The certainty of knowing that what you feel – feels right

“The link between random presentation of experimental data and a theory (which organises and explains them) arises from primordial images present at the root of being. These primordial images cannot be formulated in conscious fashion, nor associated with ideas presenting a rational order. They are images with a deep emotional content. They are no thoughts but visions. .. The pleasure felt in realising that one has reached a new level of knowledge stems from the fact that these pre-existing images are in perfect harmony with the behaviour of material objects.”
Wolfgang Pauli, Physicist

“War Dance” – Shaking the World by Stealth through the Sublime

British poet W. H. Auden once declared, “Poetry makes nothing happen.” A prolific writer, Auden’s pen was fast at work commenting on many religious, political and psychological subjects of his time.  He also worked on documentary films  – I wonder if he felt the same apathy towards his cinematic work?  In Auden’s time, content was controlled by a privileged few. Documentary footage replete with shocking visual imagery of wars abroad had the potential to confront its audience and demand awareness just through its visceral nature.  The act of witnessing was sometimes enough. However, in our current climate of media saturation, viewers are bombarded with layers of static and moving imagery and frenetic aural soundtracks.  The rise of citizen media, where every citizen is a reporter , means that content creation has moved from one to many, to many to many.   The power to create is well within most North American’s reach, dependant on access to a cheap video camera or cell phone and an Internet connection.  With a glut of media images literally produced by anyone, how can today’s audiences discern between what to care about and when to change the channel?  Even more so, the images we see, the news we read or watch is filled with gruesome headlines – the common news desks adage still declaring, “If it bleeds, it leads.”  Of course, our fascination with the gruesome throughout our visual culture is not new. Baudelaire, a 19th Century French poet and critic, wrote in his journal:

It is impossible to glance through any newspaper, no matter what the day, the month or the year, without finding on every line the most frightful traces of human perversity…every newspaper, from the first line to the last, is nothing but a tissue of horrors.  Wars, crimes, thefts, lecheries, tortures, the evil deeds of princes, of nations, of private individuals; an orgy of universal atrocity.  And it is with this loathsome appetizer that civilized man daily washed down his morning repast.

Baudelaire would find it almost impossible to keep down his breakfast with today’s sensory overload as what has changed since his time is the intensity and temporality of the images – the speed and access of delivery and consummation.  However, innovative production, distribution and delivery methods can have a positive effect on the consumption of ideas, stories and facts and even address the challenge of creating change.   This paper will explore the power of documentary filmmaking to actually create change in a climate of compassion fatigue.  In particular, War Dance – a performative documentary about children of war in Northern Uganda, breaks through this current haze of North American apathy because of it’s innovative use of production and funding techniques as well as the creative use of the documentary form to implement layers of change at the ground level in these children’s lives.

Image-makers understand the power of representation in trauma and have advanced the idea of documentary reporting as a mere assemblage of documents into an artistic form.  Aaron Kerner aptly describes the artistic function of representing the catastrophic in his book, Representing the Catastrophic: Coming to Terms with “Unimaginable” Suffering and “Incomprehensible” Horror in Visual Culture.  He suggests that, “…we need to draw upon artistic practices, and to use a vast array of devices – colour, musicality, rhythm, light, harmony – to depict the abject nature of the catastrophic event.  Considering that it is the form of signification that demands most of our attention, aesthetics then plays a significant role in representing the catastrophic.”    War Dance, the first documentary feature film for television producers Andrea Nix and Sean Fine manages to present the lives of three Northern Ugandan children: Rose, Dominic and Nancy, in a sublime way.   Perhaps it’s odd to equate a child’s suffering to the sublime but the re-telling of their lives while captured in a visually stunning manner is the strength of the film and has its merits.  If channeled appropriately (i.e., away from violence, and channeled into artistic practices), a representation of abjection can act as a thoroughfare to the sublime.    The sublime might well be accompanied by a sense of awe, or even fear, but nevertheless, an encounter of the sublime (via the abject) might be associated with the liberating, and explosive release of psychic tension.

