jueves, 15 de septiembre de 2016

PHD proposal. Emilio Chapela. Sept 15th.

PhD Proposal – Transart-Plymouth - Simon Pope/Deborah Robinson - 15 sept – 2nd draft
Emilio Chapela

Project Title:

New materialism as filmmaking

Summary:

This practice led-research investigates how to develop a filmmaking practice that allows to engage actively with the phenomena interacting around astronomical observatories in the Atacama Desert in Chile and at the top of an extinguished volcano in Mexico: I aim to develop tools (film/recording, montage, post-production and screening) suggested by the interaction –and movement– of the intricate material entities present at the observatories like geophysical forces, light, weather, climate, technology, architecture, geology, plants, animals and human participants like astronomers and engineers.
The research departs from ‘new materialism’ critical thinking of Karen Barad, Donna Haraway, Manuel De Landa among others to explore methodologies that suggest a comprehensive material filmmaking practice.

Description (max. 600 words):

This practice led-research departs from ‘new materialism’ thinking (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012) to develop an art practice –based on film-making– that engages in a comprehensive way with the material entities (human and non-human) interacting around astronomical observatories in sites like the Atacama Desert in Chile and at the top of an extinguished volcano in Mexico.

To establish a ‘direct material engagement’ as described by ‘new materialism’, it is important to recognize the various heterogeneous material practices interacting with each-other: light coming from outer space, time, people, climate, weather, flora, fauna, geology, architecture, etc. I will explore ways, to keep track of this complex ecology of material entities, not to classify or represent them, but to map cartographically the non-linear connections between them. “New materialism is fascinated by affect, force, and movement as it travels in all directions.” (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012)

I aim to investigate into ‘new materialism’ framework to suggest filmmaking techniques to engage actively in the intricate phenomena around the observatories: How to engage with the sites both in time and space with the use of the camera? How this interaction is defined epistemologically and ontologically, considering that filmmaking is (like astronomy) inherently a time-based and light-based practice?

These powerful observatories, like the one built at the Atacama desert in Chile, an array of more than 60 radio-telescope antennas, or the observatories on top an extinguished volcano in Mexico, are located in remote places away from major human settlements, light and sound contamination. I will document with the architecture, the surroundings and the geophysical forces interacting at the sites, learn about astronomy, perform observations and engage in discussions with astronomers. I aim to engage with these material agencies through filmmaking, a media that according to theorists like Jussi Parikka, Durham Peters, and Friedrich Kittler can be –as all media– the way “by which humans and things, animals and data, hold together in time and space” (Peters 2015).

By ‘looking’ far away into the universe we are also ‘gazing’ into the past. “Telescopes are machines of time travel as of space-spanning” (Peters 2003). Light travels across space and time to reach us, and the consequences of this inevitable material fact explains the lack of simultaneity of events in the Universe explained by Einstein’s special relativity theory and described by J. Peters as an ‘elongated now’ (Peters 2015). What filmmaking practices can be suggested from this ‘relativity of simultaneity’ and ‘elongated now’ in terms of film duration, synchronization and montage?

As K. Barad explains, time is not universally given, it is “articulated and re-synchronized through various material practices” (Dolphijn & Tuin 2012). Recording, editing, post-production and screening are time-based practices that I will explore as techniques to re-articulate time. Among other things, I will record using different frame-rates, slow down or fasten the image, use montage techniques to re-configure time or present the work in a multi-screen setting showing different forces (and temporalities) simultaneously, like in the work of Harun Farocki (Deep Play 2007)

I’ll investigate into other film practices inspired by ‘materialism’ or ‘new materialism’ thinking. Including the ‘materialism/structuralism’ of Peter Gidal’s films and literature. He, among others like Malcolm De Grice, Bill Morrison and Peter Delpeut, support non-illusionist film techniques rooted deep into the material qualities of the film (celluloid), the montage (cutting and gluing film) and the act of filming itself (light trapped inside the camera). Not in an effort to oppose them, but to use them as a departure point, I aim to develop a filmmaking practice that engages directly with the sites as an ontological and epistemological tool to interact with ‘reality’, as a tool of ‘entanglement’ with the ‘world’. For example, like in the work of Francis Alÿs and some films by James Benning.


