The Case for the Cinematic Humanities
Transcript of The Case for the Cinematic Humanities
The Case for the Cinematic Humanities
http://technocinema.usc.edu @ironmanx28
Steve Anderson [email protected]
• Applied Mathematics • Videographic scholarship • Vectors • Scalar • Critical Commons • Difference analyzer • USC iMAP PhD program
UCLA IPAM | Culture Analytics | 2016
Ernie Gehr
Manovich, et al | Cultural Analytics | Selfiecity (2014)
Phototrails: Instagram Cities (2015)
Google Brain
Google | Google Brain | 2012!“Unsupervised Learning”!“Deep Learning”!!
Google | Deep Dream | 2015!
Videographic Roundtable
role for video essays in DH?
Catherine Grant, Christian Keathley, Drew Morton (2014)
Mark Rappaport, Rock Hudson’s Home Movies (1992)
Mark Rappaport, From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995)
origins of the video essay
Thom Andersen Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)
Thom Andersen + Noel Burch Red Hollywood (1996)
entangled relations of historiography and copyright
Center for Media and Social Impact Best Practices in Fair Use (2005)
Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi Reclaiming Fair Use (2013)
Catherine Grant, Film Studies for Free (2008)
Indiewire, PressPlay (2011)
Fandor | Keyframe (2012)
video essays are now a mature, legible, viable form
Kogonada (auteur)
reverse engineering perception to recognize previously unnoticed patterns
Passageways in Ozu (2013)
POV in Breaking Bad (2012) Single-point perspective in Kubrick (2012)
Kogonada
What is Neorealism (2013)
multiple split-screens, annotations + elastic time signatures
I want to propose a theory and practice of a Deformed Humanities. A humanities born of broken, twisted things. And what is broken and twisted is also beautiful, and a bearer of knowledge.
- Mark Sample
Aitor Gametxo, Variation: The Sunbeam (2011)
Jeff Desom, Rear Window Loop (2010)
revealing relations of time and space
Movie Bar Code | Vanishing Point (1971)
computational engines for formal distillation
Kevin L. Ferguson | Film Visualization Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
Jason Mittell | Videographic Deformations | 2016
computational engines for time-base deformation
Singin’ in the Rain in ascending order of shot length
Hard Day’s Night with every shot equalized to average shot length
If videographic essayists want a seat at the table of Digital Humanities, then they (we) need to start acting as much like digital humanists as video editors. This means sharing data sets (media), open-sourcing tools and thinking in terms of systems, extensibility and interoperability.
Holly Willis | “Writing Images and the Cinematic Humanities” | Dec. 2015
http://scalar.usc.edu/works/critical-interfaces
If humanists are interested in creating in their work with digital technologies - the subjective, inflected, and annotated processes central to humanistic inquiry - they must be committed to designing the digital systems and tools for their future work.
Johanna Drucker Chronicle of Higher Education (2009)
Tara McPherson + Steve Anderson | 2005 http://vectorsjournal.org
Vectors Journal
infrastructure for producing and validating digital scholarship
Erik Loyer | Opertoon
Labyrinth
Marsha Kinder | Labyrinth Research Initiative on Interactive Narrative
The Voyager Company (1984-97)
“a film school in a box”
The Criterion Collection
Institute for the Future of the Book Sophie (2000 - 2010)
Night Kitchen | TK3 1997-2000
Bob Stein
Erik Loyer | Lair of the Marrow Monkey (1998)
Kairos (1996)
New London Group (1994)
(net art)
Electronic Literature Organization (1999)
Charles and Ray Eames
Glimpses of America | 1959
Mathematica | 1961
competing origin myths for DH
Roberto Busa | IBM 705 | 1958
competing origin myths for DH
Computationally augmented research: Arclight / Kinomatics / etc. Mediated / Multi-mediated / Multimodal expression: video essays / Criterion
etc.