War Dance follows Rose, Dominic and Nancy as they live in a displacement camp within their own country. All of their parents, with the exception of Nancy’s Mum, are dead – fallen prey to the Lord’s Resistance Army.   But Rose, Dominic and Nancy are more than just children of war.  As Rose points out, “I want to be known for my singing.”  The three children, as well as their fellow students from Patongo, are competing in the National Music Competition and hope to return with the coveted top prize – a prize that no one expects refugee children to win.  The documentary unfolds in two parts: the first being the lives of the children and how they either became parentless or how they were kidnapped by the LRA.  The second, follows the kid’s adventures at the competition.  The latter half of the film is treated in a cinema verite style but the start of the film is haunting and it’s here that the filmmakers really start to play around with documentary style and substance.  The filmmakers take the children back to the scenes of their catastrophes. Nancy, a quiet girl with a stiff upper lip, finally breaks down when she visits her father’s burial grounds.  Accompanied by her mother who lets her inconsolable daughter wail (and rightly so), the scene gets intense…quickly.  It’s a rare moment where the “subjects” honesty is so raw and real that you have to look away.  You wonder, how did the cameras keep on rolling?   At a lecture seminar given at Ryerson University as a part of the MFA documentary media lecture, a co-producer of the film reveals that the mother gave her blessing and wanted the cameras to capture the scene on tape.   No doubt a response, in part due to her trust in the filmmakers.  Dominic, also trusting of the filmmakers, reveals for the first time that he has murdered someone.  Captured by the LRA to be one of their child soldiers, Dominic re-tells (although initially reluctant at the beginning of the film) how he had to kill to survive.  His words alone are disheartening but it’s in the manner that the filmmakers capture his story that is even more compelling.   Sean and Andrea encouraged the kids to look into the lens of the camera when speaking and it’s as if they are looking right at the audience, who are looking right at them.  Coupled with an intimate re-telling of their stories are beautiful landscape visuals of the “scenes of the crime” with the kids in the foreground. It’s a haunting technique that Fine goes on to explain, “It’s almost like time stopped for them. And they went into a dream state. In their interviews, they talk like that. I mean, a little girl is talking about her parents’ heads being taken out of a pot in front of her, and she’s telling me this story interwoven with impressions of heat coming off of grass and the sound of flies in her ear. That’s what inspired those shots.”

An interpretation of the sublime for an audience engaged in documentary storytelling can be understood as the articulation of horror while witnessing something beautiful at a distance of safety.   In her seminal text, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag provides a counter to the use of the sublime.  Her critique serves as a reminder that the message behind the picture has the potential to dull in presence of its beauty:

Transforming is what art does, but photography that bears witness to the calamitous and the reprehensible is much criticized if it seems “aesthetic”…a beautiful photograph drains attention from the sobering subject and turns it toward the medium itself, thereby compromising the picture’s status as a document.  The photograph gives mixed signals.  Stop this, it urges.  But it also exclaims, What a spectacle!

However, the power of the sublime can also serve as a release, a sort of shock and awe energy that can draw viewers in through its beauty.   In Kerner’s book, Representing the Catastrophic, he describes the function of the sublime according to Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian French philosopher and literary critic.  Kerner explains, “We encounter the sublime, according to Kristeva, through works of art, literature and subsequently these are the portals through which a cathartic process is facilitated.  Kristeva identifies the cathartic potential of the cinema because she argues that drive energy (e.g., the abject) is encoded in aesthetic embellishments such as sound, tone, colour, space, etc., not in the communicative function properly speaking.”  In regards to the interpretation of the sublime for the audience, I believe this to be true. But in regards to the participants, who perform the act of revisiting and recalling their traumatic experience for the cause of these aesthetic embellishments, they too can achieve a cathartic release.   Cathy Caruth’s articulates this idea in her article Recapturing the Past: Introduction.  Caruth states that,

The traumatic nightmare, undistorted by repression or unconscious wish, seems to point directly to an event, and yet, as Freud suggests, it occupies a space to which willed access is denied…the flashback, it seems, provides a form of recall that survives at the cost of willed memory or of the very continuity of conscious thought.  While the traumatized are called upon to see and to relive the insistent reality of the past, they recover a past that encounters consciousness only through the very denial of active recollection.

Rose, Dominic and Nancy’s recalled flashbacks serve as a performance and they succeed not just through their conviction of delivery but through their honesty and their voice. Hayden White advises in his essay, Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth, that representations of the Holocaust should be approached using what he terms the “middle voice.”   This is in essence, performative: the action and the utterance are one in the same.   Thus, the performative nature of the film, leading the kids back to the scene while talking about what has happened in the past, lends itself to a seemingly cathartic release through performance.  Abjection, like catastrophe in (tragic) drama, indicates a disturbance in the order of things, and while the abject cannot be “gotten rid of,” in identifying it, and through its “articulation” it is possible to facilitate a cathartic experience.