Research question/s:

How to develop an art film practice that emerges from ‘new materialism’ thinking?
How to engage through filmmaking in the ecology of material entities around astronomical observatories?

Methodology:

I will put together a methodology composed of theoretical and technical methods that allow me to establish a continuous flow between the writing and the practice. The writing will provide an account of the material entities interacting with each other (an ecology of voices) while the filmmaking practice will aim to show the movement between them. Based on the thinking of Manuel de Landa (DeLanda 2015) the writing can account for the virtual/potential (possibilities of change), while the film practice will show the ‘actualization’ of those possibilities. I will establish a dynamic where site experimentation and critical ideas report back and forward between them.
This ‘onto-epistemological’ movement is desirable, just in the same way as a solid communication between theoretical and experimental physics is fundamental.

I will learn from ‘new materialism’ thinking to explore ideas like Karen Barad’s concepts of ‘diffraction’, intra-action and agential realism, to translate them to filmmaking practice. Diffraction is an interesting concept (appropriated from optics) that has a special inherent relevance both in the practice of astronomy and filmmaking. I will explore how to use it, as a conceptual tool to engage at the sites and as technical filmmaking device (diffraction using optics, duration, infrared cinematography, drone cinematography, etc.) I will investigate into the work of Manuel De Landa, Donna Haraway, Alfred Whitehead and others to inform further my understanding of ‘new materialism’ and how to ‘diffract’ it into filmmaking.

I will investigate into the history of theory and practice of montage to find strategies to develop a comprehensive filmmaking practice that responds to the complexity and variety of forces interacting at the site. Aiming at a multi-channel montage strategy might be useful to present different forces and material entities stamped with their own temporalities. I need to develop a montage technique (a time-base practice) that allows me to keep up with the ecology of time at the site: I will explore different ways to alter time like time-lapse, slow motion, ellipsis, still-photography, real-time or live transmission.


In an effort to engage in a film practice involved intrinsically with human and non-human participants (as opposed to a distanced objectivity, I will borrow tools and concepts from anthropology and ethnography to engage with the sites, perform interviews and take part in the phenomena.

Dolphijn, R. & Tuin, I. van der, 2012. New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. New Metaphysics.
Peters, J.D., 2003. Space Time and Communication Theory. Canadian Journal of Communication, 28, pp.397–411. Available at: papers2://publication/uuid/03AF4ED3-30F4-4670-960E-EF1CFE76A7D3.
Peters, J.D., 2015. The marvelous clouds : toward a philosophy of elemental media, University of Chicago Press.


Initial Bibliography

DeLanda, M., 2015. The New Materiality. Architectural Design, 85(5), pp.16–21.
Dolphijn, R. & Tuin, I. van der, 2012. New Materialism: Interviews & Cartographies. New Metaphysics.
Gidal, P., 1978. Structural Film Anthology, British Film Institute.
Latour, B., 1993. We Have Never Been Modern,
Nimkulrat, N. & Helsinki, D., 2007. The Role of Documentation in Practice-Led. , 3(1), pp.1–8.
Palecek, M. & Risjord, M., 2012. Relativism and the Ontological Turn within Anthropology. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 43(1), pp.3–23. Available at: http://pos.sagepub.com/cgi/doi/10.1177/0048393112463335.
Parikka, J., 2012. New Materialism as Media Theory: Medianatures and Dirty Matter. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 9(1), pp.95–100.
Peters, J.D., 2003. Space Time and Communication Theory. Canadian Journal of Communication, 28, pp.397–411. Available at: papers2://publication/uuid/03AF4ED3-30F4-4670-960E-EF1CFE76A7D3.
Pope, S., Phil, D. & Art, F., 2015. Who Else Takes Part? Oxford.
Anon, 2013. Carnal knowledge: towards a “new materialism” through the arts,
Peters, J.D., 2015. The marvelous clouds : toward a philosophy of elemental media, University of Chicago Press.
Barad, K.M., 2007. Meeting the universe halfway : quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning, Duke University Press.
Parikka, J., 2015. A geology of media, University of Minnesota Press.




domingo, 24 de julio de 2016

MCP501 Proposal Year 1

MCP501 Proposal Year 1

01 Title- 
Temporal and spacial simultaneities manifested in the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories in remote locations. 

