Martha Rosler: "Semiotics of the Kitchen" (1975) 6min 29 sec

Bruce Nauman: "Bouncing in the Corner No.1 " 60 mins (1968)
or
Bruce Nauman: "Pulling Mouth" (1969)



FYI: Films made in 1975 include Jaws and The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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That does not mean we will ignore the history of film. Actually we will put film in a larger context of moving images or media in general inspired by the famous phrase by Marshal McLuhan,

content of every new media is old media.


"A trip to the Moon" by Georges Melies 1902.


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Photoshop "simulates" photography but photoshop opens up spaces that the discourses of photography cannot fully capture. Beyond simulation of photography or film





Video editing software like Premier or FinalCut can be thought of us simulating what "film" was/is. Although, if you look carefully, movie files played on QuickTime and Premier Pro have resemblance to "film" but also have different properties.



So one important aspect of using media is the interface.

Increasingly more and more contemporary artists who work on the computer are making works that are hard to think through solely within the framwork of simuation. They have very little regard for the boundaries between media. They are not just filmmakers or photographers.

Adobe Premier (the video editing software we will use) shows us video data in a certain way influenced by film. When we use Premier, it is hard not to think about film. There are assumptions that come from film. Much of the language we use often come from film. (Like trimming or cutting -- what are we actually cutting and trimming?)



Davinci Resolve (Free version) [video tutorial -- should give you enough information to do most of what we do in class]



Later in the semester we will look at video through another interface, a programming environment called Max/MSP/Jitter. Video will look very different through that environement.







Premier and MaxMSP may be dealing with the same "movie file".
A movie file (actually just 0s and 1s) is no longer what defines what a moving image is.
The software/interface (Quicktime, Premier, Max/MSP/Jitter) used to open the file defines what a moving image is.

A digital image (0s and 1s) interpreted through Preview, Photoshop, or audio editing application is different. One could say that media studies in the age computer has to involve the study of interface

How does one learn software (digital video) and not a product (Adobe Premier)?
Focus on abstractions that are universally adopted.