There is growing recognition by media theorists that perhaps society’s need to represent the catastrophic functions not just as shameless entertainment but can also serve as a means to work through trauma.   Psychiatrist Judith Herman writes in her book, Trauma and Recovery, “Recovering from trauma entails traveling a delicate path from the trauma itself to some kind of post-traumatic space.   While on such a path, people work through recovery’s three stages – establishing safety, engaging in remembrance and mourning, and reconnecting with ordinary life.”    Remembrance and mourning for the kids in War Dance will hopefully lead them to a path of recovery.  However, engaging in remembrance to provoke societal change purely through documentary storytelling is more of an idealistic viewpoint.  The interpretation of what seems to be a cathartic experience for the participant can also be seen as a means to initiate a collective working through trauma within the audience.  Since we have gone through the act of listening, we too can function as a witness. Barbie Zelizer writes in her article entitled Photography, Journalism, and Trauma, “Bearing witness brings individuals together on their way to collective recovery.  Defined as an act of witnessing that enables people to take responsibility for what they see, bearing witness moves individuals from the personal act of “seeing” to the adoption of public stance by which they become part of a collective working through trauma together.”   The ability to collectively work through trauma is a precursor to the idea of collective memory – if we bear witness together, we can heal together lest we never forget, in the language of post September 11th. However it terms of someone who has never suffered through civil war, Rose, Dominic and Nancy can share their stories with me, an audience member, and I can be sympathetic but I can’t pretend that I understand their pain, their lives and their history.  Sontag writes,

Photographs that everyone recognizes are now a constituent part of what a society chooses to think about, or declares that it has chosen to think about.  It calls these ideas “memories,” and that is, over the long run, a fiction.  Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as collective memory – part of the same family of spurious notions as collective guilt.  But there is collective instruction.  All memory is individual, unreproducible – it dies with each person.

And it is this instruction that I take on, as an active audience member. There’s no point in bearing witness without action.  Shoshana Felman writes that bearing witness is “not merely to narrate, but to commit oneself and…the narrative to others: to take responsibility for history or for the truth of the occurrence…[it is] an appeal to community.”  Dominic admits to his killing of a peasant by the smashing of his skull with a shovel, Rose recalls the decapitation of her mother’s head, Nancy remembers her father’s midnight kidnapping.  But we don’t ever get to view the posthumous result.  The images we are now so used to looking at and are expecting to bear witness to…we don’t see.  Instead, we see beautiful landscapes intercut with close ups of the children, looking directly at us. Returning our gaze.  It is them who have to go on living in this hell.   They are living history of how we, the world, their communities, their government has failed them and it is still them that must keep living every day to survive.  This is what Fine and Nix want us to remember.  But how is this directed into action?  Without us even knowing it, the directors have engaged us in action by stealth.

Fine and Nix collaborated on the film with Shine Global, a non-profit organization that produced and raised the funds to finance the film.   Shine Global has a mandate to make documentaries that combat the exploitation of children.  Because of its non-profit status, money made on the film is funneled back, not into investor pockets but into the communities in which these films are taking place. Susan MacLaury, a co-founder in Shine Global, states, “We want to make an impact.  Just by buying a ticket, you are helping to affect change there.”   In terms of War Dance, she means in the refugee camp in Northern Uganda where Rose, Dominic and Nancy live. So how did a little film produced by a non-profit group throwing fundraising parties in one of the producer’s living rooms make its way onto the stage at the Oscars?    Mark Urman, head of ThinkFilm’s US theatrical division, was at one of those homegrown fundraisers when he learned about the children of Uganda.  Watching a 7 minute reel of footage that Andrea and Sean produced from one of their last visits to Uganda, Urman quickly realized the power of War Dance: compelling characters, unforgettable tragedy and the tension of a potentially uplifting ending. “I did not expect visual polish and artistry from a film funded in a potluck function way,” Urman says. “I mean, it looked like a David Lean movie.”   Urman’s interest only extends to the commercial potential, of course.  He states, “A movie is not a charity,” he says. “People go to movies to be entertained. If you commingle the film with the cause, you will instantly abbreviate the film’s theatrical life.”   This was said before the Oscar nomination however.  Andrea Nix understands the importance to do well commercially from a distributor’s point of view but sees no reason to disparage the film’s non-profit roots believing that both sides “get what they want.”  In fact, this sentiment can be taken further – both sides can co-exist and pave the way to actually create change through widespread distribution.  It just takes an innovative production approach and a compelling narrative coupled with stunning visuals.

