Floating Teatime editor Linda Lai introduces this summer's "field notes" series after an on-going trial of "doctoral field notes" series in 2020-2021. "Field Notes" is the platform for research notes of work-in-progress and, therefore, allows glimpses of focused discussion of isolated found field objects before the grand conclusion of the research. The "Look at that pictures" series will present 4 in-depth studies of single images as experiments to enliven an image object's life span and cultural-historical vitality. Researchers draw from methods of visual anthropology and media archaeology to turn descriptive strategies into critical analysis.
**feature image: 9 May 2005 image grabbed from network news on TV (Red Square parade marking WWII victory), from Linda Lai's image archive.
"Look at That Picture!"
William Burroughs… cut-up (1963)
Montage technique applied to words on a page
https://allenginsberg.org/2014/03/william-s-burroughs-cut-ups/
The Cut-Ups film was made around 1966
“The Cut-Ups” was conventionally edited and then cut into four approximately equal lengths. It was then assembled into its final state by taking one-foot lengths from each of the four sections that were cut together with mathematical precision – 1,2,3,4,1,2.3.4, etc. Variations to this structure occur randomly when a shot change occurs within one of the already edited one-foot lengths….The length of the shots, with the exception of the last, is always the same (apart from the shot changes within the one-foot sections)…The soundtrack was made by Sommerville, Burroughs and Gysin. They asked Balch how long the film was, and they produced permutated phrases to the exact length of twenty minutes and four seconds, including the final “Good, thank you”. These permutated phrases are repeated and phased, like a (minimalist) composition. There are four in all --
“Yes Hello?”
“Look at that picture”
“Does it seem to be persisting?”
“Good, thank you”
extracting an image from an image flow or image discourse...
Visuality
- Images are not just imageries 意象. They function as statements of history, social public education, political propaganda, precarious aspirations, and projection of the future.
- The “making” and “writing” of knowledge does not need to be left it to the experts. Artists have unique contribution through experimental actions, and so do the everyday image-user.
- Objects and artefacts are rich surfaces.
- We aspire dynamism: from the singular object/event/artefact to micro processes and long duration
- The mobilization of innovative frames and alternation between frames may help us to overcome Warburg’s suspected overt humanism in our final research project + we need new ways to think of the place of machine and technology
- What are the meeting points between historical research, historiography, artmaking and display-curatorial programs?
Naming of the feature image: Red Square? World Leadership? The Invisible?
The image (feature image of this post) is from 9 May 2005 image, grabbed from network news on TV, showing the spectacle of the Red Square parade which commemorates WWII victory.
Bush the Junior and wife in the centre, next to him on right Putin and wife, then Hu Jintao
The television sat in a hotel room in Oberhausen, Germany. I was attending the 51st(?) 2-10 May.
Staring at the public spectacle, I was thinking of the Red Square where a student of mine took a taxi and ended up being robbed and left dead in the suburb area. That was June 2003. Her unfortunate diversion was picked up by the many surveillance camera at the square. What an irony.
Images in the "Look At That Picture!" series
hghghg
