[Frameworks] 16mm/Super8 Screening & Panel Discussion @ NYPL Jefferson Market Library

[Matt Whitman]

If you feel that you are alone in this strict use, Pip, you should come to the event if you are able to do so. Particularly for the panel/Q&A afterwards. It would indeed be instructive for other members of the public who are not privy to this list to be aware of the distinction that you make and this ongoing discussion. If you are not able to attend, I am happy to raise this point myself during the panel and make it clear that even in the naming of the event, there is debate in how and where these terms are used.

Provided that all of the artists showing work and participating in the discussion consent, an audio recording of this will likely be posted online. Will let you know.

> On Nov 11, 2014, at 7:44 PM, Pip Chodorov <frameworks at re-voir.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, most people who use the term have adopted it in exactly this way.
> And this view of language is widely accepted as well, as never fixed in time.
> However there is also the traditionalist view of language and respecting etymology, and it can be instructive to educate the critical mass, particular at a time when the film medium needs awareness and sustainability.
> Using the term analog reduces film to a signal.
> If film is only a signal then there is no reason to resuscitate acetate or polyester film material.
> A signal can be received in many ways including analog and digital reproductions, as long as the resoution and the bit depth of such reproductions surpass the visual acuity of the human retina.
> Since film is not only about what it looks like, but also about what it is, and in light of the fact that you are hosting an event about film as a material and as a practice and to promote the film advocacy task force, I think it worthwhile to avoid the analog/digital debate by referring to film simply as its own material.
> This also evades a stickier neologism as "film" as come to mean any moving picture production on any medium. Any "film" student working digitally claims to make "film." I believe they are making "digital" but I am very alone in that strict use of the term to mean only film based production.
> At least the term analog is still precise enough that we can use it to raise awareness that film is different.
> 
> 
> To Sherman George:
> No, "analog" used as an adjective relates only to signals
> https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=define:+analog <https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=define:+analog>
> 
> 
> 
> At 19:27 -0500 11/11/14, Matt Whitman wrote:
>> Right. But couldn't this be a very specific reading of the term 'analog'? In reference only to signal? I think our language around media has evolved enough at this point where we don't have to necessarily exclude other forms from this analog vs. digital binary which has been set up.
>> 
>> Looking at it somewhat algebraically, if we use the term analog to merely describe "signal" and digital signal is the opposite of analog signal - we then simplify by eliminating signal from the equation, leaving us with analog ‚ digital. It is a simplification - in every sense of the word - and this is for better or worse.
>> 
>> The word 'analog', with its contemporary application to (sometimes to the point of absurdity) a variety of phenomena and situations, has gone past the point of critical mass (another analogy, this time to a process associated with nuclear fission) where it seems it can now be applied simply to that which is not digital. And this is at a moment in time when so many aspects of human life are now influenced to some extent by various digital processes and systems.
>> 
>> I think it is a matter of language, which is never fixed at specific point in its own history, but is provisional. It adapts to the current moment - much like a city or a body or any organism for that matter.
>> 
>> 
>>> On Nov 11, 2014, at 6:42 PM, Pip Chodorov <frameworks at re-voir.com <mailto:frameworks at re-voir.com>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The term was used widely throughout the 20th century to describe continuous recording processes on physical or magnetic medium (audio tape, video tape, vinyl disk) and especially in relation to digital processes when they became popular (remastered recordings, CDs, laserdiscs and DVDs) when the debate between analog and digital became fervent.
>>> But not until the past ten years was the term ever applied to motion picture film.
>>> I think film should not be confused with signal media.
>>> The term "digital film" has been applied wrongly to using digital intermediates to finish on film print stock.
>>> This wikipedia article described analog processes best:
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_signal>Pip
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