Labyrinth / Vectors Media + Computationally augmented authoring: Scalar / MediaThread
ClipsNotes / Difference Analyzer
Foundational access to unlicensed media: Critical Commons
Rebecca Emigh Mary Agnes Krell Jane McGonigal Julian Bleecker
Lisa Lynch Elena Razlogova Melanie Swalwell
Amelie Hastie Rick Prelinger Caren Kaplan
Perry Hoberman Donald Hoffman Anne Friedberg
Eric Faden Trevor Paglen Jennifer Terry
Minoo Moallem Jon Ippolito
Craig Dietrich Greg Smith
Peter Lunenfeld McKenzie Wark
Vectors Journal Ehren Fordyce Gwen Allen Katherine Hayles Alice Gambrell Todd Presner David Lloyd Jeffrey T. Schnapp Kim Christen Chris Cooney Judith Jackson Fossett Caren Kaplan Laura Marks Sharon Daniel David Theo Goldberg Stefka Hristova Mark Kann Wendy Hui Kyong Chun Christian Sandvig Mark Hansen Elizabeth Povinelli Richard Marciano Emily Thompson
Vector Space
experiments with design, affect, interface, publishing models
Vectors Editorial Statement
experiments with medium specificity
Anne Friedberg | Virtual Window Interactive
Melanie Swalwell | Castoffs from the Golden Age
adaptations of cinematic form
David Theo Goldberg | Blue Velvet
Steve Anderson + Erik Loyer | Technologies of History Interactive (2011)
denial of visual pleasure and narrative history
Vectors dynamic indexing
transition from design orientation to information architecture
lowering technological barriers to electronic authoring
lowering legal barriers to electronic authoring
University press partners MIT Press Duke University Press University of California Press University of Michigan Press NYU Press Open Humanities Press
Archive partners
Getty Research Institute Shoah Foundation Hemispheric Institute Huntington Library Internet Archive Critical Commons
Alliance for Networking Visual Culture
Tara McPherson, Steve Anderson, Phil Ethington, Erik Loyer, Craig Dietrich
• “scalable” • free + open source • long-form scholarly argument • media rich + archive-driven • annotation + modularity • close + ‘distant’ reading
Scalar
http://scalar.usc.edu
RDF-based flat ontologies
close + distant reading
• visualization tools for part-whole context • time-based annotations for close textual analysis
American Literature Vol. 85, No.4 (2013) http://scalar.usc.edu/anvc/chaosandcontrol
American Literature Vol. 85, No.4 (2013) http://scalar.usc.edu/anvc/chaosandcontrol
Screening Surveillance (2015)
http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/intransition/2015/03/11/screening-surveillance
Technologies of Vision: The War Between Data and Images (MIT 2017) http://technocinema.net
critical archive video essay print book
It’s all about affordances!
Researching in Public or
What does it mean to “open source” a media-based data set?
MacArthur Digital Media & Learning | Critical Commons | 2008
http://criticalcommons.org
http://criticalcommons.org
fair use advocacy + public media archive
media companions
Television: Critical Methods and Applications Jeremy Butler
Complex TV Jason Mittell
fugitive archives
Economics of Seinfeld | Linda Ghent Fan vids | OTW
In 8 years online, not one DMCA takedown!
Scalar Media Companions Electronic journals
In Media Res
[in]Transition
backend publishing architecture
Technocinema annotated archive: 500+ clips
open (media) data
Difference Analyzer | 2016 Steve Anderson + Chandler McWilliams
http://differenceanalyzer.net
open source VJ mixer for comparative media analysis
http://differenceanalyzer.net
Media Arts + Practice (iMAP) PhD
• practice-based PhD • launched in 2007 • three students per year • humanities research + design + computation
Media Arts + Practice (iMAP) PhD
curriculum visualization by student
iMAP PhD dissertations
Amanda Tasse (poetic science merging game design,
cinema and neurobiology)
Veronica Paredes (interactive cultural history of Broadway theater district in Los Angeles)
Laila Sakr (aka VJ Um Amel) (data visualization, performance, social
media archiving and analytics)
Susana Ruiz (games for change; social justice game design)
iMAP PhD dissertations
Jen Stein (interactive architecture)
Jeff Watson (environmental game design)
Nonny de la Peña (immersive journalism)
Jeanne Jo (feminist-ninja feature film with remixable narrative structure)
Gabriel Peters-Lazaro “In Camera: a video practice of living, learning and connecting”
IMAX dissertation
Samantha Gorman | Pry | 2016
experiments in tactile reading interface
http://scalar.usc.edu