Susan Sontag has boldly claimed that, “perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it…or those who could learn from it.  The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be.”  What do we learn from War Dance?  That a performative documentary can be both cathartic and emancipatory.  That beauty can represent pain and that a good story that inspires hope in others can be shown throughout the world and leave a lasting impact on the community it showcases.  Dominic, Rose and Nancy, through their honesty and through the filmmaker’s creative use of the documentary form directly address the audience and ask us to be responsible.  We, the others…the voyeurs, from across a continent, are the ones who can help do something about it and we can do it by showing up and buying a ticket.

The Irretrievable Archive: Issues of Accessibility and Security

Originally titled, “The Irretrievable Archive: Issues of Accessibility and Security,” I now think my project should be called “The Panoptical Archive,” or something of the sort.  The phrase “too much information” seems appropriate.   The embedded information that sits within a picture, let’s call it, the picture’s digital DNA or metadata, can be used by interested parties for whatever purpose they deem fit.   The date and time that a picture was taken, is recorded.  The camera that was used to take this picture is recorded, as is the focal distance, aperture, the make and model of the computer on which the picture was retrieved and/or recalled and other information.  Just open the picture in your image viewer, go to “Tools” and click “Get Info” – it’s all there.

This metadata can also be completely useless and irrelevant – existing in a netherworld of 0s and 1s, in digital limbo.   That is, until someone wants or recalls that information.   As in a traditional archive in the form of library or museum, the in-house records can at once corroborate, indemnify, emancipate or hold someone accountable to a time, place, or event.    No one’s looking…until they’re looking.

Eric Ketelaar reflects in his paper, “The Panoptical Archive,” that the panoptical archive, “has more than one face, like the surveillance society of which the archive is both a tool and a reflection.”  He references David Lyon by saying, “society may be viewed either from the perspective of social control or from that of social participation.”

Two recent examples that illustrate the duality of an archive’s social implications can be seen firstly in Errol Morris’ documentary “Standard Operating Procedure.”  The criminal investigator on the case of the Abu Ghraib scandals was able to pinpoint certain individual’s participation and whereabouts (social control) by collecting and analyzing the metadata within each photo taken by each officer (social participation, although the consequences of said participation was probably not anticipated).  In this sad, conflicting, critical and embarrassing series of events, the combined metadata was able to provide certain “empirical” evidence.  However, the acts, events, or people caught in those pictures didn’t necessarily paint a story of the entire truth of what happened in those jails.  A photograph, once thought of as evidence or a trace of documentary “truth”, can’t tell the entire story.  A picture only captures what lies within the frame.  Inquiring minds ask, “What is beyond the frame?”  If that question is not asked, or is not deemed worthy enough of a question to ask, the implications of photographic “evidence” may have varied and drastic consequences.

In another example, we can see how citizens offer up their photos and it’s inherent embedded data to group initiatives like Flickr as an example of positive and voluntary social participation. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created software that helps identify where in the world a photo was taken.

This software matches a given photo against six million geo-tagged photos available on Flickr.  By finding similarly composed shots on the peer-to-peer photo site – such as those containing narrow streets or tall buildings – the software can figure out where an image was likely to have been taken (besides the GPS capabilities of cameras nowadays).

In experiments, the software geo-located 16% of test images to within 200 kilometers of where each photo was snapped.  Although these are somewhat low results right now, in another few years the technology and capability of the software will improve. “The world is pretty self-similar,” said James H. Hays, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon’s computer science department who co-created the algorithm.  He goes on to explain, “We’re trying to help a computer understand an image as well as a human can.”

The impact of this technology can have as many artistic and social benefits as it can forensic abilities (for better or for worse).  In either case, as users and generators of images (and the image’s inherent digital DNA), it is advisable for all of us to remember that a picture is worth a thousand words but it’s metadata can trap you or free you in those very same words

My process of assembling the archive

At first, I was inspired by the idea of a museum, such as the Textile Museum of Canada, cataloging all of its material digitally and for online use.  I wondered what would happen if for some unforeseen reason, the original material was lost and what remained was simply the digital reproduction or evidence.   The digital representation only acts as a trace of what once was.  Is this enough for an archive to continue, to function, to be relevant if the original version is wiped out?  I’m not quite sure but I think it has a lot to do with the intended use, function and intended audience of the original piece as opposed to, or in relation to its digital replication and it’s intended use, function and audience.

With the 100 pictures, I wondered how I could digitally replicate the picture instead of just capturing a thumbnail image of it.  I was also struck at the process of generating the information contained within a photo – data that would make the picture relevant in hardcopy.

