[-empyre-] the glitch and beyond

[John Conomos]

Hi Tim, Renate, Isak, and Kathy,

Here in Oz as you may or may not know - after all , it is a country
blighted by Geoffrey Blainey¹s fitting expression Œ the tyranny of
distance¹ - we have a new Prime Minister. He is an investment banker,
lawyer , and a Republican ( the late Robert Hughes , the art critic,  was
related to him through his partner Lucy ), and by all accounts a serious
art collector ( including video art I have been informed) , but he remains
( lamentably) a neo-liberal economic rationalist. In contrast to our
previous Prime Minister ,Tony Abbott,  the muscular ultra-conservative
Christian antique from the 1950s, Turnbull is a small liberal.

There are some of us who are hoping that he may redraft our latest
radically archaic elitist arts policy.This remains to be seen.  However,
in terms of Australian video art, critical theory and the new media
technologies, it is my belief that we in Oz have been geo-politically and
geographically positioned ( at the far end of the globe ) so we have been
historically and ironically engaged in a kind of a Nietzschean
genealogical critical reception /translation enterprise of new ideas ,
theories and art forms from abroad. How else can we explain our recent
important history and role in producing video art and new media since the
70s ?

In terms of Œglitch aesthetics¹ and ¹scratch video ³ I produced a video
work two years ago , ³The Spiral of Time², which is a multilayered text
performance piece that draws upon the legacy of these two contemporary
developments in video and also in sound art, and art/experimental cinema.
More specifically, it is a video that is visually and sonically anchored
in the particular genre of trance cinema ( Brakhage /Cocteau/Sharits,
etc). A work that deals with death, the body, landscape, time, writing ,
memory,and trauma. Theodor Adorno¹s  Œdamaged life Œ epigram ³ The
splinter in your eye is the best magnifying glass² ( Minima Moralia, 1951)
significantly informs my scratch/trance video.

Cheers,
John

³The Spiral of Time² , 2013, black and white video, sound, text. 4 mins.
Can be located under my name at VIMEO.



John Conomos
Associate Professor Film and Digital Arts
Sydney College of the Arts
THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Rm F22A, Building 4 | Rozelle | NSW | 2039
T +61 2 9351 1102
E j <john.conomos at sydney.edu.au>ohn.conomos at sydney.edu.au
<john.conomos at sydney.edu.au>
New Media Fellow, Australia Council for the Arts
Global Greek Award, Hellenic Ministry for Culture and the Arts

W http://www.johnconomos.com/
W http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Conomos
W http://sydney.edu.au/sca/profiles/John_Conomos.shtml
W http://vimeo.com/johnconomos
W http://scanlines.net/node/1971

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On 16/09/2015 12:59 am, "Timothy Conway Murray" <tcm1 at cornell.edu> wrote:

>----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>Hi, Isak and Kathy,
>
>It's so interesting to recall the critical empowerment of the 'glitch' in
>video aesthetics, as you both have termed it.  While the glitch is
>frequently discussed in sound studies in relation to an "aesthetic of
>failure" (via the capture of digital error and failure), it has been so
>much more affirmatively instrumental in video aesthetics, especially given
>the care in which it was frequently nurtured and crafted through the
>artist's working with emergent tools.   Thanks so much for reminding us of
>the conceptual force accompanying early experimentations with video tools,
>as well their current elaborations in dialogue with digitality by artists
>such as you both.
>
>Tim
>
>Timothy Murray
>Professor of Comparative Literature and English
>Taylor Family Director, Society for the Humanities
>http://www.arts.cornell.edu/sochum/
>Curator, Rose Goldsen Archive of New Media Art
>http://goldsen.library.cornell.edu
>A D White House
>Cornell University,
>Ithaca, New York 14853
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>empyre forum
>empyre at lists.artdesign.unsw.edu.au
>http://empyre.library.cornell.edu