TASK
Undertake research into absence and representation in moving image and build
up your own argument about whether ‘something is missing’ in digital
representation. For example;
● In what ways can representation be defined by an absence?
● Why is this particular to animation and the digital world?
● What will the future be like?
Your argument can be in written, recorded audio or video form. Remember to
cite your sources.
Is something missing in contemporary visual culture? by filling the world with images are we attempting to hide, erase or obscure something?
question from course text.
“I don’t really know how to make work that doesn’t first deal with loss, or speak of loss. Because I guess I felt that loss, or insufficiency, or
Ed Atkins, Ed Atkins interview: Something is Missing (2017) Louisiana Channel.
inability and failure and negation generally are the absolute bedrock of making things. Which sounds perverse because obviously you are
generating something; you are creating something out of nothing. But actually…Representation, I feel like it is defined by an absence.”
“ Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen is narrated by the failed CGI rendering of a recently deceased actor, PHIL, and follows a group of digital
Cecile B Evans, Hyperlinks or it Didn’t Happen (2014) Vdrome.org.
beings—render ghosts, spam bots, holograms—as they search for meaning. Multiple storylines and materials collapse and converge to
raise questions about what it means to be materially conscious today and the rights of the personal data we release.”
Paul Pfeiffer
Artist Paul Pfeiffer repurposes this ‘digital tinkering’ and puts the animated
technique of erasure to the purpose of refocusing the attention of his audience.
In The Long Count: Thrilla Manila (2000-2001), Pfeiffer used film images of
Muhammad Ali’s title fights against Sonny Liston, George Foreman and Joe
Frazier. He reduced the film frames to single photographs and then reassembled
them into new films by digitally removing the fighters from the scene so that only
audience and the boxing ring remained. What remains is ghostly, schematic
flitting about the ring; the boxers are not seen, just an uncanny shadow as if the
boxers have suddenly become invisible. What becomes visible when the fighters
are removed is another form of violence that is otherwise less evident: the faces
of the – mostly white – viewers who are watching the black boxers.
“As always in Paul Pfeiffer’s work, the erasure of the protagonists in
the Long Count leads directly to the traumatic backrooms of the
American Dream .”
Ed Atkins and Naheed Raza, Tomorrow Never Knows (2013)
Cecile B. Evans, Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen (2014)
Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen follows a group of digital entities as they search for meaning and an understanding of their own condition. Narrated by the failed CGI rendering of a recently deceased actor, PHIL, he introduces these digital agents—render ghosts, spam bots, holograms—as they appear across various settings, genres, and modes of representation. Multiple hyperlinked storylines build, converge, and collapse around overarching ideas of existence beyond anatomy: the ways in which we live and work within the machine. Throughout, questions are raised about what it means to be materially conscious today and the rights of the personal data we release.
Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen
http://dismagazine.com/dystopia/74959/hyperlinks-or-it-didnt-happen-cecile-b-evans/ Gives a list of the different allusions and surces.
●
●