I chose to produce a histogram of each image as I felt a need for some sort of visual.  I also thought it somewhat ironic; to provide a representation of the picture’s exposure without actually being able to see the picture.  And for the interested or knowledgeable, to possibly identify a photo this way, if one remembered the originals.  As well, I decided to catalog all available metadata (the more the better), including the original date/time of the picture and if that was not available (as I later found out and suspected due to a scanning process or frame grab) then to collect the retrieval data.  I also wanted to have keyword descriptors of the photo as a hint of what the image contained but also as a teaser or a memory jog (to those who were familiar with the photos and might feel saddened at the loss of the originals). The ensuing result – a binder filled with pages of words, numbers and histograms was so unfulfilling, almost cold.  In this respect, the information’s data cannot be considered a viable replacement for the actual picture.  The only justification for the collection of this data would be the ability to input this same data in a software program that could restore the picture, essentially bring it back to life.  The problem – no such software program exists right now.  You can only restore photos from your camera’s memory card.  Somehow (and I shouldn’t really be surprised) this card retains traces of your original photo.

Interesting patterns that I hadn’t initially considered emerged: Similar dates and times of captured pictures, similar camera make/models, similar retrieval dates of images I felt must have been grabbed online or scanned, and similar computer make/models.  I was able to draw certain conclusions about the migration patterns of the individual who was capturing these images.  Halfway through, my original image information capture program conked out and I had to move to another metadata collection template (you’ll notice the difference in the pages within the binder).  But I was still able to collect, what I felt, was the most important – the time and date of the photo taken and retrieved.  This is when the forensic implications hit me.  I was creating a panoptical archive.  For good or for bad – I could make certain determinations due to this “evidence” embedded in the photos.

I now had created a database of all 100 pictures.  I organized this material according to picture name in alphabetical order.  When I set about creating my archive, I felt it necessary to categorize the pictures chronologically so that I could see the progress of time/space creation (whether in original date/time of photo taken or in original date/time of photo retrieved).   Archiving the photos this way would be quite interesting if they were visually displayed and in their original format (original prints that were scanned/captured versus original photos that were taken on the day).  But once again, true to my original intention of an irretrievable archive, I was left only with the data; a result most hollow and unsatisfying in visual pleasure, but quite satisfying in organizational impulse.

What I wish now, upon reflection, is that I organized my database in order of the archive (chronologically and not alphabetically).  That way the viewer/guest/purveyor could discover the patterns much more easily without needless flipping back and forth to reference the archive and then find the applicable page in the database.   I should have done an actual walkthrough of how one might experience the archive in relation to the database, as one cannot exist without the other, in this particular piece.  Although I believe most archives are not as transparent with their databases and/or organizational strategies.

Overall, what began as an experiment of cataloguing possibly ephemeral material ended up laden with information of which the forensic implications could not be ignored.

The female gaze within pornography

Please visit my other wordpress site regarding ongoing work for my thesis project in the MFA Documentary Media Program at Ryerson University.

thefemalegaze.wordpress.com

Final project idea – 100 Images – “The Irretrievable Archive”

Our Database/Archives class was at the Textile Museum of Canada last week for a field trip.  We met with Sarah Quinton, the Senior Curator of the museum, and she was describing to us her foray into digitizing the museum’s collection.  Deciding to document/catalog/digitize an entire museum’s collection is a daunting task but an admirable one; it allows for more public access to the museum’s archive.   The Textile Museum recognizes this “give and take” relationship.  A museum needs an audience (I use this term for lack of a better word.  I could say “the public,” “guests,” “visitors,” etc.) to stay alive and it’s audience needs/wants material/information to digest.  It’s a cyclical relationship of absorbing, digesting and creating culture.   One cannot exist without the other and so often I think galleries/museums treat the public as more of a menace to their precious collections rather than honoring this quid pro quo relationship.

Anyway – what I suddenly became aware of was the delicate nature of digitally documenting photos, artifacts, objects, etc.   A photo preserves a moment in time, right?  It acts as a document of a document/event/person.  But what happens when the original document is destroyed (for whatever reason) and the only thing left is a digital record of what once was?  Like the museum’s relationship to it’s audience, can an object’s tenuous position as a purveyor of historical truth only be considered relevant if it’s documented in an attempt to record it’s existence?  If an object in a museum just sits on a shelf collecting dust and no one knows that it exists – does the object matter?  But once a museum documents that item and adds it to the digital collection, it’s another step towards recognizing it’s significance…”the ceremonial grass skirt from the Ikta tribe in New Guinea really does exist.  We have it and here’s the proof…go online and scan our collection.  We have pictures.  We also have a record of it in our database.  You might never see it in person, but it exists.”  The original document and it’s digital document exist almost as a certificate of authenticity in our age of electronic consciousness.   But does a digital reprint of an object, item, photo, painting diminish the original’s significance?  As it stands, it’s only a pixelated copy that floats in a combination of 1s and 0s amongst the world wide web.  A mere carbon copy.  How can anyone, an instituation, person or otherwise become sentimental about a carbon copy?   It’s only a thumbnail, a negative of the original, a line in an excel sheet corroborating it’s existence.

