Patrick Tsai

Why are you making me think with your editing ways?

I'm quite partial to jarring cuts in between sequences of film (regardless of how obsessive they seem or how much they challenge continuity) because they are bizarrely contradictory: the successions of cuts are quick and yet they seem to slow down the moments they interrupt as if the brain is taking extra time to sort out the condensely packed images (I suppose this is actually the case). 

Here are some examples of interesting "quick cuts" I've come across recently.


Mean Streets (1973)


 

The entire title sequence is incredible---from the cut to a projector that comes out of nowhere, to the home movie, to the music---but the cutting that takes place in between the shots of Charlie's head hitting the pillow is what I want to talk about. As the character falls back in slow-motion, the camera cuts closer and closer to his face. Yes, the editing matches the beat of the music, but abrupt cutting of a single action paired with the slow-motion is fascinating. It is at once both jarring and dream-like, informing us that we are about the enter Charlie's psyche, one of heavy conflict, contradictions, and sensual rawness.




Stolen Kisses (1968)

(Note: Obviously, we'd get a better sense of the rhythm editing with a video, but I couldn't find a clip of this scene anywhere.)

Working as a detective, Antoine Doinel loses sight of the magician he's suppose to be tailing when he decides make a phone call to his girlfriend. Realizing this, he exits the phone booth in a hurry. In what could have been filmed within one shot, what we get instead is an odd series of shots from two different perspectives of him leaving: One from an interior shot in the booth and one exterior. The sort of "rack" cutting of between the two shots happen rapidly, lasting less than a second. It's almost like a subliminal message or even a glitch, as if someone accidentally included a couple frames from the next shot when cutting the scene together. This disruption in the follow of Antoine's exit heightens the anxiety of the situation (though rather quickly) with the flash of the interior shot attempting the keep Antoine within the booth when he clearly needs to leave.

Let me stress the fact that the cuts are telling us this information, not necessarily what is happening within the shot.



The Color Wheel (2011)

This example is a little different of the first two. It's more about condensing time and space than adding extra information to the scene.

At first glance, the cutting of this transition moment between locations seems somewhat strange. As the brother and sister duo, Colin and JR, make their way from a motel to the diner, we first see a shot of a car driving on the road, then a cut to the car pulling up to the diner, and a final cut of the car already parked with Colin and JR walking into the restaurant. We have witnessed a jump-cut people! What make this interesting is that the attempt to condense time is somewhat negated by the car moving in the first two shots and then is stationary in the last one.


It's weird.

Scott Hazard

Helena Almeida

This lady is magic.

Adam Parker Smith

Now That Everything Has Settled Down . . .

A temporary workspace for documenting my work.
Just taking a break with some Godard

This is a post-review synopsis of sorts. I apologize in advance if this starts to sound a little self-loathing.

Kiki Kogelnik

Lilli Carre

Pout Melody (Excerpt) from Lilli Carre on Vimeo.

What Was Left on the Cutting Room Floor (????)

This is a man who would not leave people alone.

Alright Guys, it’s Dérive Time

    According to Guy Dubord, the spectacle is the most glaring superficial manifestation of mass media. Idealized lives, carefully constructed narratives of film, television, and literature, the presentation and function of our commodities, these are all subject to the influence of the spectacle.  It’s a critique of contemporary consumer culture. We are so mesmerized by the spectacle of our society that ordinary objects, locations, images have become emotionally charged. They have become our link to the people around us. We live for objects and images because we do not know of any other way to live.

    How can small stories and the mirco-narratives of ordinary life compete with the spectacle? Is it not inherently influenced by mass culture? The discovering the spaces in between reality and fiction are the only ways we can find grace from the influence of the spectacle. The fleeting moments, the trivial events, inspired instances of play are occurrences that can foster new ways of seeing only if one takes the time to examine them. I like to think of them as spectacles of the ordinary. Capturing and interpreting this idea through visual media, how can the nature of the ordinary change our idea of visual representation? Can the ordinary exist as spectacle or does is very qualities negate its transformation?

What the hell is going on in my brain? (Thanks a lot TV)

There he goes. Eating a hamburger. He doesn't even finish it.

And why should we care about this?

Is this a joke? Were we tricked? Did we wasted our time watching this?

In Warhol’s Eating a Hamburger (1982), we are presented with a incredibly mundane situation. It just Andy. He's just eating a hamburger. Yet the very medium of video makes it an event. There is action, drama, and mystery (why didn't he finish that hamburger???)
It is at once mesmerizing and distancing. A screen that demands our gaze and yet offers us something that can be found in the everyday.

We can read into whatever we like about this piece. I like to think of it as a spectacle.

Saigo No Shudan

KUNCHI from saigo no shudan on Vimeo.

I wanna do animation now.

This is a Test

Test run of what I've been working on.

The Reason Why I am Talking About Orwell's Novella "Animal Farm" When I Should be Writing my Artist Statement

The important things don’t matter as much as the details. I understand the gist of an overall grand scheme of a narrative or whatever but those ideas doesn’t really interest me. They are sort of finite. I like things to have a little wiggle room for interpretation purposes. That’s why I tend to fixate on the little things; the details that are small and brief, but if you stare at it long enough, it tells to everything and more.

