tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85360622470428033112024-03-12T20:33:23.516-07:00scratch.utopiascratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-51894704133190052452021-05-30T06:24:00.001-07:002023-11-01T03:44:45.601-07:00The Loneliest Video Recording in the World.<p></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaCX62QX1tcWWwt96jP7ChJAv9PXybdgNZqe5tXt8kvbqjikiABjuW51TKG-ZnRYOkkBSuQMwFSXRFdg0OWWsElAptI-gqPWzJYub4htBvbPRSMXZJqJsnzieW5Z8SZDm5d_xlIZVew4L/s2048/1dsBuffer2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1477" height="877" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaCX62QX1tcWWwt96jP7ChJAv9PXybdgNZqe5tXt8kvbqjikiABjuW51TKG-ZnRYOkkBSuQMwFSXRFdg0OWWsElAptI-gqPWzJYub4htBvbPRSMXZJqJsnzieW5Z8SZDm5d_xlIZVew4L/w633-h877/1dsBuffer2.jpg" width="633" /></a></div><p></p><span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-family: verdana;"> <i> <span style="font-size: medium;">from BLATT BLAÐ #63 -- 2019.<br /></span></i></span></span><p></p>scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-61202333302441774182020-11-27T08:12:00.000-08:002020-11-27T08:12:15.698-08:00Haunted Houses, Home Video and more of The Ring.<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjue-ovOg4L75HwKrjUuqteSxAIHeoFMWjz4xDSdVR7n69R4Fg4z1amkLtvlid9cb_RnMrsE2DWED9M6vlysO1mJ0xQdAPg-aIkVJ3HwFPTe37_5lMv3_Vti70qvMd5Vi3OKYPcbFNGApYn/s771/script+snip.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="390" data-original-width="771" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjue-ovOg4L75HwKrjUuqteSxAIHeoFMWjz4xDSdVR7n69R4Fg4z1amkLtvlid9cb_RnMrsE2DWED9M6vlysO1mJ0xQdAPg-aIkVJ3HwFPTe37_5lMv3_Vti70qvMd5Vi3OKYPcbFNGApYn/w640-h325/script+snip.PNG" width="640" /></a></div>
<p></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>The above text is an unused opening to a version of Ehren Kruger's script
for <i>The Ring</i> (2002)</span></span><span><span>¹</span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>The
inclusion of the record icon may suggest the scene functions as a
foreshadowing or </span><span>allusion </span><span>to the film's
final scene where Aiden creates a copy of the cursed videotape with the help of his mother, Rachel. </span></span>
<span><span></span></span><span><span> What
it certainly does is introduce the audience the antagonist (and in
certain contexts victim) of the text – the VCR. But we are not only
seeing this familiar device from a new perspective, it's interior or a
fictional imagining of it's interior - we are being prompted to
recognise this as a place of deeper, meta textual purpose.</span></span><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span><span>
</span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>In
the final paragraph and it's follow up line the scene description
appears to posit the VCR's interior architecture as an urban landscape
surrounded by dark woodlands. The presentation of this strange world,
illuminated by a record icon sun – serves as an establishing shot
of what could easily be understood to be the epitome of small town
America. A place so often the site for disruption and fear in the
horror genre and surrounded by the dimly lit American wilderness; a place within the horror genre, that has
never been entirely tamed. </span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>A
new day is dawning on this place, a town or city whose relationship
to electronic media is, we feel, somehow not as it should be. </span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>This inverted micro to macro visual scenario, where an establishing
aerial shot of the wider location is positioned within the cramped
interior of the films key prop and 'player' may further prompt our genre expectations. Surely, somewhere along the dimly lit
streets of this town there must exist the another component in
a supernatural horror – the haunted house. </span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>But
that house is never located, not along the streets nor at the edge of
the tangled wood and the reason for that is that we are already
within it. That is to say that the depicted VCR itself is serves as
the Haunted House.</span></span>² </span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>The VCR, as depicted above and elsewhere within The Ring operates as Haunted House on several levels.</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><b>Haunted
Media. </b>In
<i>Dark Places: The Haunted House in Film</i></span></span><span><span><i>³, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Barry
Curtis asserts the haunted house functions as a</span><i> </i><span style="font-style: normal;">'<i>a trans-dimensional archetype</i>' that it's varying material shape often
incorporates elements of the 'feudal castle, the ruined monastery,
and the remote cottage' locations stained by
'memories, by the history of their sites, by their owners fantasies
and projections'.</span></span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">'<i>The
idea that objects and places can retain memories of traumatic events
is an old one.</i>' states Curtis. By these standards we could </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">assert
that the VCR relates to the haunted house via concepts
of Haunted Media. This idea, best illuminated in Jeffery Sconce's
</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Haunted
Media</span></i></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>: <i>Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television</i></span></span></span><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">⁴ observes a tradition of crossover between the technologies and
beliefs of sound and image media and the supernatural. The ability
of location and often specifically a house to be supernaturally
encoded with paleomagnetic traces of the past is best exemplified by
S</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">tone
Tape </span></i><span style="font-weight: normal;">t</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">heory</span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">named after
the much discussed TV play by Nigel Kneale.</span></span></span></span>⁵</span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Like
Sconce's many examples the VCR is a site where transient disembodied
</span></span>entities pass through.</span></span><span><span> They
materialise ephemerally, before vanishing back into their place of
confinement, the black shiny ribbon tape as described in the
screenplay. The medium's conspicuous lack of the material
indexicality, so prominent in analogue film where each frame will
reveal itself by merely being held up to the light might further
suggests video a likely candidate to be charged with such ideas. The
tapes surface is, until treated to the rigidly specific protocol of
the VCR drum head, as impenetrable and abstruse as the rock walls in Kneale's play. If
recorded images are burnt onto and embodied by the film frame then the same images might be said more to
'haunt' videotape. They are both there and not there. They are
charged into their medium, existing only as magnetic disturbances.</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>The
spectral, illusory nature of the analogue video image, as experienced on the
CRTs of <i>The Ring</i>, is enhanced</span></span><span><span> when we consider that it never truly existed as a complete image in anyplace other than our own
cognition. The electron beam that draws the image, line by line,
across the screen, would illuminate a portion of line on an ordinary
family sized <span style="font-weight: normal;">CRT television</span>
no wider than a few centimetres at any given moment. That is to say
the images, though viewed, are never truly present.</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><i>The
Ring</i>, <span style="font-style: normal;">Videodrome (1983)</span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span><i>Lost Highway
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">(1997) and of course <i>The Stone Tape</i> (1972) are all charged with the uncanniness of the electronic recording media. Dealing with both anxieties of
hidden or subliminal </span><span style="font-style: normal;">content
and content that has been recorded by means that defy quotidian comprehension. </span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;">In The Ring where a ghost materialises via a videotape we could say that she not only haunts</span></span></span><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;"> the tape but that her ghostly ontology is reliant on the structure which it occupies.<br /></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><b>The Fun Fair or Carnival Haunted House.</b></span></span><span><span> The
description of the VCR's interior is reminiscent of another haunted
house experience that has less to do with the supernatural, at least authentically. It's evocation of trapdoors and moving parts within a pitch
black environment conjure more the fun fair or carnival haunted
house.</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="font-weight: normal;">My
experience of these attractions was in 1970s and early 80s British traveling fun fairs. The promise was an</span> encounter with the supernatural
but these were places where technology, took the place of
supernatural forces to thrill, disorientate and shock the visitor. </span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>In
the absence of the means to furnish these houses with </span></span><span><span>startling apparitions or any other type of spectacular effects</span></span><span><span> (these places lacked the budget of Disney's
<i>Haunted Mansion</i>) they relied instead on the generation of
other sensations and anxieties to create the state of unease needed
to keep the punters and rubes coming back for more or at the very least not demanding their money back. </span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>The
fun fair or carnival haunted house would disorientate in near total darkness with sliding walls, conveyor belt floors, trapdoors and
automata that swing to and fro in the dark. The architecture was one
of legerdemain, concealed mechanics of pulleys and hinges – a place
that seeks to literally pull the wool over your eyes and rug out from
underneath the feet. The skeletons were clearly plastic and far from
convincing but the closets in which they resided were numerous and
always where you least expected them.</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>To
enter into such a place was to mix the fear of the supernatural
unknown with that of the technological in a corporeal experience
where the only certainty was that the house, it's mechanical
haunting, was running rings about you. Darkness was it's ally, as was
the scent of axle grease, ozone from over clocked starter motors
repurposed as servos and flashing incandescent bulbs sprayed with
orange cellulose car paint. The tremors around you were beyond
comprehension. Among the sounds of repurposed army surplus klaxons
and clips from the BBC's <i>Sounds of Death and Horror</i></span></span><span><span><i>⁶</i> were the <span style="font-style: normal;">sounds of</span><i> the
house working. </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Perhaps these
unknown creaks, rumbles and judders were as disconcerting as the
screaming skulls and siren blasts because the house did not give away
it's secrets. The mystery of origin of these devices, their designers
and builders were as beguiling as any of the horrors and thrills they
had on offer at 30 pence for four minutes.</span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="font-style: normal;">These effects contain a sort of technological uncanny
themselves. Like the SFX and genre techniques employed in horror
film, those technologically complex depictions of the fantastic, abject and
grotesque whose spectacular attractions are compounded and amplified by a lack of understanding of how such artifacts are
generated. In both cases the process of production itself is an asset of the
unknown.</span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>Again
there is a parallel to the VCR here, a media device quickly came to
represent an odd combination of the alien and the mundane. The
inner workings of these machines that resided in our homes for so many
years were rarely observed and even more rarely understood. The VCR's cassette snatching trap doors, darkened interiors, strange
mechanical clicking and whirring were in certain senses as mysterious and perplexing and any of the content played and presented on screen.</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><b>The Gothic</b></span></span><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">. <i>The Haunted House</i></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"> is a place charged with Gothic familial anxieties, framed by architraves skewed by structural decay, uncanny disconnects, troubling ruptures in the
classification of interior and exterior, deathly silent rooms
where faces of the long since passed stare down from the walls.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span> </span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>In
a haunted house, according to Barry Curtis<span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">, 'what
haunts is the symptom of loss -something excessive and unresolved in
the past that requires an intervention in the present' </span></span></span></span>⁷
<span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">The
actions and the offenses of the past reoccur and play out in the
present here, a location discovered through and driven by fate. A
place of vengeance that refuses to forget or be forgotten.</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Just
as Rachael and Noah's problematic parenting is reflected in the
heightened stakes of Samara's familial catastrophe, the mistakes are repeated, echoed. Despite their presence becoming residual,
disturbances caused by invoked guilt and panic become ever stronger
with each generation. </span></span></span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">The guilt with which the Gothic edifice of the VCR is charged is that
borne by it's adopters, users who later and at the time of the making
of <i>The Ring</i> it's betrayers and deserters.</span></span></span></span><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"> For
this is a place troubled by the collective anxiety of millions of VCR
owners aiming their machines and tapes at the rubbish bin. A not
quite dead media but certainly an abandoned media.</span></span></span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Samara,
suggests Jessica Belanzategul, is a
proxy for the VCR . </span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">Samara,</span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"> '<i>embodies
both the vengeance and rapid disintegration of a long dominant
audio-visual format</i>.'</span></span></span></span>⁸</span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"> Samara
was cast away, abandoned, left for dead – she came back. Her wrongdoings
included projecting imagery in the minds of her family and neighbours.</span></span></span></span><span><span>
</span></span><span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><i><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">...the
things she'd show you... </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">solemnly</span></span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><i>
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">recalls her
father (before becoming horse in his bathtub)</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>
</span></span></span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><i>VCRs
take the fall for DVD... abject soon to be obsolete</i></span></span></span></span>. ⁹<span><span>
</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">In
<i>Retrotechnophobia,</i>
Caetlin Benson-Allott posits the VHS within
<i>The Ring</i> as a patsy, a
stand in for an emergent DVD in an anti piracy narrative. A parallel
reading (that the author does not ignore) locates a masked anxiety regarding imminent abandonment of the
