The Far Vision

Imagine an eye unruled by man-made laws of perspective,
an eye unprejudiced by compositional logic, an eye which
does not respond to the name of everything but which must
know each object encountered in life through an adventure of
perception

~ Stan Brakhage, Metaphors on Vision



Wherever your opinion falls in regards to a technological singularity, it’s difficult to argue that at present our technology has not significantly altered our methods of communication, organization and recall. These changes in our information processes are begetting changes in every industry and culture in the modernized world and yet the worlds of information technology and cinema seem to me to be the ones worth concentrating on here. This is because while the one is the source of these changes, the other is a mirror, capable of giving us perspective. The fact that at present that perspective is seemingly hopelessly mired in the linear is the crux of the problem. Regardless, both are driving forces in our culture towards a hive mind i.e. a collective consciousness. Cinema has always been a vast edifice of memories but our ever growing immersion in a second life via technology is now if not challenging that edifice then working in tandem with it, creating the possibility of new streamlined perceptions that are both exciting and dangerous. Imagine for instance a post intellectual perception in which we would no longer be concerned with the amassing of knowledge but the experience of it, a possibility dependent on myriad factors not the least of which is our ability to free ourselves from the shackles of narrative but a possibility none the less. Are we not in many ways creating a collective memory through our online interactions here on The Auteurs or through sites like Facebook, Flickr and our personal blogs? A collective consciousness in the form of flow based interactions on Google Wave or Shareflow? And while the digital revolution may have democratized the world of filmmaking it has also seemingly, paradoxically narrowed not only the playing field but the field of vision of the so called revolutionaries, a phenomenon, I believe to be directly related to the non-linear technology we have embraced while still slaves to a linear perception. I am not suggesting that these interactions are alone set to drastically change us as humans but I believe the seeds are being sown at the root level to completely upend our perception and therefore our experience of time. There is a shift occurring from the linear to the spatial that should not be ignored.


This concerns me at this early stage first and foremost as a filmmaker because for me cinema is an essential tool in the forming of social, cultural and political perception. Given this is mostly accomplished through propaganda whether it be of the political or lifestyle variety the fact remains that much of how we perceive the world is informed by cultural/historical narratives reinforced by cinema and to a larger extent, cinema’s bastard child; media in all her permutations. As a lover of cinema I have long enjoyed the pleasures of both narrative film and documentary but as a practicing filmmaker I can’t shake the power experimental cinema holds over me. The immediacy and rawness of emotion evoked in the best examples of the form are integral to my continued fascination but the true power of experimental cinema for me has always resided in the intangibles; that which I cannot locate absolutely in a strip of unspooling celluloid or line of resolution is the alpha and omega of my addiction, those moments when time is mastered and sculpted not into a perception guided by narrative but pure, direct experience. More often than not I find these experiences in experimental film where the intention, the theme, the emotion is unencumbered by trite storylines or clever structure. And it is with experimental cinema that our greatest chances for an evolution of perception lay.

From Muyenbridge’s work with the persistence of vision to Melies showing us the man in the moon to Eisenstein and the birth of formalism, the experimental, the avant-garde, the underground has existed within cinema since its inception. In fact, cinema itself was the experiment, only later did it beget the entertainment that supports and reflects life, that now however pervasively dictates it for many of us. It can be argued that cinema changed the world as much as the automobile or the splitting of the atom. For me it is most obviously the tool mankind has created to teach himself the art of non-linear perception (the process of creating a film, narrative or otherwise is and has always been non-linear) led sickeningly astray by advertising executives. However this proto-spatial perception we are designing for ourselves is long on knowledge and short on experience, a problem exacerbated by cinema’s reliance on narrative, a problem whose remedy relies in cinemas true non-linear nature.


If we look at the history of the best experimental film, it’s not hard to see the social and political corollaries, the concerns and pressures that formed the work and methods of filmmakers like Deren in the 40’s (female identity, social rituals.) Anger in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s (homosexual identity, occultism) but too often these works were marred by a reliance on Freudian symbolism, the non sequitur, psychosexual themes and metaphors that read today as clearly as any Hollywood narrative (perhaps a reason why modern student filmmakers emulating them often fall flat.) It wasn’t until Brakhage made his central metaphor that of visual perception that we were given a language with which to articulate direct experience on celluloid and as much as his work was a part of the larger movement of Modern Art it was more importantly the ground work for a spatial cinema that has yet to be fully realized but whose time has come.


Experience is the key word here, not entertainment and certainly not knowledge but direct experience devoid of the intellect. An experience beyond the sum of its parts, an experience becoming more and more rare in today’s culture for while we live in a time where the possibilities for sharing our visions are unparalleled the critical thought and support for experimental cinema is simply not there. In fact it hasn’t been since the golden era of the music video, an era that saw the exploitation of experimental film techniques in the service of song narrative and band image effectively moving the form one step forward and two steps back. The advent of the internet and video sharing sites like YouTube have so far only further widened the gap between intelligent discourse and true experimental filmmaking, an occurrence that is completely at odds with the possibilities of the technology at hand and I would argue due not simply to a lack of interest but a lack of exposure, education and support, initiatives that we must foster as we venture forward if there is to be any hope for the intangible.


Moving forward what matters most is that we encourage, nurture and multiply these intangibles by providing a breeding ground for the experimental; a place online and physical where instinct, emotion and experience are placed before form, intellect and tradition. We mustn’t leave experimental cinema to be regulated to the online ghettos of YouTube and the rarified world of art galleries but give it a serious national and international platform where it can if not change the world than at least the viewer’s perception of it. For why do we create art? Is it not to share visions, illuminate corners of human experience, cleanse the palette of the ubiquitous?


The less accessible a work is to the intellect, the greater it is

~ Goethe

You can read the article as it originally apearred in the auteurs garage; http://mubi.com/garage/posts/1872 if you're lucky!