The whole story.

Film Archive as a Meta-Narrative

I was listening to Filmspotting the other day---its a great movie podcast by the way---and I happened to catch a tidbit about this strange connection between a scene from David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. (2001) and the ending of Singin' in the Rain (1952):

Watching these two clips back to back, there a feeling of this hidden narrative that haunts both films (Perhaps more for Singin' in the Rain than for Mulholland Dr.) It is our human nature to find a connections to and make sense of what we are seeing. When viewing them in this order, I don't attribute Lina Lamont's expression of anxiety to the curtain being lifted from the stage and being exposed, but to what happened to the singer in Mulholland Dr. Whether or not it was Lynch's intention to directly reference Singin' in the Rain (does anyone know?), this comparison definitely speaks to the power of the film archive as a ever changing meta-narrative.

Narrative Breakdown and Restructure

The view of the set is made visible. We are watching a movie.
Have a gander everybody:



Here, Aitor Gametxo reorganizes the film "The Sunbeam" from 1912 by D. W. Griffith into the prefect six-rectangle grid “doll-house” where the movements of the characters are perfectly choreographed to interact with the hidden structure.




In this Rear Window timelapse, Jeff Desom dissects the scenes from Hitchcock's film and---since everything was filmed from pretty much the same angle---he was able to match them into a single panoramic view of the entire backyard with the order of events staying true to the movie's plot.

Especialy in early cinema, the camera rarely moves from the position of 180 degrees from the subject and is typically inter-cut with the occasional medium shots and closeups. Because of editing, the spatial structure of a film is often not noticeable when it constantly cuts back and forth between shots. These are fascinating examples that breakdown and reveal the surprisingly simple way of how well known filmmakers compose various shots to explore location within the narrative.

I Was Here

And by "here," I meant the Shire. It is a reminder of human mortality. Things never remain in a fixed state. A fruitless attempt to leave evidence, yada yada yada . . .

John Cage's "4:33" and the sounds of Youtube

Here's the link:
http://dontsave.com/4_33/?performance=4631

Jordi Colomer

Christian Marclay and his Telephones

Telephones (1995) by Christian Marclay

There are only so many ways you can answer a telephone. 

The appropriation of Cinema in art has been around for a while, but it never seems to go out of style. Using cinema (or television) as an archive of human history gives us an idealized and somewhat condense view of society. Even basic human activities (waking up, getting out of bed, eating, etc.) are captured and preserved on film and we tend to see similarities in the presentation of those activities across many different films. It creates its own dialogue out side of narrative, one that considers the whole scope of film history parallel to human history.

Masanobu Hiraoka

Uneasiness and triangle from masanobu hiraoka on Vimeo.

The transformations are amazing here. Also checkout Hiraoka's recent endeavor:


Sincho.tv from masanobu hiraoka on Vimeo.

Strangely Hypontic

I came across this today

Small fragment of a lost film in Kinemacolor

From "How to Live 100 Years" (1913)

Lost films have a truly enigmatic quality. It is evidence of the past, documentation of the work of the film makers, actors, artist, never to be seen again. Fragments are found here and there, but they are tantalizing artifacts that make one dream of what could have been. 

Here is an attempt to preserve this film (thanks http://www.yooouuutuuube.com), to make it last a little be longer.

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/v/?width=192&height=120&yt=zQSJKCkZ8sI&flux=0&direction=left_up

 Remind you of another post?

What Comes After Remix? (A Remix of the Remix?)

Alice Remixed by Pogo

Here is the remix of the remix:

http://www.yooouuutuuube.com/v/?width=80&height=80&yt=pAwR6w2TgxY&flux=0&direction=bottom_left

In Lev Manovich's 2007 article "What come after Remix," he proposes that this is the age of remix culture. It most certainly is, and still lingers today. Music, video, fashion, food, architecture --what have you-- has been in someway remixed re purposed into something new. Our world history is an archive. Why not use it?

Marcel Duchamp - Fountain, 1917. Sculpture

Looking at the art world, it is a technique (also known as appropriation) used time and time again but never ceasing to find new combinations, new languages expressed through re-contextualizing the visual. A notable early example is Duchamp's Fountain, in which a urinal is magically "turned" into a work of art through the artist intent (whether seriously or jokingly) and most importantly, the placement of the object in a new context. In this case from the bathroom into the museum.

But what comes after remix? This is the question Manovich asks but does not answer. It is too soon to tell or it may have already happened and no one has yet to notice. Have we reached the pinnacle of our visual production? I don't think so. But if remix isn't the end all of our cultural visualization, it is certainly a powerful tool to influence the next.

Rebeca Méndez

At Any Given Moment, Grass #1 from Rebeca Méndez on Vimeo.

Movement created by nature and captured brilliantly by Rebeca Méndez.In her series,  Méndez "explores issues of perception, specifically our relationship to technologically mediated nature."

(http://cargocollective.com/rebecamendez/About-Rebeca-Mendez)

Greetings Earthlings

'American school man on rooftop with eleven men in formation on his shoulders' by unknown artist, ca. 1930
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House
photo courtesy: the metropolitan museum of art