04 Description of proposed project or body of work - practical element
I will produce experimental video, a set of photographic images and an online journal. As well of a series of sculptures based on data obtained from astronomical observations. 
I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio using a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places as an integrated landscape that will render conceptually strong, contemplative, poetic and visually compelling artworks. With the information obtained from astronomic observations, I will produce a series of sculptures that will materialize the huge temporal and spatial gaps in the Universe enhanced by astronomical observations. Celestial bodies seen by this instruments are located millions of years away, both in distance and in time.
05 Description of project report or thesis - written element
I will present a written thesis that will try to establish the poetic nature of the temporal and spacial simultaneities reflected on the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories in remote locations.
It will provide the context needed to understand the artworks developed and will document the process of creating the artwork.
It will elaborate on the resources, techniques and language (e.g Cinematographic) chosen to realize the works. I will describe how observations made by the scientific community pose poetic simultaneities that resonate with philosophy and History
06 Anticipated results
An experimental film, several sculptures and possibly some paintings. A journal.
07 Initial bibliography
– Pfaffenberger, Bryan. "Social Anthropology of Technology." Annual Review of Anthropology 21.1 (1992): 491-516.
– Barros, Alonso. “Pachamama y desarrollo: paisajes conflictivos en el Desierto de Atacama”. Estudios Atacameñios 13 (1997): 75-94
– McLuhan, Marshall. “The Medium is the Massage”. 1964
– Encounters at the End of the World. Dir. Werner Herzog. THINKFilm, 2008. Film
–Nostalgia for the Light. Dir. Patricio Guzmán, 2010. Film
– Chapela, Emilio. The space around. Documental research about ruins of technology in connection to Bell Laboratories in NJ. https://vimeo.com/166038794 Password: space

08 Research statement, question
I am interested in exploring the poetical simultaneities of time and space manifested in the landscape surrounding astronomical observatories. And by the observations themselves. Can observatories be thought as Cosmological Machines? Extensions of ourselves to exercise philosophy and History?

09 Formulae entire project in 2-3 meaningful sentences
Production of an experimental video, new media works and sculptures that explore the interconnections, dissociations and contradictions rendered from the interaction of technology, information, nature and society around highly specialized and remote astronomical sites above 16,000 feet above the sea level in Mexico and Chile. 
I will document the astronomical sites using video and audio using a first-person observation strategy that will allow me to experience technology, nature and the social surroundings in these remote places as an integrated landscape that evidences the huge temporal and spatial gaps in the Universe enhanced by astronomical observations. Celestial bodies seen by this instruments are located millions of years away, both in distance and in time. 
Simultaneously, I will produce sculptures based on the fossilized light coming from the Universe (and picked by these observatories) to enrich the temporal simultaneities manifested by our interaction with these instruments.

10D How will this research support your creative project or practice

It will help me to define how to approach the situation, the places, the people and nature around the observatories. I will help me develop the cinematographic language to use. And how to perform interviews (if any) or under what guidelines music or audio design should be composed.

