[-empyre-] Week 2 of the April 2018 discussion: New Media Documentary Practice

Sat Apr 21 04:21:14 AEST 2018

Thanks, Murat.

I agree with your point that the surveillants are more adept that the disrupters. The disruptions become more data for machine learning.

Interesting interpretation of the current US president as “digital." Some people appreciate the “transparency” that he brings to US foreign (and maybe also domestic) policy by not camouflaging it in pretenses of concern for any of the so-called American values. 

My question about documentary, then, would be if documents don’t exist in the digital sense, should we be rethinking the term documentary? Or can it rain as a legacy term or term of convenience like “film”?

Is there something different in engaging with digital media, even in the sense of screening a video, than engaging with pre-digital media? Or is it only different when the engagement involves user acts to control the images on the screen in some way?

Best,
Dale

> On Apr 17, 2018, at 18:34, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hi Dale,
> 
> "... We’ve included projects in past FLEFF exhibitions that attempt to disrupt this surveillance by flooding with bogus data. "
> 
> Let me try to elaborate: "bogus data," is that not essentially the very opposite of a document? In the pre-digital universe (I do not use the word "analog" because the word has developed an aura (or rather a stink) of condescension in the hands of the digital champions. "Document" implied an authenticity, a thereness. A "doctored document" is a relatively finite object, a much more serious transgression than "false data." In the pre-digital world, one can sustain a concept of "the original" even if only as an ideal. In the digital world that distinction (between the unreal and real, true and false) is diluted to the point of disappearance. We are surrounded with false data like the air. We don't even notice it, as the events of the last election in the States (and our president) clearly demonstrates. We can call Trump our first full blown digital, not because he tweets a lot; but because he makes no distinction between what is a fact (provable as a document) and what is not. The forces fighting him are all pre-digital, specifically the law (where documentary proof is an absolute value) and the press (where fact-checking has a similar function). Let's see who will win.
> 
> One can see the same tension comparing camera obscure photography and photoshop. In the former, the created image has a certain independence because the power of of the lens or the photographer was never absolute. Light moves in mysterious, not totally controllable ways, the photographer makes errors, the image contains cracks, fissures, ambiguities, often undreamt of by the photographer, into which the view can enter and his/her mind is liberated by them. Photoshop gives the photographer absolute power, in color, in focus, etc., etc. As a result, its value as document --and I will claim as art-- diminishes and finally disappears like the grin of the Cheshire Cat.
> 
> Digital data (and its codes) are the "capital," the controlling means of production in the 21rst century. Its ownership is the center of controlling power. The power it confers to its owner is infinitely greater than the power the ownership of factories or railroads, etc., for example, gave to 19th century tycoons. Because, finally, what it controls is not only wealth (though that is undoubtedly a big motivating factor); but it controls reality, almost absolutely, "liberating" it from facts.
> 
> "We’ve included projects in past FLEFF exhibitions that attempt to disrupt this surveillance by flooding with bogus data."
> 
> Dale, unfortunately the surveillants are much more adept at "bogus data" than the disruptors. I wonder a dadaist  disruption is enough in our present condition. Basically, can one fight lies with lies? I think a critical mind, seeing chaff separate from fact, is absolutely essential.
> 
> Ciao,
> Murat
> 
> 
> On Tue, Apr 17, 2018 at 5:39 AM, Garrett Lynch <garrett at asquare.org <mailto:garrett at asquare.org>> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Hi Murat
> 
> I didn't say or suggest in any manner that code was neutral.  In fact if you read the last post I sent to the list you will see I referred to code in scenarios that don't rely on users e.g. generative, algorithmic etc.  These both imply that code can't be neutral, can't be simply for communicating.
> 
> What I said was that document, which I was defining as not the same as code, is a dumbed down term because it is often used to refer outwards/backwards to analogue media as a comparison in order to facilitate communicating - just like when we talk of our computer desktops they refer by analogy to a physical/'real' desktop.
> 
> Hope this makes sense.
> 
> regards
> Garrett
> _________________
>  <>Garrett at asquare.org <mailto:Garrett at asquare.org>
> http://www.asquare.org/ <http://www.asquare.org/>
> 
> On 16 Apr 2018, at 19:00, Murat Nemet-Nejat <muratnn at gmail.com <mailto:muratnn at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Hi Garrett,