VCR - the dumping of a once prized item and with it shared
associations and memories, the (at the time) scarcely addressed environmental impact,
the unknowns of the accelerated move towards the digital as the
driving forces of <i>The Ring. </i></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">As every haunted house movie confirms, ghosts and their domains can be abandoned but they rarely go away.<i> </i>Instead they become further embittered and locked into the walls and floors of the haunted edifice. </span></span></span></span></span></span>
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: #ffffff;">In The Ring t</span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: #ffffff;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: #ffffff;"></span></span>his Gothic architecture is located in the dark chambers of the VCR
itself, before and after it was erased from our collective cultural behaviors if not our memories.</span></span><span><span>¹</span></span>⁰</span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><i><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">'the House of Usher is no more – the place whereon it stood is as if -
it had never been' </span></span></span></i></span><span><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span><span>¹</span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="background: #ffffff;"></span></span><span><span>¹</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><br /></span>
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">(1)
<a href="http://www.horrorlair.com/movies/scripts/The_Ring.pdf">http://www.horrorlair.com/movies/scripts/The_Ring.pdf</a></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span>(2) </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background: #ffffff;">The
released version opens with a shot of a more conventional spooky
looking house. This isn't the only use of location and architecture
to elicit unease in <i>The Ring</i>. The images of the face at the window within
the montage, the Morgan house itself, the motel site - even the cold
industrialism of the lift and stairwell in Noah's bachelor pad studio,
these elements of mise en scene all play an active part within
the texts genre objectives. But there is no <i>haunted house </i>in
the conventional sense. That is, a site that both central to and an
active antagonistic force within the narrative. Only the VCR might be
said to fulfill these criteria.</span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: #ffffff;"></span></span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DtbqxsYLX0YK4D_fTqx8Wy-SyAT4Wg0thRt-GGWj10cRjkHGdiSkjFqEakwx76CL-FLNW46_F6wf4l4q8zkW14cgzYZ9qqSJtQ3yj6CUpq-4N-OOnU0n7FbHtXr6A9zDIXOo8GHqHpa-/s1280/hh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="1280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4DtbqxsYLX0YK4D_fTqx8Wy-SyAT4Wg0thRt-GGWj10cRjkHGdiSkjFqEakwx76CL-FLNW46_F6wf4l4q8zkW14cgzYZ9qqSJtQ3yj6CUpq-4N-OOnU0n7FbHtXr6A9zDIXOo8GHqHpa-/s320/hh.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: #ffffff;"> <br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><p></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span>(3) </span></span></span></span></span><span><span>Curtis, Barry, <i>Dark Places: The Haunted House in Film, </i></span></span><br /><span><span><i><span class="a-list-item">
<span>REAKTION BOOKS; Illustrated edition (1 Sept. 2008)</span></span></i></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><span class="a-list-item"><span>(4)Sconce, Jeffrey</span></span></span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span>, Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television, </span></i></span><br /><span style="font-weight: normal;"><i><span><span dir="ltr">Duke University Press</span>, 2000.</span></i></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>(5) Kneale, Nigel, <i>The Stone Tape</i>, BBC 2, 1972.</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span> (6) </span></span><span><span><i>Sound Effects No. 13 – Death & Horror</i>, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, 1977.</span></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span></span><i><span></span></i></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span>(7) Curtis, ibid.</span><i><span><br /></span></i></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span><i><span class="a-list-item"><span> </span></span></i></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span> (8)<span>
Balanzategui, J. (2016), ‘Haunted nostalgia and the aesthetics of
technological decay: Hauntology and Super 8 in Sinister ’,Horror
Studies, 7: 2, pp. 235–51, doi: 10.1386/host.7.2.235_1</span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span>(9) </span></span><span><span><span><span><i>Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, </i>published
in <i>Killer Tapes and
Shattered Screens</i>, 2013,
Caetlin Benson-Allott, University of California Press. p113 </span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="color: #333333;"><span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span>(10)<span>The videocassette might, with it's own curious magnetically charged, mechanical, sealed ontology, be said to function as the VCR's uncanny reduced familiar, itself invoking a sense of the haunted house.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</p>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXyJyNYIldDkK69ReWUQScgFUqKovtQpqBpLaIvyxF7ZON3dSogzSCf5bGGLtsXxpv6CxHJ3B9mBS1XaLtmgTcxNAWPlEmaTr_hJKPKWRxgGMaCB6wehj9hU5kn-X_PjoqWydvJwGwFc0/s193/vhs.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="117" data-original-width="193" height="122" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXyJyNYIldDkK69ReWUQScgFUqKovtQpqBpLaIvyxF7ZON3dSogzSCf5bGGLtsXxpv6CxHJ3B9mBS1XaLtmgTcxNAWPlEmaTr_hJKPKWRxgGMaCB6wehj9hU5kn-X_PjoqWydvJwGwFc0/w201-h122/vhs.PNG" width="201" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHCFMecdQYaY0nUCjGWZQtvJ468x6sTd42wS1y9iq4Tht3u3FAQPxW6Hy3RkSyIdjR19EWqVXX3tWHllZsgH8j1PmkPlNFrYQR47Siovy1mEdUkJh5iVx2F-PMlKEart9wXuSa1qa3CH5/s204/amytvllle.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="105" data-original-width="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheHCFMecdQYaY0nUCjGWZQtvJ468x6sTd42wS1y9iq4Tht3u3FAQPxW6Hy3RkSyIdjR19EWqVXX3tWHllZsgH8j1PmkPlNFrYQR47Siovy1mEdUkJh5iVx2F-PMlKEart9wXuSa1qa3CH5/s0/amytvllle.PNG" /></a></div><br /><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;">(11)Got
this off the cover of a videotape! E. A. Poe via Corman via 1989 Video
Collection International VHS release cover tagline. <i>Fall of the House
of Usher</i>, AIP, 1960.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: x-small;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="color: #333333;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255) none repeat scroll 0% 0%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br /></span></span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /></p>scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-46972090887725798222020-11-06T08:02:00.003-08:002022-07-19T00:49:57.928-07:00Macrovision 5 - time Code, fingerprints and the unacceptable copy.<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"> <span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">When visualising the absence of timecode depicted on the LCD counter of
Noah's video editor as an abstract jumble of non characters and
glitches, </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Ring</i></span><span style="font-size: small;">
signifies a crisis of language and a disruption of understanding.
Within horror genre, this is another step away from any safe,
quotidian, perception of reality. It evokes the supernaturally
charged archaic runic symbols of M. R. James' </span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Casting
the Runes, </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the
technological defiance of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>The Golem </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
the horror of the unutterable as described by Lovecraft.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">This
imagery is fortified by Noah's erroneous and anthropomorphic
description of video timecode as being akin to a human finger print
and the glitchy symbols denoting their absence. This posits the
tape's contents not only as uncanny other but as a lying beyond the
realm of identification</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i> </i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">or
any normal sense of ontology, perhaps their lack of symbolic function
locating them as glimpses of a horrific Real. </span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">Similarly,
</span>the Macrovision signal, referred to in it's patent application
as consisting of a <i>random, pseudo-random and predetermined pattern
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">distribution of</span><i>
pseudo-sync pulses, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">is a
disruptive non-signal and as such cannot be read. Like the anomaly
identified by Noah it is merely error generating; a recording from a
unknowable source and of a technological ontology shrouded in no
small amount of intrinsically intentional and commercially rooted
mystery.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
task of these pseudo signals is to negatively effect and disrupt any
copy made of the recording within which they are concealed; to
corrupt and smear it to the point that it has become useless, abject
or to use the intention stated in the patent application, the become
</span><i>unacceptable</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. This
smearing is also present in the trope on Noah's timecode display.
These broken decimal numerical signifiers whose integrity is so taken
for granted, almost </span><i>a priori, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">as
to make them seem invulnerable has been dragged from their quotidian
stability, they too have become unacceptable. </span></span>
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Noah
later experiences distortion and becoming unacceptable when his own
image is smeared on the screen of a grocery store's CCTV system. Like
the corrupted timecode this highly economical special effect succeeds
in evoking a sense of horror very well. The image on the screen,
almost a mirror, presenting an opto-electric facsimile of Noah,
suggests he has not copied well. Like sensitives, pets and spooky
kids as employed in a multitude of horror movie tropes, technology
serves to look beneath the surface and show the, occasionally
horrible, truth. When mechanical reproducibility asserts it's own eerie
aura it leaves little doubt that </span><i>something has not worked
out</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span><span face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">¹</span></span></p>
<p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Despite
Noah's authoritative AV credibility (Noah functions as a low emotion,
logicist, expert. If Noah thinks something is awry, our genre savvy
tells us we should take heed) not all video recordings contain
timecode</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">²</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span face="arial, sans-serif"> </span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">but when they do they can be located in the same area as
Macrovision. The Vertical Blanking Interval's versatility as a payload
provides a secure and hidden storage space for Vertical Interval Time
Code (VITC) just as it does for for anti-copy protection. Despite
Noah's misrepresentation genuine versions of 'Video Fingerprinting',
which has nothing to do with timecode but concerns the assignment a
unique hidden signature to a video recording for anti-piracy
purposes, appear to have also utilised blanking intervals – albeit
the Horizontal Blanking Interval further</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span face="arial, sans-serif"><span style="font-size: small;">³</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">.</span></span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> Also, VITC allocates a
space for 32 bits 'User Bits' of user defined information or
annotation, which can comprise of digits or letters. So in theory
Noah's description of time code is not impossible, adding to what
Nicholas Rombes refers to as 'uncanny associations'; here specifically between the anti-copy objectives of </span><i>The Ring,
</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">as
described by Caetlin Benson-Allott and the technology and UX qualities of the genuine anti-copy system, Macrovision.</span></span></span></span>⁴</p>
<span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">The proposal of video possessing a fingerprint, or in
this case lacking one, suggests a video anthropomorphism or animism
considered elsewhere by Caetlin Benson-Allott and Ina Blom</span></span>⁵. <span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">It
also brings to mind the fingerprint as one of the go-to models for
the semiotic index if only to remind us that VHS may have been
analogue but it's indexicality was and remains more theoretical than
observable. A single field of VHS video, that is a screen filled with
odd or even lines providing half of a full screen image, is recorded
on to tape in a track around 9cm long and 0.049mm wide. Two of these
tracks interlace to provide a full frame. As each frame will comprise
of 250 lines we can see that any individual line occupies a piece of
tape far smaller than a pin head. Analogue video is not indexical in
the same sense that can be said of analogue photography, moving image
film or even most sound recording media</span></span>⁶<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">. When stored on tape, the
video signal, which is of course invisible to the eye, has been
further encoded and obfuscated by Frequency Modulation for purposes
achieving higher quality images. A VHS videotape recording, then, is
thrice removed from a true and appreciable indexical relationship
to it's subject; in it's dimensions, encoding and loss of visibility
as magnetic recording on entirely uniform tape. The magnetic video
tracks are so insubstantial, that dusting of the tape surface
with powdered iron filings, a method for viewing magnetic recordings,
reveals nothing. Only the relatively heavy percussion of the control
track on the tapes edge is visible.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">This could also be said of the CRT TVs and monitors seen
in <i>The Ring. </i>Analogue screens of this type never truly
depicted and image. If analogue film creates an illusion of moving
images, analogue video took the subterfuge a stage further with an
illusion of a the single images that an illusory moving image are
then formed of. If analogue video is truly indexical of anything, it
would be a single dot or beam of light. Just as mechanical television economically (if ultimately impractically) made use of a single light
sensor tucked behind a spinning disc, the video tube camera and it's
corresponding dipslay media, the CRT, collected and displayed images
with a single fast moving electron beam moving in parallel lines. The
entire moving image technology, therefore only views or displays, and
is only indexical to, a single point of light at any given time.</span></span>⁷</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">
So in this sense Noah's observation on the ontology of Samaras tape
serves as meta critique of a moribund format, it's lack or
indexicality but moreover it's elusive status within semiotic
classification – even when declared spent and obsolete.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">Noah's proposition that every video recording contains a
signature, a record of it's own origin may have it's own origins in a
technology that was emerging in consumer markets at the time of <i>The
Ring's </i>production. In the early 2000s digital still photography
was fast becoming a desirable and affordable alternative to analogue film and with came new takes on the technological uncanny.
