[iDC] Re: notes on media remix
Curt Cloninger
curt at lab404.com
Wed Apr 26 00:25:25 EDT 2006
ryan:
i also don't think that one can
accurately say that all this motion graphics stuff can be looked at as
insular, formal hybridizing only referencing some concept of
"meta-media". their is some value, i think, to considering the
genealogy of cultural forms that isn't based on some opposition between
form and content.
curt:
I agree. But I think you've got to make your case on a work by work
basis. It's precarious to say that because someone is advertising
something using after effects that such and such a cultural effect is
always happening.
ryan:
these "formal" motion graphics in question
should not just be criticized on formal/technical terms.
curt:
I agree. But it can be a useful starting point from which to launch.
ryan:
i'm certainly agreeing with the need for a more nuanced critique of
this stuff than what I saw Lev present, but i don't see how you expect
any kind of critique to not be some kind of imposition upon
observations (again, the Heisenberg principle). how does one make a
nuanced, yet neutral, observation of something?
curt:
by looking at what is actually happening and thinking long and hard
about it before rushing headlong to connect the obligatory dots to
Baudrillard or Judith Butler or whomever. I agree that neutral
observation is impossible, but I don't think it's a myth or a vapor.
I still think it's something desirable to try and head toward. (In
this sense, I'm the second umpire: "There's balls and there's
strikes, and I calls 'em like I sees 'em"). Otherwise it becomes
nothing more than a kind of culture theory gold rush game. Who can
be the first to make a novel argument about such and such a media
practice from such and such a critical perspective? Never mind that
the perspective has been awkwardly imposed on a media practice that
doesn't really bear it out. Formalism is no substitute for culture
theory, but it can still be a valid way to critique the
misapplication of culture theory to specific media practices.
ryan:
this isn't relativism,
but rather an insistence on the political nature of the discussion. and
i don't expect such impositions to be so easy, or so easily accepted...
same holds for a formalist reading - which is still an interested
imposition and shouldn't be so easily accepted either.
curt:
Agreed, but you've got to start somewhere, and it seems least
specious to start with a careful formal analysis of how the media are
functioning (however necessarily un-disinterested that may be). Such
a nuanced observational analysis may then suggest whether to best
proceed to Barthes or McLuhan or Deleuze or a combination of Virilio
and Borges or whatever. If every tool is a hammer (your pet critical
perspective), then every problem looks like a nail.
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