches to a peer audience (=Maiju).

    (See the texts below in "3rd week_TXTS")






    Towards the 2nd WEEK


    Texts to read / Friday 4 Dec 2020 + Continuation of the assignment

     

    1) A *bridging text* to the theme of *gap/ caesura/ poetic interruption* and *animation/ cut*, here:

    Robby Gilbert: “Mind the Gap: Considering the Practice of Animation as a Form of Applied Philosophy.”

    Written in Dec 3, 2018.

    https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=2753

     

    2) An excerpt from Jan Campbell 2018. Freudian Passions: Psychoanalysis, Form and Literature. Abingdon, Oxon and New Yourk: Routledge.

    – of the notion of poetic interruption / gap / caesura in cinema:

     

    3) Benjamin, Walter 1969. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

    In: Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn (from the 1935 essay). New York: Schocken Books.

    (SEE pdf document below in "Materials" page)

     

    SOME REMARKS TO GO WITH BENJAMIN’S TEXT: 

    – Please note the historical context and time of its writing: some remarks made by Benjamin are "universal" in time and context, yet some may work better once "translated" into another/ altered context...

    – Also, the notion of "aura", which is one that Benjamin writes about in many of his texts/works, is not a fixed concept but changes throughout his own work, in different set-ups.

    – The notion of (camera, optics) "optical unconscious" is quite relevant – as it really marked a serious change in our ways of being able to see beyond the vision that is reachable with our bare eyes. Camera/ optics/ zoom-ability made it possible to see physically way farther than we could actually see, and also, it made it possible to make (in the Freudian or psychological/ psychoanalytical sense) "inner visions" and "inner thoughts" visible.








    2 ASSIGNMENT (continuation to 1st Essay)

    Use the 1st essay as your base research material. Continue thinking about how these old school examples you have collected might serve as an inspiration for doing actual tests/ experiments in the frame of a film or any other moving-image related project/production – perhaps a “dream scenario” of a cinematic project that you would like to do/ design/ realise.

    The task is to continue developing from the points of interest that you already have done research on – Stop Motion, Stop Trick, Substitution Splice… and consider it/ them in relation to the “poetic interruption, cinematic interruption, pause, gap, caesura.
     
    In the pre-digital era films were composed in their material facticity of series of images linked together, with the “gap”, invisible to the spectator’s eyes, always existing there. We can think that it was an “ontological premise” in cinematic arts back in those days.
     
    Already in the “celluloid times” cinematic artists did play with this material condition – by means of repetition, or making the gaps clearly more visible through suspending the black-out-in-between sequences etc.
     
    Again in the avant-garde arts, and in the -60’s experimental cinema – often mixed with elements of performance, live art and happenings – the poetic interruption was a focus of “experimental attraction/attention” and quite strongly affected the aesthetics and language of artistic works and experiments.

     

    QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    What does/can poetic interruption mean in contemporary cinematic expression?
    What can/could it bring into the cinematic language and aesthetics?
    How could poetic interruption be expressed spatially, via production design and its thinking?
    How could playing with the idea and realization of Substitution Splice or Stop Trick benefit the range of your own artistic development as a production designer?
     

    REALISATION BY TUESDAY 8.12.

    Make a sketch of an idea or scene where you would use poetic interruption in some way as key element of your production design.
    The medium is free – you can use pictures, drawing, text/writing, collage technique, video. Feel free. The aim is to try to illustrate the idea of using "gap/ poetic interruption" as key element of artistic expression. You do not have to worry about how it fits the film narrative. This assignment is for experimenting with VISUAL AND SPATIAL NARRATIVE MEANS :)




    1 WEEK 

    text to read + writing assignment

    Chapter 4 in Grau Oliver 2003. Virtual Art. From Illusion to Immersion.

    Do some research on the *old school magic* and find two examples in the *pre-cinema or early cinema* archives that you want to take a closer look at. The examples may be old school or contemporary artworks or projects by artists that you find interesting in connection to the week 1 themes: Archaeology: magic, early cinema, ’optical unconsoius.

    Read Chapter 4 in Grau’s book (sent to you via email). Pick 1-2 points from the text and write about why it/they interest/s you – and why and how it/they seem relevant in terms of production design to you.

    You can combine these two, or you can write about them separately. Try to find a connection to your own interests as a production designer – how might these examples serve as a source of inspiration in your work?

    The lenght of the text = appr. 3 pages (with font size 12). The main thing is that you orientate yourself into looking at the *old school magic*, and aim to contextualise this finding in the frame of *evolution of things and phenomena that has had (and still has) an effect in the cinematic space*.



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