EXIF metadata, encoded into every image file saved by the camera, contains
information on the device itself as well as when and how it was used.
VITC time code was a digital signal inserted into an analogue media
and as <i>The Ring </i>was produced at a time of widespread A to D
conversion, might Noah's fingerprint/signature also have betrayed
anxiety about some of the, yet to be comprehended, emergent successors
to analogue media? Moments of transition illicit anxiety and the <i>The
Ring's</i> glitchy time code representing a weird digital lurking unseen within the analogue, would</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">
in horror genre systems,</span></span><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"> usually suggest the potential for imminent attack.</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span>
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(1) <i>Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, </i>published
in <i>Killer Tapes and
Shattered Screens</i>, 2013,
Caetlin Benson-Allott, University of California Press p125</span></span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(2) ibid, p116 All
analogue videotape recordings do contain a control track which is
read by a separate head to regulate the speed of the tape as
suggested by Caetlin Benson-Allot ,
though this does not effect the 'scan' rate as such – rather the
rate at which the tape is passed across revolving/scanning drum head.
The control track is not, as suggested, timecode. Though there was a
system that embedded an SMPTE time code into the control track (CTL)
this method was rarely employed. </span></span>
</p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(3) I was given information on this technology, seemingly something of an in-shop self build at a 90s VHS duplication facility, via an online forum. It's unverified and I haven't cleared permission to share with the provider/poster yet. More info on request!<br /></span></span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(4)Nicholas
Rombes, </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Cinema
in the Digital Age</span></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
2009 Columbia University Press, and </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Caetlin
Benson-Allott, ibid.</span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">(5)
CBA, </span></span><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">VCR
Autopsy, </span></i><span style="font-style: normal;">journal
of visual culture, 2007 and</span></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"> Ina Blom, <i>Introduction to The Autobiography of
Video. The Life and Times of a Memory Technology</i> (2016),
Sternberg Press, p19 </span></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(6) grooves on an LP, an undulating wave on an optical
film track which match the Cymatic movements of speaker diaphragm or
other physical bodies effected by sound</span></span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">(7) As contemporary high speed imaging demonstrates
clearer than ever before – visual demonstration here - The Slo Mo Guys - How a TV works in Slow Motion - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BJU2drrtCM</span></span></p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
</p>
<p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><br />
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><br />
</p><p class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><br />
</p>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-80266777707316963262020-10-16T08:17:00.005-07:002020-12-04T06:25:20.674-08:00Macrovision 4 - like Samara, Macrovision lives in a deep well. <p>
</p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">The area
where the disruptive Macrovision signal is concealed, the Vertical
Blanking Interval (VBI), is a place of absolute darkness. Once a CRT's scanning beam has completed a field and arrived the bottom of the
screen it is this interval that, when recognised by the tubes
circuitry, causes the beam to trip back up to the upper left hand
corner to begin it's descent again.</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">Viewed as
a waveform on an oscilloscope the VBI appears deeper than the
surrounding signal as if a trough - or deep dark well. If you
had ever wondered when watching a horror movie on videotape, why a
black night sky or the corners of a creepy cellar, appear not as
black as they ought to be but rather something reminiscent of
slightly fuzzy <i>eigengrau</i>, it might be because high levels of
contrast were hard to obtain with analogue video media because
absolute video black was hard to achieve within a fluctuating scanline. Perhaps because of this, within the limited agency of analogue video signal's interaction with the hardware, this position of total video black was a domain reserved for the VBI's band of hidden lines. </span></span>
<span>
</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><i><span><span style="font-size: small;">'she
lives in a dark place now'</span></span></i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">The 'old dark well'
is employed in <i>The Ring</i> as a murder site that conveniently
doubles as a location to conceal the body. Chosen for it's obscurity
and isolation it is from this location the film's murdered antagonist
rises, in a number of ways, to seek revenge in the sun lit world
above. </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">It is in the depths of the VBI, a place that can be viewed as a sort of video dead time, a negative
space, a place of absence, that Macrovision
resides - though too it is given to randomly rising up into the light.</span></span><span>
</span><span>
</span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span>Viewed on
an oscilloscope the VBI looks like this</span>:</span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4bPJa5e4HxTHyzWxF1Yfslr-c3w_sR4xkLHv6XVKaUAMivRqKNVYcjHtR6jBjN8EYkvdwYDcXICSkevLSnTOrFNsNfzmnReuXwssSDgPPkL9EXvj8UatP3QGVxRzJ2oMEhr1utq2hmB-/s551/12v+scope.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="551" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib4bPJa5e4HxTHyzWxF1Yfslr-c3w_sR4xkLHv6XVKaUAMivRqKNVYcjHtR6jBjN8EYkvdwYDcXICSkevLSnTOrFNsNfzmnReuXwssSDgPPkL9EXvj8UatP3QGVxRzJ2oMEhr1utq2hmB-/s320/12v+scope.PNG" width="320" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">With
Macrovision present and ascending:</span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4JsUKaAQf5FUKC9p3dT3gt02MxxbaMeVoxV758dTyjcMIIg4eeqBFNrp2xphKJnPNfv35etLTG9fc1UvGXdjejR1OfygVImbLo8mTVk-NOLqlyXw1wbdcjmxAzdEt2BEQp7zKr3kr7WR6/s498/12v+scope+plus+mv.PNG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="491" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4JsUKaAQf5FUKC9p3dT3gt02MxxbaMeVoxV758dTyjcMIIg4eeqBFNrp2xphKJnPNfv35etLTG9fc1UvGXdjejR1OfygVImbLo8mTVk-NOLqlyXw1wbdcjmxAzdEt2BEQp7zKr3kr7WR6/s320/12v+scope+plus+mv.PNG" /></a></span></span></div><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">These
unseen areas, beyond image and signal, explored and imagined in <i>The
Ring </i><span style="font-style: normal;">and utilised by the
inventors of Macrovision are in themselves already a location of anxiety in
that they are experienced as hidden from view. Such spaces are mirrored in the
material as sites deemed off limits, undesirable, abject, yet at some
level always present. Elements of architectural unconscious that
exists within every structure. As an annexe within a media, an
adjunct storage resource - like a space created by a false bottom in
a chest, you won't know it's there until you find it. </span></span></span></span></p><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The VBI was utilised as
a location for other content such as teletext, closed captioning and
a variety of other data and test signals – even something called
a </span><span lang="en"><i>Ghost-Canceling Reference</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
(maybe that's what Rachel was searching for, at the screen's edge?).
If you ever sat on the remote while replaying an old off-air video recording and inadvertently activated Teletext you have seen
that the text, though often corrupted, has also been preserved within
the VBI of the recorded video signal. </span></span></span></span></span>
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span><span>
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">One
of the key vehicles for unease in The Ring is the idea that a VHS
tape contains something other than it's visible recording. It is
never clearly asserted how Samara's curse is transferred from the
recording on the magnetically sensitive tape to the receiver. It
occurs during viewing the tape and it's bizarre imagery, so is the
curse an effect of the images on the viewer, a sort of Lovecraftian
horror that once seen madness and terror ensue? Does the curse exist
as a sort of demonic incantation as in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The
Evil Dead </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(1981)
or the spoken word summoning ritual in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Candyman
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(1992)?
Or is the curse a sub-signal as in </span></span><span lang="en"><i>Videodrome
</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(1983)?
Something that exists beneath the visible imagery (whose only real
task is to keep you viewing as closely as possible and perhaps
emotionally priming the viewer for the absorption of additional para-media) This
additional concealed media takes the form of brain altering signal in
</span></span><span lang="en"><i>Videodrome, </i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
In the case of </span></span><span lang="en"><i>The Ring</i></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">
it would be a curse from beyond the grave. Both imagined media would
require a depository location. Locations exploited by anti-copy
technologies and others might provide such space.</span></span></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">When Rachel and Noah examine the tape by attempting to
physically manipulate the video head drum, the video apparatus is
visually employed as a site in which the search for clues continues.
When Rachel visits a VT archive facility to search even deeper into
the recording – even further towards the 'edge of the tape' and the
image this interrogation continues.</span></span><span>
</span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">In both instances the sound effects chosen for the apparatuses
reaction to this forced scanning, as the mechanics and
electronics reflect the anxiety of the search for the hidden material,
include a high pitched whirring as the tracking desperately strives to
remain locked onto the tapes signal and to maintain playback. </span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">Some later VCRs with more dynamic, digital tracking
circuitry will become so confused by a Macrovision tape that the
automatic tracking will emit very similar sounds as they attempt to
cope with a signal that has been designed just to throw the AGC and
tracking into disarray.¹</span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span><span>
</span></span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><span style="font-size: small;">In the latter intervention, a VT lab technician guides
Rachel to an older machine that she suggests may help her in her
quest.</span></span><span>
</span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
“<span style="font-size: small;"><i>The big box here's a warhorse – totally analog,
she'll read to the very edge of your tape. (just don't force her
or she'll get pissy with you)</i>" </span></span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;">The machine, only visible for
a moment, does indeed has the look of a far earlier vintage
than the early 2000s. The suggestion that an older iteration of a
media technology offers greater control, more agency over the apparatus would fit in with <i>Retrotechnophobia's</i> focus on <i>The Ring's</i> response to the perceived
threat of the 'Analog Hole'. The fact that media can be
accessed, copied or in the case of The Ring, viewed in entirety without
limitations with on older equipment, reveals that the developers and
producers of media hardware are not always steered by the desire to
provide the user as much control as possible.²</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">As
stated by Brian Winston, '</span></span></span><i><span lang="en">The
</span><span lang="en">apparatus is not</span></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>
neutral</i>'</span>³</span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span>
</span></span><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">
<span><span style="font-size: small;">In fact some of the older VCRs were not supplied with
onboard AGC circuitry and as such were seemingly 'immune' to Macrovision. Like
the 'Big Box', </span></span>
<span><span style="font-size: small;"> the more 'analogue' the equipment was, and early VCRs were
packed full of multiple boards populated with discreet analogue components
that would be replaced with chips and Ics on later variants, the more
control over certain specific functions were occasionally available
to the user. Not that this agency was ever declared by the manufacturers let alone the tape distributors. These quirks were
shared between users, becoming the site of myth, misunderstanding and distortion.</span></span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWEimzXVyzq9Rg7pln4TPRzMf6JMsd-VvEuhP6xAbjUs1FHRtHMxX5URPku8YwuhBBLzr9r5N_64Ty0cq8LXIqJNpspUjDlcC6cT4Dc-WS514j-9JdkApRkHTSdifJPfK3uXU72v0wxk3/s1191/Screenshot+%2528845%2529b.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="182" data-original-width="1191" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIWEimzXVyzq9Rg7pln4TPRzMf6JMsd-VvEuhP6xAbjUs1FHRtHMxX5URPku8YwuhBBLzr9r5N_64Ty0cq8LXIqJNpspUjDlcC6cT4Dc-WS514j-9JdkApRkHTSdifJPfK3uXU72v0wxk3/w719-h153/Screenshot+%2528845%2529b.png" width="719" /></a></div><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6vdbyALx1nNMRsNSdcpc-KPh8h5YzWLhj9GYlxj9vXoz9JBy5ISxxuFwI2kh-Fh2X20H8C-3hdLgpHfXDviu-iypI5KCXYqIGRvxElPwFKZJpWEh0mP2ZB_aSGWg89lkaEoHDEAXBLt9/s829/Screenshot+%2528925%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="829" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb6vdbyALx1nNMRsNSdcpc-KPh8h5YzWLhj9GYlxj9vXoz9JBy5ISxxuFwI2kh-Fh2X20H8C-3hdLgpHfXDviu-iypI5KCXYqIGRvxElPwFKZJpWEh0mP2ZB_aSGWg89lkaEoHDEAXBLt9/w721-h258/Screenshot+%2528925%2529.png" width="721" /></a></div></span><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pzt22S7DMubadOzPpxOy-p4_65406bRrfK_Drbn5icJk7DRJq9dG8hVUEilCJycdYtQWu6jyyh_AzlDckc40uKUUHR-2cRynUKcZx-WS_5HHg31O_Ml1Sbqia_R8L41JoTsJz5Ky1wZp/s1184/Screenshot+%2528849%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="1184" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7pzt22S7DMubadOzPpxOy-p4_65406bRrfK_Drbn5icJk7DRJq9dG8hVUEilCJycdYtQWu6jyyh_AzlDckc40uKUUHR-2cRynUKcZx-WS_5HHg31O_Ml1Sbqia_R8L41JoTsJz5Ky1wZp/w716-h171/Screenshot+%2528849%2529.png" width="716" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOwhWHJMytKq4k7cMRijeBtoXh7hTRxRj6QVEf1rncO4Al5wq4c9S2E6jElsvA4-6gVjs1dO9YicY16QxzNmhjPOmMtZ5qUFtpeTH55dGtNcq7oWW7YYRHBdR7k0AOUgv9HLOSmS7cdoe/s917/Screenshot+%2528850%2529.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="165" data-original-width="917" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqOwhWHJMytKq4k7cMRijeBtoXh7hTRxRj6QVEf1rncO4Al5wq4c9S2E6jElsvA4-6gVjs1dO9YicY16QxzNmhjPOmMtZ5qUFtpeTH55dGtNcq7oWW7YYRHBdR7k0AOUgv9HLOSmS7cdoe/w717-h148/Screenshot+%2528850%2529.png" width="717" /></a></div><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(1) see</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> <i>Macrovision: The Copy Protection in VHS </i>by Technology Connections </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">at 8m 22s </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">for a demo:</span> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VqsU1VK3mU</span></span></p><p class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(2)</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span> Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, published in Killer
Tapes and Shattered Screens, 2013, Caetlin Benson-Allott, University of
California Press. p114<br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span></span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">(2)
</span></span></span><i>Technologies of seeing : photography,
cinematography and television, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Brian
Winston, British Film Institute, 1996. p41<br /></span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: verdana;">
</span><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p></p>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-31460439242978020172020-08-21T10:58:00.001-07:002020-08-28T05:56:57.944-07:00Macrovision 3 - something is hidden at the screens edge. <div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The limits
of the TV frame become of interest to Rachael, the protagonist in <i>The
Ring </i>(2002). While watching ex-boyfriend Noah physically intervene with a VCRs
mechanism she begins to suspect there is more to see beyond the
screens edge than meets the eye. In a later attempt, upping the
assault on the tapes reluctance to give up it's secrets, Rachael uses
a more advanced machine to pan across and beyond what is visible to
the very edge of the recording. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Both
attempts result in a type of overload and failure of the playback
media, employing a common cinematic visual trope suggesting the very
limits the device or medium have been reached. The build up to the
climax of the first attempt, a sort of generic 'she cannae take any
more captain' moment is visually represented by the, technically
erroneous, manipulation of the tape's transit across the drum head
attempted by Noah (which could surely work only in an imagined AV studio.