>> 
>> "... Document in new media is simply an agreed dumbed down term for the benefit of communicating - similar to desktop as I mentioned and one of my own best loved/most hated, 'virtual'..."
>> 
>> Your description has the kind of naivety that often plagued the thinking around digital technology. A code is not a neutral term denoting merely convenience ("simply... a dumbed down term for the benefit of communicating..." ) but a structure of knowledge (and potentially of power) with epistemological, social, political consequences. "Convenience" has often turned out to be a bait, a Trojan horse.
>> 
>> Ciao,
>> Murat
>> 
>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Dale Hudson <dmh2018 at nyu.edu <mailto:dmh2018 at nyu.edu>> wrote:
>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>> Excellent point, Garrett. 
>> 
>> I’m interested in this shift from analogue to digital when document no longer become as significant as code. I’m wondering whether it help move discussion on documentary away from representation towards operation. 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Apr 16, 2018, at 13:07, Garrett Lynch <garrett at asquare.org <mailto:garrett at asquare.org>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> For us, code is not a document.  Document suggests a singular 'thing' or at least a group of things in proximity and closely held together.  The nature of code is that it can't be thought of as a document, physical or 'real' analogies don't work well.  Even the simplest type of code, say for example HTML (which is technically not code but has some of the same qualities) incorporates whole other 'documents' (e.g. images), parts of other documents (e.g. classes and functions) and those can be distributed anywhere when you factor in a network.  Document in new media is simply an agreed dumbed down term for the benefit of communicating - similar to desktop as I mentioned and one of my own best loved/most hated, 'virtual'.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Apr 15, 2018 at 6:34 PM, Dale Hudson <dmh2018 at nyu.edu <mailto:dmh2018 at nyu.edu>> wrote:
>>> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>>> Thanks, Luke and Garrett, for this discussion.
>>> 
>>> I agree about the shortcomings in reducing operational to optical. If anything, the foregrounding of the operation of coding and transcoding should heighten our awareness of the mechanical and chemical operations to capture and render analogue images.
>>> 
>>> I’ve been interested in new media (for lack of a better term) documentaries (also for lack of a better term) that instruct users in how data is tagged, sorted, and rendered into information, as well as the structural limitations to the kinds of information that can be rendered.
>>> 
>>> I’ve also been interested in documentaries that emerge in different iterations, conforming to the limitations of a particular venue but then morphing for other venues. This variation also seems important as a mode of instruction that teaches critical practices of “interacting” with digital media. 
>>> 
>>> In terms of documentary’s relationship with the visual, I have colleagues who work in documentary poetry and theater. For them written or audio testimony is a document. 
>>> 
>>> I am interested to know what people think (or whether people think) of code as a “document.” 
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Dale
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> regards
>>> Garrett
>>> _________________
>>> Garrett at asquare.org <mailto:Garrett at asquare.org>
>>> http://www.asquare.org/ <http://www.asquare.org/>
>>> 
>>> Current events and soon:
>>> 
>>> Real Virtuality The Networked Art of Garrett Lynch:
>>> http://realvirtuality.peripheralforms.com/ <http://realvirtuality.peripheralforms.com/>
>>> 
>>> A network of people who attended an exhibition and contributed to the creation of this work
>>> http://asquare.org/work/peoplenetwork/ <http://asquare.org/work/peoplenetwork/>
>>> 
>>> Pick up a postcard and participate at any of the following galleries: Aksioma Institute for Contemporary Art (Ljubljana, Slovenia), Bannister Gallery (Rhode Island, USA), Centro ADM (Mexico City, Mexico), Centro de Cultura Digital (Mexico City, Mexico), Gallery XY (Olomouc, Czech Republic), Gedok (Stuttgart, Germany), Guest Room (North Carolina, USA), Human Ecosystems (Rome, Italy), Kunst Museum (Stuttgart, Germany), Laboratorio Arte Alameda (Mexico City, Mexico), Le Wonder (Bagnolet, France), MUTE (Lisbon, Portugal), NYU Art Gallery (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates), Open Signal (Portland, USA), Plymouth Arts Centre (Plymouth, England), The Gallery at Plymouth College of Art (Plymouth, England), Transfer Gallery (New York, USA), Upfor Gallery (Portland, USA), Watermans (London, England), Wilhelmspalais (Stuttgart, Germany), WOWA (Riccione, Italy), ZKM | Center for Art and Media (Karlsruhe, Germany)
>>> 
>>> Best of Luck with the Wall (variant) @ European Media Art Festival, Report - notes from reality (Osnabrueck, Germany) 18/04 - 21/05/2018
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