Reading Diary: Live-writing. Cox

Reading Diary:  Live-writing. Cox

This reading diary covers the following texts:
Kenneth Goldsmith, Uncreative Writing, New York: Columbia University Press 2011

The concept of uncreative writing (and the book) by Kenneth Goldsmith has influenced and informed my practice extensively. My work relates among other things, with technology as a mediator of human communication.
I read the book for the first time a couple of years ago and I became very interested in its bold (almost cynical) approach to appropriation and plagiarism. I was impressed and excited, and for some months I became a self-proclaimed ambassador to his work and all writing machines. I engaged in many discussions, some meaningful and others futile, especially with writers. But most importantly, I incorporated into my work some of the strategies outlined in the book. My interest expanded to Christian Bök and his experimental poetry and other artists and writters.
I’m revisiting the book now that some of my enthusiasm on appropriation has diminished. I found interesting the way how the book explores the potential poetic qualities of data, code, algorithms and writing machines of all kinds. Relating poetry to machines and computers is quite interesting. I wonder about the possibilities of poetry and artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms? Will computers (as Goldsmith suggests) could write poetry for themselves on day? Could they win nobel prices in literature? 
There are really interesting projects described in the book and lots of interesting exercises that can be done easily, like translating mp3 to text to images, transform code, print binary information, make memes, etc. But one important question remains: how to be critical? is being poetical enough to take a critical stance? I believe it is. But how do we decide what is poetical? It’s a closed circuit: Maybe what manages to become critical is the poetic. 
If we can't be critical, we are left with just the code. Instructions, at that's all.


Here I share some works (or exercises) I have done in the past using some strategies read in Kenneth’s Goldsmith book.

Autosuggestion poems:

[STATIC]

I am the prince of darkness,
Lord of Light,
And many other things long since passed.
Over time and across,
I roam these lands for the future
And while no man than before
Save to which they belonged

SOFTWARE

Love track the data
Appendix below low speed
Love track the web
And have the writer
That depends almost constant throughout time,
For''Shizzle in different IP connection to theirs.

* Generated by auto-suggestion algorithms 

This is another project that consists of a sequence of wikipedia entries illustrated by its corresponding Google image search counterpart. 



sábado, 23 de julio de 2016

Reading Diary: Engaging Conflict. Cypis

Reading Diary:  Engaging Conflict. Cypis

As a photographer (originally) I am aware of the visual characteristics of a given space like light, dimensions, color, etc. I also understand how this properties can portray a message of power, comfort, security, or a set of predispositions. This is of course, independent of what its being told inside a room or a space. In relation to media, Marshall McLuhan said “The medium is the message”, which translates well into this context. I would add, the room is the first message. 
I have never researched or read about mediation, conflict and empathy. It seemed to me that my work hasn’t needed, at least directly. But even if you are not engaging directly in mediation practices, it seems vey important to incorporate or at least practice these set of tools: Roland Barthes’ notion of being “twice fascinated” seems extremely useful when interviewing someone, directing actors and when studying social phenomena on the site.
If you are doing documentary film, for example, you have to be aware of the room or place where you are performing the interview but you have to be empathic as well. And if I understood well, empathy starts with a recognition of yourself. It is important that you explore your prejudices, understand why are you doing what your doing in order to become fascinated for the first time. The second will follow later, hopefully. 
From what I understand, research in art practices demands you with the capacity of de-attaching yourself from your practice to think and be critical, just to come back into a personal level. It is another form of being “twice fascinated”.

Regarding conflict, one question came to my mind: how is conflict defined? what is conflict? Does it arises from a extreme position of disagreement only? or from a position of great emotional distress? I guess not only, but it is not clear to me what constitutes as conflict and to what degree. I ask this because it is seems that other interactions, personal or professional, like collaborations in art, could present positions of conflict where empathy could be useful. 

It is hard to argue against empathy, even though some people with a lot of power seem to be pushing against it.