Physically manipulating a video drum head is very unlikely to reveal
any surplus image - just a loss of picture) and crescendoed by with the receipt of an electric shock. In the second instance at the higher
spec facility, an analogue VU meter, itself a somewhat retro but oft used device, displays overload to the point of failure. </span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMrHXy11T-eVYdOD_1UL6GVQzFHdOdOu7H1_yVKuUI9l8h-wXUmpEevuQBBqIAqdXvws_LoHuzsNX2y5YyAgpS4pEteBbQfIhwWggPA5btfMOcRPJLGXyDWFxjQ6phgYpCFytJIxh-C_z/s1600/Photo2484.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMrHXy11T-eVYdOD_1UL6GVQzFHdOdOu7H1_yVKuUI9l8h-wXUmpEevuQBBqIAqdXvws_LoHuzsNX2y5YyAgpS4pEteBbQfIhwWggPA5btfMOcRPJLGXyDWFxjQ6phgYpCFytJIxh-C_z/s320/Photo2484.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">These
markers define the crossing into another space, both for our
protagonists journey along a dangerous and uncharted road and more
specifically into an area less visited – the fringes and back rooms
of the videocassette and VCR technology.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What
Rachael finds there is a clue, a pointer towards locating the origin
of the tape. Did Samara want to leave a trail that might lead a
certain kind of viewer to her location? Had she merely figured out
how to squeeze an ultra-widescreen image onto regular tape? We never
find out. Instead the discovery adds to the already considerable
enigma of the tape, displays Rachael's resourcefulness as an
investigator and moves the story on to the next beat. </span></span><br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6uydmJWhpcYT164o3h6UfeRAl3SG1r7fQRCKA750JNPAauK_us-la1qe48JndaheYRrFAHxQRu9tYN4o0I_sKCQ7Kuy12yUmxqaqatQttSHU9uet_f2RTe6pNQxkU8i7mlNuHa4xYFma/s1600/Photo2478.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB6uydmJWhpcYT164o3h6UfeRAl3SG1r7fQRCKA750JNPAauK_us-la1qe48JndaheYRrFAHxQRu9tYN4o0I_sKCQ7Kuy12yUmxqaqatQttSHU9uet_f2RTe6pNQxkU8i7mlNuHa4xYFma/s320/Photo2478.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Caetlin
Benson-Allott describes this space discovered beyond the frame in
Lacanian terms via Zisek to suggest a sense of paranoia. This revealed position
within an image is where the viewer herself is being viewed from by
the Other. '<i>you can never see me from the point from which I gaze at
you</i>' </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">¹</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This might might be a fair description the Macrovision experience, the
sensation of realising your VCR knows what you have been up to.
Punishing you immediately with a weird, spoilt copy and suggesting
that you may be in big trouble for breaking the rules.</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> For just
as the gaze hides at the side of the screen, so does Macrovision.</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> The
Macrovision signal is hidden out of view at the very top of the
screen in roughly 45 unused lines. As stated in the 1985 Patent
</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>'Since most television sets are overscanned by
5% to 10%, these pulses would still be invisible.' </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">²</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> Though
normally out of view the signal can be seen as a row of bright
undulating bars within black when the image is pulled down on a
television or a monitor with manual Vertical Hold adjustment.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9oI9bltpbu50_7mM2UWsE7-NmDBfyOLyTJq5HcAmMoxnuyePw7DoIlrKpAO8H8R-shF332lI0pdog01R40WNxTT84w6zNqy3Ai4FUFyKUaW0bLuyY9qbADnOVxuKj3SeR-Pd6zUHEVXy/s1600/Photo2470.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil9oI9bltpbu50_7mM2UWsE7-NmDBfyOLyTJq5HcAmMoxnuyePw7DoIlrKpAO8H8R-shF332lI0pdog01R40WNxTT84w6zNqy3Ai4FUFyKUaW0bLuyY9qbADnOVxuKj3SeR-Pd6zUHEVXy/s320/Photo2470.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMTSO332L9qe0lX5lIbwzYJMDCL4-TbdKs2d7QuaBOhYUDxZHfsesS1leUW7jUMxgsfZzitejlFHSnWO1-kApTwnQifN3DU2wKCVFVBML_149pdxRQe_GJ-sU2P7zeIerscQMsDDeZ_D-/s1600/Photo2469.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMTSO332L9qe0lX5lIbwzYJMDCL4-TbdKs2d7QuaBOhYUDxZHfsesS1leUW7jUMxgsfZzitejlFHSnWO1-kApTwnQifN3DU2wKCVFVBML_149pdxRQe_GJ-sU2P7zeIerscQMsDDeZ_D-/s320/Photo2469.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Lost Highway's mystery Man, no stranger to dupes, evokes the technological uncanny by occupying two spaces at once. Here he shares the vertically adjusted screen with a Macrovision signal. Lost Highway (1997)</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It can
also be seen when, during an attempted recording of a protected tape,
the image folds, </span><span style="font-size: small;">flags</span><span style="font-size: small;">
and flickers downwards, momentarily revealing the signals presence.
Like Samara's recording, the Macrovision signal was not assigned to
tape with conventional means. It would be inserted during commercial
duplication by sealed electronic units leased from the anti-copy
service provider. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Portions
of Samaras images and Macrovision exist in areas of a videocassette
recording usually hidden from view. (Macrovision can be quite easily
located and even analysed on an Oscilloscope, though it appears reluctant to give up all it's secrets</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">³ </span></span> and most internet based analysis involve some degree of interpretation and assumption. Samara used
'projected thermography' to place her montage on the tape – how and where
she located or embedded her curse is never established)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">André Bazin</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span>stated<i> 'there
are no wings to the screen'</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">⁴ and yet it
seems within a videorecording there are. Bazin also attributed the
painted canvas with centripetal force drawing the world inwards in
direct contrast to the cinematic screen which asserted a centrifugal
force, casting the '</span><span style="font-size: small;">cinematographic
image into infinity'</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">⁵ Perhaps he didn't watch much television because CRT
technology always biased what needed to be seen inwards creating a
</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>safe area</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"> where
inconsistencies in CRT performance would not result in a loss of
information or image in the non visible overscan regions. In the
transference of cinema to homevideo this was exacerbated by the pan and
scan telecine process. This biasing inwards suggests but does not reveal an
other, a zone beyond what is visible.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">'</span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>VHS always contained
(made visual reference to) more than could meet the eye.' </i></span></span>⁶</div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
sense that something is present, perhaps watching us from a position just out of
sight, seems a much valued trope within horror movies, anti-copy systems and horror movies that appear to share the objectives of </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">such systems</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.</span></span><br />
<div class="western" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(1)</span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, published in Killer
Tapes and Shattered Screens, 2013, Caetlin Benson-Allott, University of
California Press p119</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(2)</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> Method and apparatus for processing a video signal so as to prohibit the making of acceptable video tape recordings thereof Apr 17, 1985 - https://patents.justia.com/patent/4631603</span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(3) The technical specifications of Macrovision anti-copy system were naturally confidential. Online analysis of the signal, such as in the link provided, get very close to a full understanding but there are usually certain artifacts or functions that seem to evade the inquirer. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/170667-What-Macrovision-looks-like">https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/170667-What-Macrovision-looks-lik</a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> (4)</span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">What is Cinema, Theatre and Cinema part 2,</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> 1967, </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">André Bazin</span>, </span></span>p105. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(5) ibid. </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Painting and Cinema, p166.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(6)</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ibid. </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Retrotechnophobia: Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, </span></span>Caetlin Benson-Allott</span></span>, p120</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>
</div>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-58820036581222786352020-08-14T08:32:00.000-07:002020-08-14T08:32:06.130-07:00Macrovision 2 - the strangest sensation of being watched...