So, for the “100 Pictures” project I am creating an “Irretrievable Archive.”  That’s right.  In my archive, you won’t see any pictures, only the digital information that is attached to it IE: it’s exposure histogram, summary of the picture’s contents: exif properties, TIFF properties, etc.   I’m going to collect this information and organize it according to when it was digitized.  We’ll see how the pictures align themselves once they’re grouped by digital code, not by a “human made” construct of how they should be grouped according to theme or significance.  The only significance here is the picture’s digital DNA.  I’m curious to discover how these pictures will be grouped according to this categorization.  And ultimately, will this be a completely frustrating, unfulfilling way of looking at an archive?  I think yes.  Absolutely.  What’s the point of looking at a picture’s digital information…I want the visual pleasure and satisfaction of absorbing the picture’s message/meaning/composition.  But if the picture archive’s original material is lost, for whatever reason, this collection of digital information will be all that is left.  And will it even matter?  If we are able to reconstruct the original photo according to this digital information, will the picture truly be able to come alive again?  What happens if the information is inputted inaccurately?  What kind of picture will result?  And will it matter?  One day we might be able to clone our pets according to their DNA that we’ve collected and stored but will it even matter if that clone doesn’t have the same spirit or soul of the original critter?  I shouldn’t really compare the “soul” of a picture to the “soul” of a pet but so much of what draws me to a picture is it’s ability to capture that moment in time (whether through digital photography or film which is another conversation about the medium/format reflecting the intention of photography).   I like to think that each photograph (however manipulated in post) captures the spirit of the person, the place, the time that it was taken.  If everything is reduced to it’s digital code, does it hold the same essence as a material that you can touch, a picture that you can see, a fragrance that you can smell (I’d prefer a love letter written on paper than sent through an email).    Aghhhh….I don’t know.  Maybe it doesn’t matter at all.  In the age of reproductions which provides accessability for all – who cares?   I’m still trying to figure out if I do.

Brainstorm #3 – An archive experienced through music!

I just googled “songs about Stephen Harper” and what came up in the majority of posts was his song during his campaign trail (“Better Now” by Collective Soul).  So what I’m thinking is this:  I will google the subject, person, object, place, location in each photo and database what song references come up according to that photo’s referent.

How cool would it be if the figure skaters pictured performed to a Collective Soul song?  It’s a longshot…but who knows what kindof musical connections can be made.   I want to make a musical archive!!!!!!  Totally.  This is the idea I’m going after.   I know, right now, it’s just a cool idea.  I don’t know what it says about archives, databases and the experience of art…well, I do.  I just can’t articulate it yet.

More to come!

Brainstorm #2 – 100 Pictures

Okay.  I have another idea.   Everyone interprets things differently.  Of course.  That’s kindof the whole point of this project even within our class.  But how about if I create an archive out of how other people archive these images?

Hmmmm….so I print out all of the images onto cardstock…make them like cards.  And then ask multiple people, of different ages, situations, places to order them how they think they should be ordered.  I’ll see if there are any patterns that emerge in how “we – the people (or at least the small group of people that I ask to participate)” decide to organize information and imagery.  The only accompanying text will be how they were labeled and given to me, on disc.

The one that wins out (in terms of how many times the pattern appears) is how I will ultimately present my final project.

I kinda like my other idea better.  What am I trying to say with this brainstorm?  That really our minds always seek the path of least resistance, like water, electricity…we want organization in order to feel that the world makes sense?  Do we?  Do I?  Not always.  How can I inject a bit of organized chaos into this sorting procedure….things to think about.

Until the next brainstorm…

Archives, Database Project – 100 pictures

I’ve been trying to think of something to do…I’ve been having a difficult time thinking of something original.  Trying to think outside of what I normally consider an archive or database structure and how to achieve a similar goal  (to unite varying information that relates to a certain perspective) but within a different methodology or format.

The one idea that I’m stuck on from four classes ago is the notion of “history” and “memory” and when those two collide.  I made the comment in class that “history” is like a corporation, with it’s designated experts or media spokespersons who can speak to the corporation’s actions/history whereas “memory” can act like the whisteblowers at such corporations.  Not to say corporations need whistleblowers because they’re all suspect but it certainly is up to the individual to keep a check and balance over his/her work, government, friendships/relationships…banking statements.    But more so, that individuals can provide a first person perspective and help re-define and/or re-write the history books or even encourage an evolving memory.  What would happen if we moved away from traditional conventions of how we understand an archive to act/function – who gets to be the curator? Well, what if everyone was the curator?

