[Frameworks] Analog and digital

Tue Aug 30 13:52:41 CDT 2011

One way to think about this is to look at how different media inflect and inform practices, rather like the way water colour works differently to oil, necessitating different working methods, and exhibiting distinct limitations and strengths etc. Two examples spring to mind: Vincent Grenier and Ernie Gehr. Both worked in film for some time before turning to video. In both cases the work made in film was very different in important formal and technical ways to the subsequent work made in video, so that one's sense is very much that in moving to a new medium a rethink was required. 

This is of course not true of all artists who move from film to video or indeed in the other direction. David Larcher, for example, has always made the same kind of work, but it got a lot easier once he could work wholly in the digital domain. John Smith remade an earlier film, 7P, in video, as a way of improving it in certain very specific respects. Jeff Keen also worked hybridly, digitising earlier film work and adding chroma key layers, as in his Art War series, so that the film and video components are distinct yet interacting in the same space. 

Nicky Hamlyn.

On 30 Aug 2011, at 17:18, Kim Knowles wrote:

> I'm wondering how to think through some of these issues on a theoretical level, a way of teasing out the complexities around medium-specificity, aura, nostalgia etc. Someone mentioned hybrid works, those that bring together the qualities of film and (digital) video and the different things that can be done in each medium. I've been looking at some films by Thorsten Fleisch ('Wound Footage'), Shambhavi Kaul ('Scene 32') and Makino Takashi. I was excited to see the thread developing in this area and then disappointed to see it fade so quickly. I love film, deeply, and lose sleep over the thought of its demise (really!), but I wonder how film and video might be able to talk to each other, to have the conversation that they really need to have, to work things out, accept their differences ... I wonder how theory might follow, how our understanding of film/video aesthetics might be changed as a result. There has been some (well, a lot!) of work on medium-specificity in the digital era but none of it seems to look at hybridity, especially in terms of the embodied responses that some Frameworkers have been referring to. Does anyone know of work in this area?
> 
> I think this has been a fascinating and inspiring thread. The voices of film lovers should be heard. Play loud! 
> 
> Kim
> 
> 
> 
> > Date: Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:23:09 -0400
> > From: Steven at gladstonefilms.com
> > To: frameworks at jonasmekasfilms.com
> > Subject: Re: [Frameworks] Analog and digital
> > 
> > On 8/27/11 9:12 PM, Flick Harrison wrote:
> > 
> > > I'd call film analog because each grain is exposed to a light of varying
> > > colour and brightness, for any amount of time, focused by any amount,
> > > then processed with more or less chemicals and time, all of which are
> > > analog variables. The placement of grain on a frame is also random and
> > > analog.
> > 
> > Digital - provides a precise voltage state (either on or off) for each 
> > "photosite"/pixel. Here is the thing.
> > 
> > 1. If you say digital is ones and zeroes you are referring to and analog 
> > representation of on and off. It isn't really ones and zeroes.
> > Noise floor and strength of signal, and signal degradation will all 
> > affect how this is represented. In digital it is either on or off, if a 
> > signal is above the off state but not fully at the on state, then what? 
> > It is rounded either up or down to on or off. This can lead to various 
> > issues in either capture, or display.
> > 
> > 2. All imagers are ANALOG. In the process of converting the light 
> > striking the imager (film or electronic sensor) to an electronic version 
> > (um analog) for storage and later display it is "sampled" and converted 
> > to numerical values. The more samples per second, the smoother the 
> > resulting waveforms will be when the digital information is reconverted 
> > to analog for display. The more pixels as well, equates to smoother 
> > transitions.
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Steven Gladstone
> > New York Based Cinematographer
> > Gladstone films
> > Blog - http://indiekicker.reelgrok.com/
> > http://www.blakehousemovie.com
> > http://www.gladstonefilms.com
> > 917-886-5858
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nicky.hamlyn at talktalk.net

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