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Like
the tape in <i>The Ring</i>, Macrovision knows whether you are watching or copying
a videocassette. </span> </b></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If
the horror genre, it's familiar tropes and their ability to evoke
anxiety, can convey an anti-piracy message from within the medium
perceived to be at risk of illicit duplication – as in the FACT
Public information short and, more pertinently, </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">as per <i>Retrotechnophobia, </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">in <i>The Ring </i>(2002)
- <i> </i>couldn't the medium contain a
anti-piracy technology that included and demonstrated some of the
same tropes? How uncanny and capable of evoking anxiety can video
technology be – when things start to go wrong?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In <i>The
Ring, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">the protagonist,</span>
Rachel figures out the cursed tape offers different outcomes for
those who copy it from those it merely watch it – effectively, it
knows which you are doing - and so did a system called Macrovision. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Macrovision
was an anti-copy technology developed in the 1980s during the home
video boom. A rented or purchased pre-recorded tape with Macrovision
installed could be watched on a television or monitor without issue
but any attempts to copy the recording on a second VCR would be
'rendered unacceptable' </span></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">¹</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaeTN6gHMRKR08hst_UmSK1_nYunU8bBb33w7bESTNdyfDwJDIC7kftvQ4FxQ4-ysTTxDH2iXc_XKUgvHoYcYWXLKTX_iAz7rT7CccWhBRZ7MJohPMfVmmUJJd0VpWA-0cwm8G6T26TGxv/s1600/mv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaeTN6gHMRKR08hst_UmSK1_nYunU8bBb33w7bESTNdyfDwJDIC7kftvQ4FxQ4-ysTTxDH2iXc_XKUgvHoYcYWXLKTX_iAz7rT7CccWhBRZ7MJohPMfVmmUJJd0VpWA-0cwm8G6T26TGxv/s400/mv.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a
device installed by video distributors, Macrovision naturally wants
you to watch the tape but doesn't want you to copy it. Macrovision
expects that the viewer will ignore the FBI or similar warning at the
start of the tape because no matter how threatening, it was
believed to have no further agency or knowledge of
whether it's warning was being observed within the privacy of the
video users home.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Macrovision
enters said home concealed within the tapes interstitial spaces where
it sits in wait until activated by a deviance from guidelines. It may
be watched a dozen times without incident or error but any attempt to
copy it will reveal the presence of the signal.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">VCRs
contain Automatic Gain Control circuits (AGC) that monitor an
incoming external video signal and adjust aspects of it to a
suitable, stable level for recording. Macrovision contains <i>pseudo
pulses </i></span></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">²</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> that sweep across a range of amplitudes that confuse
the VCRs AGC forcing it to attempt correction and to
struggle to maintain a commensurate recording level. This results in
distorted images, undulating brightness and colour, flickering, and
image tearing</span></span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.³</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In effect, the Macrovision signal tricks the VCR's
AGC into reacting as if the incoming video was wildly unstable thus
causing a circuit originally intended to maintain a stable recording,
into creating an chaotic, unstable one. A television or monitor has
no such circuitry and the Macrovision signal is ignored, the
protected recording is displayed without distortion.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As stand
alone, non interactive playback media, VHS tapes were never
considered to be aware of what we were doing with them. The unease
generated by discovering a mysterious agent within a inanimate object
may evoke the shades of the <i>eerie </i><span style="font-style: normal;">as
described by Mark Fisher. Something is present that should not be
there.</span></span></span>⁴</div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> This is the first stage of a tape copiers encounter with a
tape containing Macrovision.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unlike
contemporary platform based technologies, Home video (read for our
purposes VHS) quickly peaked in it's ability to diversify, emerge,
and 'wow' the user with new innovations located within the
pre-existing medium. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">VideoPlus,
4 heads, 6 heads, stereo sound, for many these developments may have
appeared more gimmicks and the stuff of salesman's patter than any
generational evolution or development. There were some improvements
and additions but there was certainly no Moore's law for VHS.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The tapes
played and recorded more or less the same. For twenty years the
capabilities of the format barely changed and the greatest
development would appear to have been the race to lower the price per
unit – perhaps further degrading ownership status, removing the
glamour of the luxury item and upon achieving market saturation and
ubiquity, consigning it to the ranks most mundane of household
consumer items.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Home
Video's potential to amaze wore off quickly as it was soon taken for
granted, perceived to be an inferior conduit to other media, cinema,
television, etc. Video's ability to inspire or drive utopian
strategies and rhetoric, just as the internet would in the 90s,
peaked early in video utopianist spaces such as <i>Radical Software </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span>⁵<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> and by the time consumers were watching sell-through copies of
Videodrome or The Ring, the medium's chances of asserting real change
had often appear to have become all but forgotten.</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps
for this reason, suddenly discovering that a tape knows what you are
doing with it must have provoked a frisson of anxiety. Having
mysteriously transgressed from inanimate container to intelligent
observer how would the copier have known where the tapes knew found
agency would end? Not only does Macrovision, like Caetlin Benson
Allott's description of the character Noah's frustration with the
tape's timecode, 'reduce the viewer's agency within the video
apparatus'</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span> ⁶<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> it, on it's production of an abnormal copy, informs us, we are moving towards the previously unknown, that
'something has not worked out' </span></span>⁷<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As a
medium on which to view movies, videotape may have lacked in
resolution but it performed very well in terms of privacy and
isolation within systems of distribution. The material had to be
acquired - rented, purchased or traded but once obtained it could be
viewed, usually in the comfort of the home with anonymity pretty
much guaranteed. Before even considering ISP logs or malicious
internet trackers, we could contrast the fact that all our Youtube
and Netflix user interfaces regularly remind us that they know
exactly what we watched and when. With this in mind, one could argue
that never before or since has viewing audio visual material, in
certain regards, been as discreet as it was with VHS. </span></span>⁸</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Although a
tape copier might not immediately know it, Macrovision's capabilities
were limited, and stopped far short of, for example, reporting back
to Warner Home Video that Blade Runner was being duped, including
such information as where and by whom (we'd have to wait for the
digital revolution for that) </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">But what
it could do, as well as achieving it's primary objective of ensuring
that any illicit copy of a Macrovision protected tape was <i>
</i><i>rendered unacceptable</i> by generating
<i>unacceptable pictures</i>,
was to elicit, just as Samara's tape </span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">did</span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">initially for Rachael,
confusion and unease and demand the question – where the hell is
this coming from and how can it know what I am doing?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">(1) Method and apparatus for processing a video signal so as to prohibit the making of acceptable video tape recordings thereof <br />Apr 17, 1985 - https://patents.justia.com/patent/4631603<br />(2) ibid.<br />(3) a video error that sees the top of image appear to distort and fold downwards<br />(4) Mark Fisher, The Weird and The Eerie (Repeater, 2017) <br />(5) <i>Radical Software</i> was a magazine concerned with the work and aspirations of videos first experimenters, artists and activists. https://www.radicalsoftware.org/e/index.html</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">(6) Retrotechnophobia: Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, published in Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens, 2013, Caetlin Benson-Allott, University of California Press p116<br />(7) ibid p125<br />(8) clearly watching the flow of analogue television would be hard to beat here – for much of the VCR era, in the UK and Europe anyway, television channels were very limited (just four in the UK until the late nineties) and so when one viewed TV the was always a least one in four chance of guessing what was being watched.<br /><br /><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span><br />
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-64013938740608719942020-07-24T08:19:00.000-07:002020-07-24T10:03:43.504-07:00Macrovision 1 - the contents of this videocassette.<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">At
the beginning of my VHS copy of <i>The Ring</i> (2002, <i>dir. Gore Verbinski</i>), after a standard
copyright notice, a DreamWorks logo and trailers, there is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLBY4qzUMNw" target="_blank">an
informational short sponsored by FACT</a>, the Federation Against
Copyright Theft. It explains the dangers of video piracy.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As
a slightly edgy and streetwise sounding voice over
warns “the pirates are out to get you, don't let them brand you
with their mark“ a demonic blacksmith with glowing eyes and
enveloped in flames, heats a branding iron</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> bearing an X</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> before holding it up to
camera. </span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuSZg733-wh4AoJYcV7xrDBYsEN0WPD5-UPg0K7cH95x02VwxWqSRf7btmShUYcThzJc2XFUjJoCsIUt0w-vE2At6jfiZj5r3AriEPUTZJ1UK9c9FIaETDG9wrHd5D6VHZkV7tbAzMyxz/s1600/vlcsnap-2020-07-03-16h27m17s047.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLuSZg733-wh4AoJYcV7xrDBYsEN0WPD5-UPg0K7cH95x02VwxWqSRf7btmShUYcThzJc2XFUjJoCsIUt0w-vE2At6jfiZj5r3AriEPUTZJ1UK9c9FIaETDG9wrHd5D6VHZkV7tbAzMyxz/s320/vlcsnap-2020-07-03-16h27m17s047.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
voice goes on to tell us video piracy funds organised crime,
terrorism and that it will destroy 'our development and your
enjoyment'. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">As
the iron's brand is plunged into water it's X transforms into the
copyright </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">©</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">and
our voiceover gives way to a more measured and well spoken voice that
advises how one should go about handing over any suspected pirates to
the authorities.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Described
on a Public Information Film fansite as “perhaps one of the darkest
and scariest anti-piracy PIFs ever made“¹</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> it represents a coming
together of the horror genre, anti-piracy and the videocassette; a
cocktail that seeks to utilise horror tropes, on the home territory to scare viewers into resisting the temptation of dabbling in
the dark arts of video piracy. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Elements
that, according to Caetlin Benson-Allott's, </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring </i>² are also to be found in the tape's main feature.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZNSJc9uvO668I9CpMzTZTOH7RCJ_J2DyL3HrYRuAiMmKBIec_58Dzl74K1IeT7vDvdaQv0GUqGdVZ7XjJ9zBzrlhQQ2t4dCeNtHfQesUxKMZ1ijeT6UdlDCjZDMKi3LC_y3MYWtPnHsk/s1600/100_7365.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5ZNSJc9uvO668I9CpMzTZTOH7RCJ_J2DyL3HrYRuAiMmKBIec_58Dzl74K1IeT7vDvdaQv0GUqGdVZ7XjJ9zBzrlhQQ2t4dCeNtHfQesUxKMZ1ijeT6UdlDCjZDMKi3LC_y3MYWtPnHsk/s320/100_7365.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> ©</span></span></span>
brand now a sigil charged with another kind of authority and message.
i.e. The movie you are about to see is a work of fiction, for your
entertainment – but make copies of it and you will know the full
might of the law and perhaps even the horrors of financial ruin or incarceration.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">The
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">©</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">,
is finally displayed embedded, for increased emphasis and veracity,
within the word FA</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-style: normal;">©</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">T.