So, in my Interaction Design class with Mark Argo we discovered this new phone from Nokia that lets you take a picture of something…anything and then it immediately uploads it to the web and places it in context with every other photo that is out there that exists of the same image you captured.  It spits out all of these photos to you.  It also provides you with all available information/text about said object in your picture.   You can see who, when, what, where and why a picture was taken and how it relates (or not) to your experience at that exact moment.   Pretty darn cool.  In this respect, we are all contributors to an archive or to this particular object’s fond.   No one photo, depiction, interpretation is valued over the other.  All pictures combine to paint one picture.  The frame’s different but it’s still the same picture.

So knowing all of this – how can I come up with my own archive for this project?  I’m thinking of linking each picture in the 100 pictures database to other images that I can find and relevant information…even songs which might make reference to the person, thing, object, location captured in the picture.  Hmmmm….that’s a lot of work.  We’ll see how far I get in this first idea.

What does the word tangible mean?

I was dramatizing my salacious events on SL to friends the other week over dinner.  I made out with an international avatar (this user was from Japan), was proposed to and almost locked up in a house.   WHAT!  Even when it was happening, I couldn’t believe it.  But re-telling it…my non SL friends just didn’t get my emotional and physical attachment to my new found fairy winged avatar friend.   “It’s not real” they told me.  “It’s not tangible.”  “Well, what’s real…what’s tangible?” I replied.  My friend Kelly motioned to touch something, to feel something.   “I control my mouse and thus control my avatar, I decide if I want to move, fly, sit or dance. I decide how quickly I want to initiate conversation with someone, build trust with someone.”   That’s tangible.  We debated the meaning of the word tangible…here’s the dictionary definition:

“Perceptible by touch. Clear and definite.  Anything that can be grasped either with the hand or with the mind is tangible.” Oxford American Dictionary

How can I explain making out with somebody in a virtual world.  Did I feel her hug and kiss?  Of course not but was I nervous to accept her advances?  Hell ya.  My stomach tied in a knot, I got all fluttery and at first I rejected her out of fear.  But when she took off and left me alone (on some godforsaken island), I actually kind of missed her.   She had been so nice, showing me around different islands, teaching me how to land and fly gracefully.  She even taught me about SL etiquette and reminded me that I could easily be taken advantage of and locked into rooms or places…I began to trust her.  We became friends.  And if I wanted to, I totally could have had her baby.   She proposed to me and told me she loved me!   I was extremely flattered…but slightly taken a back.  I have no qualms about commitment but I spent forty minutes with this woman and she proposed to me and asked to have babies with me!  Things move quickly in SL.   It’s funny how my non-maternal instincts followed me into the virtual realm though…I can suspend a certain amount of disbelief and/or fantasy in this world…I’m pink and have tye-dyed tattoos all over my pixelated body but marriage and babies?  No thanks.

When I signed off that night…I was mesmerized by my experience.   I had initiated a relationship.  We agreed on certain codes of behavior.  We built trust.  I played coy.  She was assertive and strong…leading the way.  She felt sad that I didn’t want to get married…I felt a sense of loss when I logged out.  I’m nervous to “see” her again and quite possibly will take her off of my friend’s list.  But just like my first “real” kiss with Jason Wynn in grade 6…I will never forget my first SL kiss and how it made me feel.   Is that tangible?   Most definitely.

“I Me Wed” aftermath

I ME WED is a conceptual video installation conceived of by myself and my parter, Sadia Mir.

On June 14th and 15th, several women got married in a beautiful ceremony officiated by the lovely Pam McNair (an ordained minister) at the Rogers Communication Centre in Toronto.  These amazing ladies were the brave first few to participate in our video piece in which women get married to themselves.

We posted our casting call throughout various outlets: Craigslist, Kijiji, Facebook, Toronto Woman’s Bookstore, EYE, NOW and hassled all of our single, fierce female friends.

The criteria:

Single (although we relaxed that rule)

Over the age of 27.4 years

Vows were to be no longer than 2 minutes.

Guests were allowed

The responses that followed were surprising….

“I’m not quite ready to do it yet…but since you’ve asked me, it’s all I’ve been thinking about.  You’ve certainly unleashed something…”

“I don’t love myself enough yet to get married to myself.”