Reading Diary: Wanderings, Musings and the Art of getting Lost. Casbarian

Reading Diary:  Wanderings, Musings and the Art of getting lost. Casbarian

I will start writing this knowing that I might not have read every page of the required texts (I'll explain why). I noticed that some of the pdf are chapters from the same book like Wunderlust by Rebecca Solnit, others are excerpts from different sources. I'm part of a confused generation that can't decide if it is better to read out of xerox copies and make annotations with my marker, or if I should read in the screen or the ipad. I printed some and read others in their electronic version. Because of this, I jumped from one text to the next without thinking about the logic behind the syllabus. In any case, I don't understand the logic, so I read like if I was walking. I wondered through the texts enjoying myself a lot, like I enjoy walking. I didn't know Nietzsche was a walker/worker. Richard Long, Solnit, Thoreau, Debord and Cildo Miereles, who I believe is not in the texts and he is a daily walker). My parents named me Emilio, in part because of Rousseau's walks in the forest.  
I believe to be a good walker, a city walker. Not necessarily a situationist kind of walker. I don't have much of an agenda like Rousseau did (until he didn't). Not a flânuer either. Sometimes I need to get from A to B, and most occasions, I don't. But I have always associated walking with thinking. Thinking clearly, thinking loud. But above all, walking gives you total authority over everything that can be thought of. While walking you can think about almost everything, you are the expert. Walking as the democratization of thinking. I heard a chef once talking about how the potato made us all equally: We all eat potatos! - he said. 

I has been part of my practice to think about the derive in connection to new media and the Internet. It does not present the same poetical possibilities. But it present us with a chance of re-defining the critical possibilities of going-a-drift. If we are to become digital walkers, lets be critical about it.

I'll continue soon....







Reading Diary: Documentation-Forms of reflection. Rostad

Reading Diary:  Documentation-Forms of reflection. Rostad

I decided to pursue a PhD a month ago (June 2016). The idea had been inside my head for sometime but it became real very fast. And as I read these texts (in my way to Berlin), that address how artists should research, think, write and create works when aiming for a PhD –which is the exact thing I plan to achieve– many questions come to mind:

What is the goal of a PhD art research? Is it to develop new knowledge? or to produce stronger and relevant artworks? or both? do I have to present new ideas that work within the academic context? Is my research needed? Is Art ever needed as knowledge does?

There seems to be a lot of debate on how to approach artistic research and how to resolve the apparent (or real) tension between practice and research. It seems that it our role to help define it. But from what I understood from the readings, they all suggest strategies on how to involve art practice into the research. The practice becomes part of a dynamic development that comprises reading, producing artworks, researching, asking questions, and writing. All of this coordinated by a methodology supported on several methods and documented extensively.

For now, here are some and ideas and excerpts from the books that I found interesting and that triggered some new thoughts and insights. List of book at the end of the post.

- A coordination between the art practice and the language of the writing (the use of words) is desirable and leads to a strong research.
- Imagination is a key element for research.
- There is no imagination without a sense of context.
- Gather as much context as possible. A rich context provides gives the chance of building a more integral and holistic research.
- Narrative is a strategy that interests me, especially as a tool for writing.
- I need to present a project that gives me enough freedom to move easily between practice and research.
- I have to build a contextual review, statements, arguments and keywords
- Documentation is vital: informal writing, audios, photos, sketches, videos and artworks.
- It is interesting how artworks done by the artist-researcher, can become documents that feed the research itself. 
- It seems like artists doing PhD’s need to develop the capacity of switching from researcher to artist and vice-versa. This happens by being –at moments– close and involved into the research’s situation/site/acts, and at times by taking distance to look things from a distance/outside. As an artist does when painting a large canvas: paints small areas but takes distance to see the overall result.


I hope my intuition, that helped me to write an initial proposal for the research, materializes into a well structured project. I aim to find a strategy to tighten the relation between research, writing and making artworks. Or maybe the goal is to erase the line that apparently keeps them separated. 

Texts
The Role of Documentation in Practice-Led Research by Nithikul Nimkulrat, Journal of Research Practice Volume 3, Issue 1, Article M6, 2007
Visualizing research: a guide to the research process in art and design by Carole Gray and Julian Malins., Ashgate Publishing, 2004
Artistic research methodology : narrative, power and the public by Mika Hannula, Juha Suoranta, Tere Vadén, New York : Peter Lang, 2014