It seems the mantra – it's only a movie, only a movie... – does not entirely apply
here and we are left with a question. Was a movie on videocassette,
the cassette itself or the machine on which it was played capable of
scaring audiences into regulating their video practices to fall into line with the desires of nervous holders of video copyright?</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGQmqAhyphenhyphenQaJ5-e69yBkJ79WNxH9Cy8LGLe2ocTgdongV-ZS9vgRT21bQmRlpDDQN9Js1-XYp4gf5OK2AGsBy4Jcj5lMd-8ZSzf_wq5Mrlvc4mXlASeyBnMIHEv_NPqL7vb6kcmfuX9FtI/s1600/the+ring+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="1235" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPGQmqAhyphenhyphenQaJ5-e69yBkJ79WNxH9Cy8LGLe2ocTgdongV-ZS9vgRT21bQmRlpDDQN9Js1-XYp4gf5OK2AGsBy4Jcj5lMd-8ZSzf_wq5Mrlvc4mXlASeyBnMIHEv_NPqL7vb6kcmfuX9FtI/s320/the+ring+.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Anyone who has ever watched a horror movie in the slasher sub-genre, as exemplified by <i>Friday the 13th</i> (1980,<i>dir. Sean Cunningham</i>) or <i>Halloween</i> (1978, <i>dir.John Carpenter</i>) and </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">very much </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">imitated thereafter will know that tropes that exploit target audience anxieties and guilty pleasures, imagined or otherwise were part </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">of that particular genre's</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> language .<br /><br />Whether sneaking out to smoke dope or having sex with a smuggled in friend whilst on babysitting duties, these minor transgressions were often met with the harshest and most immediate penalties.<br /><br />Whether these repetitive acts of screen violence are understood to function as an ideological thrust from the film makers or merely evidence of a marketing feedback loop or assumption of their audience's desires and fears or a falling back on what has proven turn a reliable profit for the film's producers -- the notion that the horror genre, contains and makes use of 'cautionary tale' tactics and tropes is not a new one. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br />With this in mind, Caetlin Benson-Allott's proposition in her 2013 essay <i>Retrotechnophobia: Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring</i>, that the US remake The Ring (2002) hosts, a specific warning against transgressive behavior can said to adhere to a convention, long established within the horror genre. Benson-Allott's reading of the The Ring is akin to Samara's tape within it, in that it contains, hidden somewhere out of ordinary view, a threat of retribution lest the viewer do as they are told. <br /><br />Benson-Allott's proposals can also be viewed as a very clever, playful meta-textual proposition, whereby a narrative concerned with the distribution of urban myth seeks to generate it's own. <br /><br />Retrotechnophobia operates in sort of experimental hyperstitional sandbox, presenting it's ideas in the region of, too strange to be true yet too clearly evidenced to be easily dismissed as false, that provides fertile substrate for myth and associative thinking. It is also a learned and impeccably researched text that explores an area previously widely ignored. While focusing on the point of death of VHS, the horror of it's rejection en masse (just for the sake of a few more pixels, saved shelf space and a directors commentary) the text helps illuminate the fact that in certain respects the VCR was always abject. A miraculous medium yet one that, despite widespread diffusion, was rarely recognised on it's own terms. A bitterly poor substitute for the cinema, a mere add-on to television with 'Made for Home Video' or 'Straight-to-Video' considered hallmarks of cheap, inept attempts to ape dominant media</span> ³.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
</span></span></span>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> The areas where Home Video and the VCR asserted themselves and found a niche also suggested abjection and deviancy; Pornography, extreme horror and of course illegal copy making </span></span></span>⁴.</div>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Not only was the VCR undervalued it was largely misunderstood, resulting in a black slab of technology sat in almost every home, simultaneously as mundane as it was impossible to truly understand.<br /><br />We lived with VCRs for twenty five years without ever really finding out how they worked. <br /><br />I'll write more about this in the future but Benson-Allott is absolutely right to describe the videocassette as a “small casket whose inner cavity... cannot be opened” unless first hidden within the recesses of the VCR, itself a black box extraordinaire – arguably the most highly sealed to enter into home/consumer use up to that point and maybe even since. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Why wouldn't they make ideal hiding places?</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br />Benson-Allot isn't the only writer to consider hidden content or intention in <i>The Ring</i>. In the introduction to <i>Cinema in the Digital Age</i>, (2009, Walllowerpress) a series of essays on cinema's transition from analogue to digital that frequently turns to <i>The Ring</i>, Nicholas Rhombes also considers it a space for concealment when he cites it as 'A genre film hiding an Avant-Garde video inside it'. He locates within The Ring 'strange correspondences between film images, a sort of secret history' and suggests digital technology has 'stripped away a layer, and exposed uncanny associations'.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>Retrotechnophobia</i><i> </i>seems to epitomise a treatment of the moving image media suggested by Rhombes when he states, 'terms like 'intention' and 'genre' need to be reinvented, for what links films together is not simply their plots, their styles, their directors, but something less coherent'. Benson-Allott would seem to agree when talking of 'new video studies' and the </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">reading she </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">applies to The Ring feels as though it exists not merely as subtext but as something not unlike the active elements within Samara's curse tape. </span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In the digital age we've grown accustomed to the idea that there is always a little more than we can see within our media content. From the serendipity of the Easter Egg, to the hidden sector, the tracker, the Trojan and the large portions of data and media within the files themselves that seem to sit dormant, unused, often apparently empty. <br /><br />Lines of code such as 'Multiline comments' that are hidden from view, within the inner confines of a file - not visible to a user or viewer and hidden from the platform or operating system under which the code is running. <br /><br />There are such spaces and artifacts to be found within analogue media but they are not as simple to create, conceal or manage. They have been less discussed or understood and are perhaps, therefore, arguably always less expected. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">When reading it's complex electronic signal, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">the VCR's specialised electromechanical processes are so contingent on precise variants such as timing, pressure and sensitivity that it is highly vulnerable to interference, error and loss. For this reason, barely any intervention be it hobbyist, hacker, artist was made at the actual 'read' end of the VCR apparatus. Video processing, manipulation and effects generation that began with early video artists before swiftly being further developed in industrial, creative and later home user contexts deals exclusively with the video signal as it leaves the playback device rather than as it is captured within it. For these reasons the home VCR lived and died as a black box technology.<br /><br />The functioning of a black box can be described or observed as extrapolation even when the inner workings are obscured. A simple block diagram could be used to explain the functional relationship between a videocassette and a VCR without ever having to remove a screw but, at most levels of proficiency exploring and explaining such spaces, using blind cause and effect descriptions creates potential for certain factors and interstices to be overlooked. <br /><br />Every blackbox will contain areas unknowable from the outside. Given the complexity and integrity of the VCR and Videocassette it should come as no surprise that they possess such spaces too.<br /><br />Within the narrative of The Ring, Samara's tape utilises such a space. Locating room for an occult function in a device that already exhibited high levels of the unknown.<br /><br />Caeltin Benson- Allott's exploration of The Ring as horror laced with anti-piracy propaganda led me to consider another anti-copy apparatus that would seem to uncannily display and evoke similar tropes and features. Like Samara's curse it is hidden within the medium, burnt in using non conventional means to a location deep within the sealed container.</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">1. https://pif.fandom.com/wiki/Federation_Against_Copyright_Theft_-_The_Pirates_Are_Out_To_Get_You -- watch the video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLBY4qzUMNw</span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">2. </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Retrotechnophobia:
Putting an End to Analog Abjection with The Ring, </i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">published
in <i>Killer Tapes and Shattered Screens</i>, 2013, Caetlin Benson-Allott,
University of California Press </span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">3. <i>Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium</i>, 2014, Michael Z. Newman, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Columbia University Press.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">4. A key reference here is clearly, <i>Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright, </i>2009, Lucas Hilderbrand, Duke University Press but also <i>Cutting Edge: Art-Horror and the Horror-Avant-garde, </i>2000, Joan Hawkins, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">University of Minnesota Press and <i>Electric Blues: The Rise and Fall of Britain's First Pre-recorded Videocassette Distributors</i>, 2016, Julian Upton, Edinburgh University Press are also all great.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-57648567388644354552020-06-19T09:30:00.000-07:002020-06-23T04:58:27.597-07:00On the 66th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen. <div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="zxx"><span style="font-style: normal;">transcribed
and expanded first impressions captured on voice recorder, 2014:</span></span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="zxx">
</span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="zxx"><i>I find Oberhausen to
be a pleasant town of appealing proportions. The architecture is
oddly varied except in its height that rarely seems to exceed four
stories. Much rebuilt after the devastating bombing raids of the
second world war, it's as if the structures mistrust the sky and
huddle down together, close to the ground, trying to present hard
targets. The style of certain wide yet un-assuming avenues furnished
with rows of terraced townhouses reminds me of the Quai au Foin in
Brussels or other towns with Flemish influence, the kind of terrain
where a dreamy city roamer must always keep one eye on the pavement
lest he wander into some unnoticed historic canal. The local
residents go about their business and appear to be tucked up in bed
by eleven o'clock. Once a year the film festival arrives...</i></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span lang="zxx"><i> </i></span></span></span>
</span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This year it didn't. Or it
didn't while at the same time it did, last month May 13th - 19th. So
much dialogue surrounding the type of moving image celebrated and
explored at Oberhausen Short Film Festivals has, of recent years,
concerned itself with uncertainty and vulnerabilities of the medium
itself. Is cinema dead? Does the digital image provide an adequate
replacement for the film strip? What chance do artist labs and
co-operatives, independent screens and facilities have when even
industrial chains are potentially being driven out of business by
apparently global overcooking of property prices? (1)</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The forces that define
ontologies shift. Pressures create imprints, mold and shape. There
was a time when independent film makers faced impossible costs for
equipment and material. Then having strived for a means to produce,
they were met with the terrible reality that barely anyone would be
able to witness it. The systems of distribution allowed little to no
space for independent, experimental or underground work and short
work has always struggled to find audiences. Cheap, high quality
digital equipment solved the first of these problems. The accessibility
of high bandwidth cyberspace put an end to the second.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">More recently constraints on
physical spaces in which to make and present work have increased year
on year with little hope of abating. For a society invested in the
virtual, material space is commanding an outrageous premium. </span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Which is why events like
Oberhausen continue to be important to the world of short film and
video. But if cinema can survive the (near) death of film, the transition into the less material domains of the digital – how
would the ontology of an specific material durational event such as
a long standing film festival fare online?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With over 2500 passes sold and
1000 trade visitors I guess the simplest answer would be – pretty
well.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The selection of films lined up
at Oberhausen this year often seemed to address the lack of physical
stimuli ; large darkened audatoria, drinks and chats with makers,
viewers and critics on the pedestrianised thoroughfare outside Kino
Lichtburg, glasses of cold Bitburger -- with work that provoked a
sense of the haptic, the sensations of the flesh, the indexicality so privileged by exponents of analogue.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="en">The
immersive pleasure of the cinema auditorium may have been absent
whilst watching a video such as Bog Body (2019, 16m, </span>Joonas
Hyvönen) on a laptop sat on a messy desk during lockdown but there
were invitations to be immersed elsewhere – in a very wet (digital)
peat bog for instance. This place we discover, like film, video and
digital, is a storage space for memory. To slip into this quagmire,
like the crooning protagonist, is to become deathly, spectral, like
the sonar image of a shipwreck too deep to be experienced as anything
other than a ghost. The objects within the bog have become merely
images, recordings. And yet the trade off here is a potentially fair
one, as with any film subject, to enter the bog offers a possibility
of immortality. As storage media go, peat preserves very well and resident Tardigrades have excellent memories (and not just for bad jokes).</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_IPzTcCBAUNFZeJAg9M8qwzfO9BW1OodWzWJUOCPeeH3jGCne0Xio_i5JZYLeY2xmc4Cvii8lxIlu9E9vQOmd0Y4uHPb8oqbOPvSdnqIPuWMrB5yCpzvyvviSmn9eO_SxLAOKoRHvZBZ/s1600/av-arkki_hyvo%25CC%2588nen_bog_body_still3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="903" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_IPzTcCBAUNFZeJAg9M8qwzfO9BW1OodWzWJUOCPeeH3jGCne0Xio_i5JZYLeY2xmc4Cvii8lxIlu9E9vQOmd0Y4uHPb8oqbOPvSdnqIPuWMrB5yCpzvyvviSmn9eO_SxLAOKoRHvZBZ/s320/av-arkki_hyvo%25CC%2588nen_bog_body_still3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: "arial";">Bog Body, Joonas Hyvönen, courtesy of AV-arkki</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Storage
media and sensory mash up are also central in <i>Patent Nr: 314805</i> (2020, 2m, Mika Taanila) Here a very early attempt to record sound
onto film, rediscovered in the Finnish Film Archives, boldly
dominates the screen, bringing with it synesthesia and a reminder
that film has been, at every step not just recorder as in live action
filming, or means of synthesis as in animation but an analytic tool
as in the chronophotography of Marey, Muybridge and many successors
who have used the power of film to visualise that previously
invisible. </span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3fGC1wbFf28JZovk3tyvvomM5PLaTFgn8OZaQHxLp2HNYxAnYZobK1yeqtw1qiG1t1ORtpc1Hxe7MhPy8tv5y2wKZGd00hmjERyTIPXNieGrf3OTlMy9-9RR363q9bgx9NnlE-bfjWzU/s1600/Patentti1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1232" data-original-width="1600" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl3fGC1wbFf28JZovk3tyvvomM5PLaTFgn8OZaQHxLp2HNYxAnYZobK1yeqtw1qiG1t1ORtpc1Hxe7MhPy8tv5y2wKZGd00hmjERyTIPXNieGrf3OTlMy9-9RR363q9bgx9NnlE-bfjWzU/s320/Patentti1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Patentti Nr. 314805, Mika Taanila, courtesy of Kurzfilmtage</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial";"></span></span>The
process created by in 1914 by Eric Tigerstedt, the 'Edison of
Finland' no less, captured sound as stark, vivid monochrome images
with an enigmatic device he called the Photomagnetophone. During
an post screening Zoom interview, Taanila was asked several times how
the images were created and, it seems, he either doesn't know or
prefers the mystery of the process to remain undivulged. Either way
the fluttering stripes of sound that run vertically down the screen
are spellbinding to watch and remarkably similar to the optical sound
systems that would become industry standards some years later. The
undulating recordings are also reminiscent of a sine wave displayed
on an oscilloscope – an image that would become a cross genre
cinematic trope to denote the white heat of science and
visualisations of the futuristic and the unknown. They must surely have looked that way in 1914.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Tigerstedt's
comparison to Edison reinforces the oft stated fact that the American
was as inspired a businessman as inventor. The Phonomagnetophone,
like many other innovations by the prophetic Tigerstedt went
unrewarded and it seems he died in 1925 having received little
recognition for his work.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">A
highlight of the festival for me was Susannah Gent's <i>Psychotel
</i><span style="font-style: normal;">(2020, 60m) that explores the
uncanny, though montages of rich image and spoken text, evocations of
horror film and folk tale.</span> Gent,
a taxidermist, understands that, like a photograph as described by
Barthes – the stuffed cadaver and the representational moving image
function both a transgression of death and <i>memento mori</i> – a
reminder of it's inescapability.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWUUdwGiETocf5OAoHoX504Y7zjZf69tIZUyPtbxOGm5AWzhz8L9G2A-QkdLDyiFblcDXMkVAPYsDeB9rGQJIu7Qd5l1b_oumd6ac45BKsZEM5osRZt_RhAm9R_ecA5waxMkdVFbLY2fm/s1600/csm_Psychotel8Stickle_a70fed3236.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCWUUdwGiETocf5OAoHoX504Y7zjZf69tIZUyPtbxOGm5AWzhz8L9G2A-QkdLDyiFblcDXMkVAPYsDeB9rGQJIu7Qd5l1b_oumd6ac45BKsZEM5osRZt_RhAm9R_ecA5waxMkdVFbLY2fm/s400/csm_Psychotel8Stickle_a70fed3236.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><i>Psychotel</i>, copyright Susannah Gent, 2020</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The
corridors of the Psyhotel are those Kubrick chased Steadicam
operators along – a flying eye perspective rushing towards a date
with unknown. We observe it's rooms as if through a peepholes carved
in the wall. The
otherliness of the hotel room exists partly in the fluidity of it's
possession. What is 'my room' was recently someone else's. And yet,
as witnessed in Norman Bate's post homicidal tidy up, all trace of
previous occupant's presence has been erased. That's part of the
service, delivered by unseen and unknown hands.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Like
their bodily counterparts, the living, spectres require a space. Most
fictional texts that concern themselves with haunting embed the
ghosts and their back stories around a physical location or space.