“I’ve been single for so long that I don’t want to jinx it.”

“I should marry myself because god knows it’s IMPOSSIBLE to find a guy that’s somewhat cool, somewhat mature, somewhat attractive that is interested in to settling down before 40?! You know what I’m sayin’ girlfriend! muah.”

“Haahah, no way am I getting married, even if it’s to myself! That just gives more ideas for my mom to keep nagging.”

And then there were five brave ladies and one nervous wedding planner (me) who wanted to re-affirm their vows to themselves.

Here were my vows:

“I am the one.  There will be others who come into my life, but I am the one.

The one that I depend on to make myself a better person.

The one that I trust when I can’t trust anyone else.

The one who gives me the inner strength to keep asking the tough questions, to continue to reach and push myself further.

The one who gives me the joy to keep looking at life with fresh eyes, with honesty, and with truth.

I am the one that I commit to…from this day forward, I love myself in every way.  And, to that inner spirit

that keeps me going, I say….

It’s taken a lot of work to arrive at this point and it’ll take a lot more work to see me through.   But I wouldn’t

want to do it with anyone else.  I love you, I respect you and I honor you.”

Overall, the wedding ceremonies went off without a hitch.   We toasted with champagne, cupcakes and flowers. It was a fantastic weekend and I hope we made each bride feel loved, accepted and beautiful.

The day of our critique however was another story.  Setting up the max patch, getting the projectors to work…organizing the flow of the space…it all came together quite well…but only after 36 hours of non stop trouble shooting.   Of course we battled forward and eventually had a fantastic presentation.  One bride…two images.  Profile right, the bride said her vows.  Profile left, the bride listened…to herself.  And her image cycled to the next bride who said her vows…in an evolving story where each participant acted as bride and witness.    Seeing a women address herself in profile… it was a beautiful moment…powerful, empowering, engaging.  It ruled.

In retrospect, here is what worked, what didn’t and a few comments that made Sadia and I think about the project’s intentions.

We intended right from the start to have each bride say her vows to herself and then be cycled into the next loop, listening to the next bride’s vows, acting as witness.  Some guests at the wedding (the installation portion) felt that it was confusing seeing one woman say her vows to another, implying that they were getting married to each other and not to themselves.  I can see how this might happen, especially if someone walks into the middle of a ceremony and sees two different women staring at each other with one reciting her vows.  But, if you stay for several minutes, chances are even in a random cycle of the MAX MSP patch ( a software program that allows you to upload media for installation and projections.  Our teacher helped build it and designed it as such so that we could control the media in either a linear pattern or let it randomly cycle through each piece of media) you will eventually see the same bride getting married to herself…and that’s the main intention of the project.  Sadia and I are quite happy to leave it be…we want to create an evolving community of solo brides.  And previously married brides acting as witness to new brides does the trick.

Another question that was asked was about our parameters…if after marrying herself, a bride decides to get married to a partner in the future…does she have to divorce herself?  Hmmmmm…I’m still pondering that one.  It’s a darn good question.

And yes…it’s definitely marriage…not a commitment ceremony…not a re-affirmation ceremony but a wedding.  Marriage is such a loaded word…and that’s why we choose it.  We almost had a runaway bride, the pressure was so intense.  What’s incredible is that we put this out into the world as a light piece (taking it completely seriously, of course but fully intending to have multiple Sex in the City moments of frivolity, haute couture, high heels and cupcakes) but what came back to us was a level of seriousness not quite anticipated.  Single women may not stay single forever but darn, we have some pretty powerful reasons for being lone rangers and it was nice to have a day to honor that commitment…to oneself.

Our goal is to apply for events like Nuit Blanche or Luminato in 2009.  And when we get some grant money we’d like to construct a Vegas inspired chapel where women, after seeing the installation, can choose to get married right then and there and then be cycled into the video stream and thus, become one of many in the legion of solo brides.   We’d also like a reception area where brides, friends and family can come to celebrate in an official and formal fashion (plus we just like the idea of a giant party).

We also intend to start an I ME WED website and blog where we can continue to attract future brides, post video, pictures and comments on each wedding ceremony, link to any news/media about our project or sistering projects and engage in discussion about the nature of marriage or perhaps to post our wedding gift registry!

We fully intend to keep I ME WED ceremonies going throughout the summer…there’s a need for this type of self expression.  Sadia and I provide the environment, equipment and parameters (and the cupcakes) and each wonderful woman brings to it what she will.

Thanks again to all of the amazing women who came out and helped make our project such a success: Zoe, Eni, Andalee, Liz, and Natalia.