The house built on an ancient burial ground, the Gothic castle, the
suburban home tormented by previous tenants who had met bitterly
violent ends. The
hotel room is more of a palimpsest, with any personal,
durational or emotional investment or charge created during
occupation being thoroughly erased before the next tenant takes
residency may seem unlikely space for a haunting on these terms. The
hotel room resists the imposition of the type of histories that the
supernatural appear to demand and yet, uncannily, the spooky hotel
finds itself charged with a extra burst of eeriness. Certain
revenants ignore check out time and as for observing the 'do not
disturb' signs, well...</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mark
Fisher, describes the <i>eerie </i>a sense of 'something where there
should be nothing, or there is nothing where there should be
something.' (2) The hotel with it's long empty corridors, and quasi
private spaces, that lack evidence of personal occupation clearly
meet the latter of these definitions and when there is suggestion
that some presence, psychic or supernatural exists within this
neutral, generic place the former is evoked.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As
illuminated by Laura Mulvay, (3) Freud saw the uncanny as a troubling
reconnection with repressed figments of a shared or personal past. To
experience the uncanny was to re-encounter traces of fears previously
believed to have been overcome. For Ernst Jentsch, the uncanny was as
much about that which made strange in the presentation of elements
that provoke a sense of 'intellectual uncertainty', that which
operates in ways that we cannot fathom – a technological uncanny.
(4)</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gent's
film exemplifies both definitions excellently and the sense of
unearthing of anxieties and tropes from a repressed past, their
manifestation in abjection and unease are balanced against masterful
conception, direction and visuality that impress with as vivid sense
of the contemporary.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As to the uncanniness of the festival that was not there and it's the
doppelgänger Oberhausen's 66<sup>th</sup> Internationale
Kurzfilmtage, 2020... it would appear to follow Jentsch rather than Freud.
It is a celebration of cinematic vision, voice and spectacle that
astounds with the novel and the cutting edge. A showcase for another
year's inspiration and hard work from around the globe. As for Freud's definition of the uncanny, it simply does not
function as a repression or revenant when, even during the Covid lockdown of 2020, it never really went
away.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<ol>
<li><div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I'm referring to the closure of
the Multiscreen Sony Cinestar at Potsdamerplatz, Berlin which was
apparently shut due to rising rent costs. The excellent repertory and
experimental screens at the close by Arsenal happily continue.</span></span></div>
</li>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<li><div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-style: normal;">Mark
Fisher</span></i>, <i>The Weird and The Eerie</i> (Repeater,
2017) </span></span>
</div>
</li>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<li><div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Laura Mulvay, <i>Death 24x a
Second </i><span style="font-style: normal;">(Reaktion Books, 2006)</span></span></span></div>
</li>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<li><div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Ernst
Jentsch, </span><i>On the Psychology of the Uncanny</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
(1906), Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (1919)</span></span></span><br />
<br />
</div>
</li>
</ol>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
</div>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-49830547246221918942020-04-13T04:43:00.000-07:002020-07-25T15:26:04.247-07:00Please Look at the Screen<iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/407107596" width="640"></iframe>
<br />
<a href="https://vimeo.com/407107596">PleaseLookAt theScreen</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user98310214">scratch.utopia</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> In the mid-nineties I
was making video about video. With the accelerated proliferation of video cameras it seemed to me that we would from now on,
and to ever increasing degrees, exist alongside our video doubles. Reflections, simulacra
these were renditions of ourselves that we were about to get to know
very well -- to witness on a daily basis. But how much did we really know
about the technology that was producing them? What would our
reactions to their ever increasing presence be?
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Shot on SVHS in the loft studio of Tower Hamlets Community College, Jubilee Street, London -
participants are interviewed whilst confronted with a monitor,
feeding back a live image of themselves.</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I remember being
unhappy with the unease the experiment seemed to create in the
participants, none of whom I'd known before (or knew after) but who had all
enthusiastically volunteered to appear in the piece.
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I'd hoped they would
elaborate and expand on their responses and attempt to
elucidate </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">freely </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">on what it felt like to be reflected by and embodied within
electronic media. At the time it seemed that despite my best efforts,
my attempts to elicit relaxed responses had failed, leaving the participants
uncomfortable and unwilling to open up.
</span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> It's hard to imagine
now that appearing on a TV screen was still a relatively novel
experience for most, just twenty five years ago. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> I was interested in exploring my belief at that time, that consumers and users of video technology were already alienated from it and, perhaps rather cynically, my suspicion that these technologies were ultimately capable of alienating us from each other. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> Oddly, the anxiety
that seems to underpin the participant's reactions now seems the most
interesting facet of the piece. In an era when we truly co-exist and
interact with our video doubles on a daily basis, it is of interest
to see that the initial novelty of this relationship, in this
instance anyway, appears to quickly give way to a sense of trepidation, distrust and anxiety.</span></div>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-24625526236578187972019-09-13T08:07:00.000-07:002020-04-13T14:50:35.849-07:00<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">The electric eye torpedo.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In 1934, Vladimir K. Zworykin,
the inventor of the Iconoscope video camera tube, stared into the sun
and imagined... <i>explosive laden Japanese fighter planes, manned by fanatical
suicidal pilots, crashing down onto US military assets in an imminent
war. </i></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxFzCsUyKhUbyQuIh5yg-69a-6OcnEnhbNrQY0LQVfWqs9gzasmi5aC_0vA38hyphenhyphenpgxUn43tTiKQ1IGAWOJqYgOsqEnwtbWHEChnRT9QgmC4shgWo42hSR8HguxhvheIwER7KQrBj8m2Md/s1600/Zworykin_and_iconoscope.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="423" data-original-width="374" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuxFzCsUyKhUbyQuIh5yg-69a-6OcnEnhbNrQY0LQVfWqs9gzasmi5aC_0vA38hyphenhyphenpgxUn43tTiKQ1IGAWOJqYgOsqEnwtbWHEChnRT9QgmC4shgWo42hSR8HguxhvheIwER7KQrBj8m2Md/s320/Zworykin_and_iconoscope.jpg" width="282" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a flash of inspiration he
decided his device should be used to counter this threat; that
it should be placed into the noses of an unmanned military aircraft to
become a 'flying torpedo with an electronic eye'. Its signal would be
transmitted to a remote operator who would use the cameras vision to
guide the aircraft, laden with explosives, into a enemy targets.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">This
highly classified project that would become known as Block was
responsible for multiple breakthroughs in television imaging and
transmission, radically reducing the equipment's size and weight while
developing image resolution and contrast level that matched the
transmission limitations against the quality of image required to
identify and guide the projectiles towards a chosen target.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">¹</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnM_FpyNadO1CeMqO4i7vX4Yj8KjqKlUyIF_JChV0L91CdgTlY6SerC43mwiX1q3sbXqBSeMMdCBU8nAViqNgP-xFsQSkx4pUYF-guYgQi2YXGtZs38-IH3yw4Tvhqq1UMh5BQk0-GS0q/s1600/develop_block.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="476" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnM_FpyNadO1CeMqO4i7vX4Yj8KjqKlUyIF_JChV0L91CdgTlY6SerC43mwiX1q3sbXqBSeMMdCBU8nAViqNgP-xFsQSkx4pUYF-guYgQi2YXGtZs38-IH3yw4Tvhqq1UMh5BQk0-GS0q/s320/develop_block.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en-GB">The
system was used during WWII , though apparently infrequently, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">with
many over produced Iconoscope cameras later finding their way into the
post-war army surplus market</span><span style="font-size: small;">²</span><span style="font-size: small;"> Project Block remains a little known footnote in the history of video,
overshadowed by the medium's post war boom years, rapid technological
improvements and commercial broadcast television's entry into so many
aspects of Western culture.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The concept of an electric flying torpedo would have to wait some fifty years until advances
provided increased accuracy and lethality,<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> and a means to record </span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">higher definition images that could be disseminated to
millions of television viewers before Zworykin's idea would have
genuine military and cultural impact.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">In the 80s, Paul
Virilio draws attention to early era the film makers who wanted to cast
their cameras through the air from Vertov's </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>kino-eye
</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">to
Abel Gance's desire for cameras thrown like snowballs. In </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>War
and Cinema </i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">he
quotes Nam June Paik as proposing the root meaning of video as being
not 'I see' but 'I fly'.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">But
the provenance of the electronic eye torpedo evades him, the idea of
a missile guided by television seems startlingly new. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">Virilio:
''</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>with
the advent of electronic warfare</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">..
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>projectiles
have awakened and opened their many eyes: .... warheads fitted with
video-cameras that can relay what they see to pilots and to ground
controllers sitting at their consoles. The fusion is complete, the
confusion perfect: nothing now distinguishes the functions of the
weapon and the eye''</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>³</i></span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">During
the Gulf War the POV of a television guided missile became a familiar
sight on television and inspired thinkers and commentators. </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">The
idea of a 'clean war', a conflict fought only on television seemed to
be, for commentators like Baudrillard, entirely a reflection of the
contemporary technological state of the art. In 1993 Lev Manovich
seems startled that he h</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">ad</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>'</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>witnessed
what was "seen" by a machine, a bomb, or a missile'</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">⁴</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">T</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">he
electric eye torpedo became posited as a facet of the end game of
electronic visual media, rather than it's beginning.</span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">While
Project Block may appear to have been forgotten it's legacy
endures - though perhaps, not where we might first look for it.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In the years prior to Project Block being developed, representatives of
science, business, the entertainment industry and state were wondering what this new
technology, electronic moving pictures should be used for; in which direction should it be taken.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After
the second world war ended, television began to position itself as
the dominant media platform</span><span style="font-size: small;"> until, by the end of the twentieth century
continuous advances in miniaturization, image quality, stability and
cost reduction delivered accessible video cameras first to state, then industry and community before the home
and later, towards the present, they were to be found in every into every pocket in the developed world. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Low cost, low power consumption, miniaturization, means they can now be anywhere, everywhere, to perform
any task.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This moment of ubiquity, of universality may prompt questions similar to those asked in the
1930s. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Where should we go with this now?</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And from this position, </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">privileged </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">by the multitude of potentials for new direction that went with it emerged, </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">among many others,</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> an answer:
the action cam. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyDzNhz0iGW2dgOoZdxZ7nyOQkddOLG-CcI08LfNXEBhimteVcchDV-LSw2ky35aSrnA-dt5Vd2I5pDjFMIyQEgefubdbILASIO6oWrWQmQoYmaDZBXcLz5QE-4IhxNTniVSt7f0qaV8C/s1600/Old-Disassembled-Gopro-Hero-Digital-Compact-Camera-edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="418" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRyDzNhz0iGW2dgOoZdxZ7nyOQkddOLG-CcI08LfNXEBhimteVcchDV-LSw2ky35aSrnA-dt5Vd2I5pDjFMIyQEgefubdbILASIO6oWrWQmQoYmaDZBXcLz5QE-4IhxNTniVSt7f0qaV8C/s400/Old-Disassembled-Gopro-Hero-Digital-Compact-Camera-edit.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The construction and outward appearance of the action cam, like its great, great grandparent, the
Block 1 is marked by the plainness of it's housing and an apparent lack of design flair. An entirely uniform and utilitarian unit, aesthetically, little more
than a box with a lens. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">It's return to archetype may signal something
significant.<span lang="en"> But
there is difference to found here as well as similarity. </span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">Despite the absence of a
viewfinder and it's non-ergonomic design, the action cam is very much
designed to function as a body worn device; a device that is
</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>'</i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>potentially multi sensory and may not feature visuality as the most important
modality of camera engagement. The experience may be more immediately
physical and tactile,'</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>֩</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><i>
(5)</i></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">Like
the animated tripod in Vertov's <i>Man with a Movie Camera</i>, it's place
of mounting will direct it's gaze, share it's gaze.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Block was operated from a
position and state of disembodiment, the operator using visual
display, joystick and command functions in a manner prescient of
multiple remote technologies.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And despite any external
similarity, there is another difference indicated if not outward appearance, then by it's external materiality. The
action cam's body is designed to withstand impact; significant impact
and trauma beyond any level built into consumer level photographic
products previously. It's exoskeleton must protect fragile inner
components and optics not just from everyday use, but
the strains of high velocity impact and extreme environmental conditions.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Block, like the Japanese
airmen that troubled Zworykin, and like so many assets during a time
of war, was considered expendable. A successful mission would
involve the delivery and detonation of high explosives mounted just a
few feet from the camera body, tube and lens. It's rigid shell, was
intended to protect the unit from</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> extreme cold of high altitude, etc.</span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">; the rigors of it's single journey to it's
target -- but not from it from it's
final planned event.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And this is where similarity can
be said to re-emerge for both cameras are expected to document high
impact. The Block, imagined in the shock of the concept of suicidal
dare devils and eighty years later - the action cam would appear to
be designed to tolerate violent impact beyond that which it's
operator's body could physically endure. Both cameras seem to
ultimately share a purpose, to record (possibly fatal) impact and
destruction. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The video eye's first major deployment was as the ersatz eye of a suicide bomber; b</span></span></span></span>oth cameras betray a desire to document the violent
impact sustained of being thrust onto the photographic subject; a
high velocity union where gaze is concertinaed, the focal plane and image are conjoined with the subject, possibly destroying it, or the operator,
the camera or all three. <span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">As
of </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">2018
Go Pro alone has sold in excess of 30 million action cams.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">⁶</span></span> Perhaps Mary Lucier was wrong.
The purpose of the video camera was not to watch a rising star, but one that is falling. </span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span>
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<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">1.
</span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u>WWII
Military Television Systems by Maurice Schechter was at the New
Jersey Museum, InfoAge Science Center, </u></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2.
<span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.labguysworld.com/RCA_CRV-59AAE.htm">http://www.labguysworld.com/RCA_CRV-59AAE.htm</a></u></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3.
Paul Virilio, <i>War
and Cinema, </i><span style="font-style: normal;">Verso,
1989.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">4.
The Mapping of Space: Perspective, Radar, and 3-D Computer Graphics –
Lev Manovich 1993
</span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/article-1993"><span style="font-style: normal;">http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/article-1993</span></a></u></span></span></span></span></span></div>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">5.
</span></span><b><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My
Hero: A Media Archaeology of Tiny Viewfinderless Cameras as
</span></span></span></b><b><span lang="en"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;">Technologies
of Intra-Subjective Action</span></i></span></b><b><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">,
</span></span></span></b><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">
Lisa Cartwright and D. Andy Rice, 2016.
</span></span></span><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">http://sfonline.barnard.edu/traversing-technologies/lisa-cartwright-d-andy-rice-my-hero-a-media-archaeology-of-tiny-viewfinderless-cameras/0/</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="font-style: normal; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">6.
https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2018/07/17/gopro-has-now-sold-more-than-30-million-action-cameras-worldwide/</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">
</span></span></span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8536062247042803311.post-11716604313659995742019-05-17T08:35:00.001-07:002019-09-13T07:50:00.717-07:00<iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/335332840" width="640"></iframe>
<a href="https://vimeo.com/335332840">falling_star</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user98310214">scratch.utopia</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.<br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">analogue traces</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="western" lang="en" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The sun descends over
Berlin's Planterwald, May 2018. If it weren't for the haze, the
Fernsehturm would be visible between the rectangular structure, part
of the Treptowers complex and the electricity pylon. An 1970s artwork
revisited using equipment roughly of that time and a little later;
Hitachi CCTV FP71 camera, Sanyo VTC5000 Betacord VCR, using the VCR's 7
day timer and a mains timer switch for the camera. Video accelerated
x64 with Windows Movie Maker and Blender.</span></span></i></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>Sometime
around 1970 I became obsessed with the idea that video has been
invented to satisfy an ancient longing: to allow the human eye to
gaze directly at the sun without damage to the retina.</i></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i> </i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">Mary
Lucier, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>Light
and Death</i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><span style="font-style: normal;">¹</span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i></i></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">In
1975 American artist, Mary Lucier pointed a video camera at the
rising sun. In a piece titled </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>Dawn
Burn,</i></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">
a video camera captured dawn over the New York skyline; the sun's
intensity leaving indelible traces on the fragile surface of the
video tube as it crossed the frame. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">For
Lucier these marks were scars, </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en"><i>'trauma
so deep it cannot be erased but, instead, accumulate on the image
surface as a form of memory'</i></span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">This
process and Lucier's suggestion that her camera was able to absorb
and retain what it had viewed, albeit as a form of wounding questions
the fate of another video camera, a CCTV camera proposed by Bill
Viola in <i>Video Black – The Mortality of the Image</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">²</span></span>,
whose service of twenty years silently surveilling the same scene
without ever being coupled to a recorder, comes to an end. Viola's
camera is left with nothing to show for it's experience. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>'Without
a memory to give it a life, events flicker across its image surface
with only a split second to linger as after images, disappearing
forever without a trace. ' </i></span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i> <span style="font-size: small;">The
Autobiography of Video</span></i></span></span> Ina
Blom asserts '</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">changes
can only be perceived if you are able to remember and compare. And
memory, Viola tells us, is precisely what this camera does not have.
You cannot expect it to tell history or to transfer accumulated
knowledge. Its time is the present only, and the events that make up
this present hardly seem to register at all, leaving only the
briefest of traces.' </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="en">³</span></span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
'after images' that Viola refers to, the 'traces' described by Blom
are the video tube sensor's lag, a sort of electronic persistence of
vision that would cause bright objects to appear to momentarily
remain visible once removed from view or to stream </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>ghosts</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
as they move a screen. Described here as analogous to ultra short
term memory; conspicuous enough to be visible yet too fleeting to
have any mnemonic purpose, the phenomena is related to one of the
factors that made the video tube's responding counterpart, the
Cathode Ray Tube that employed much the same technology but for
display rather than capture, suitable to be adapted for use in the
first electronic Random-access Memory system.</span></span><sup>4</sup>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Video's
potential for immediate feedback, that proved alluring to early
counterparts of Viola and Lucier, allowed for an entire computer
program to be displayed on screen in a series of dots and dashes to
then be read by a sensor that would then write the displayed quantity
back onto the screen. Manually, the operator could access any part of
the 32 bit memory code, intervening in the loop to adjust the data.
</span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The
video tube's ability to produce live feedback could potentially be
adapted into memory systems. What it lacks is storage. Momentary
delay or lag displayed on screen was no use for storage, the
formation of a body or archive; a recording.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Although
a means of electronically writing, saving or storing the imagery
captured by the video tube had been imagined as far back as the 1920s
the electronic moving image existed without dedicated storage until
the late 50s. Until then it relied on a film camera to reshoot it's
images. Unlike video, the motion film recording substrate was
developed simultaneously to the development of the apparatus. Unlike
video, every film second is provided for by multiple sensors,
'footage' that judders past the gate to become film frames. A
scratched or over exposed film frame is, gone within the blink of an
eye. Not so for the video camera that only ever has one sensor, one
eye. </span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
yet, Lucier proves the video camera uncoupled to a recording medium,
the eye without a brain, can in fact have recourse to a variant of
storage; a write once system where memory is etched with a blinding
light process gradually causing irreversible damage. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Burn</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.
The term used for this effect would later be used to describe
optically writing data for storage to Compact Disc and DVD.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">As
with Keraunography, the mythical process where lines and images are
drawn onto a variety of media including human skin by energy and
light descending from the sky or Optography, the phenomena of the
retina retaining its last seen image beyond death; video </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>burn
</i></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">provides
primitive, use once image storage that simultaneously inflicts injury
or destruction of the device that has gathered it.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Combining
Lucier and Violas cameras for experiment: a static Vidicon camera
pointing towards the setting sun. Over a period of days and weeks, as
the earth moves about the sun, the fireball's glare will streak
across the image in gradual increments, creating diagonal tracks
across the screen that resembles those made by video heads onto tape
during the helical scan recording process. Unlike the magnetized
tracks set into the rewritable palimpsest of video tape those drawn upon
sensitive photoconductive layer of the Vidicon's target sensor cannot
be erased.</span></span>
</div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Over
the passage a year, a writing over of the entire target sensor could
occur. Over the twenty years proposed by Viola, it would be entirely
burnt and blinded, yet as it was retired, it would take with it some
material evidence of its service, some indexical proof of what it had
seen. Video, the medium born without memory would blind itself to
create one. Video Black – Viola's camera has remembered something
after all.</span></span></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">1.
Mary Lucier, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Light and Death</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">
printed in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Illuminating
Video: An Essential Guide to Video Art,</i></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">Doug
Hall, Sally Jo Fifer, Aperture, 1990.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">2.
Bill Viola, 1990. excerpt printed in </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><i>Theories
and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings</i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">,
Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz,University of California Press, 1996.</span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="productTitle"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="title"></a>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">3. Ina Blom, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><i>The
Autobiography of Video: The Life and Times of a Memory </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Technology,
Sternberg</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"> Press, 2016.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">
</span>
<br />
<div class="western" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0.35cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">4.
The Small Scale Experimental Machine or Manchester Baby, 1948.
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/6013/The-Manchester-Baby-the-world-s-first-stored-program-computer-ran-its-first-program</span></div>
<br />
<br />
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<br />scratch.utopiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13979509820150454341noreply@blogger.com0