Video Vortex: Ted Sterngast – The aesthetics of videoblogging

Tal Sterngast is the second speaker in the block hosted by Patricia Pisters about online video aesthetics. Sterngast made videos for the German newswebsite Netzeitung named Karasek Speaks from March 2006 till April 2007. She speaks about the program, how the production worked and about how this influenced her work as a media artist.

Two years ago Sterngast was invited by the German newswebsite Netzeitung to do ‘something’ with video. In that time it was not usual to use video on a website. It was in the air that websites were about to use video, but the format was not yet known. Sterngast wanted to make a video column. There was already a column on the website, and Sterngast wanted to make a video along with that text. The column was a weekly book review. So a weekly book review accompanied with a video appeared. The video served as a moving image for the text.

During the presentation, Sterngast shows some of the videos she made. They seem to be very different, but all are starring the writer of the text, mixed with still images from journalists’ archives and other images. Sterngast wanted the clips to function as a small film. So she did not only wanted to film the reviewer, but also mix it with images that would make the story stronger. The movies are a quick and cheap production. This is also shown in the way she films the images. She uses brutal jump cuts, which is perfect for online videos but can never be used for television or film.

Only one question was asked after Sterngast’s talk. How was her work received, both the aesthetics as the content? She received some reactions on her work. These were mainly about how she worked as an artist and why she uses video. The reactions also had to do with her timing, because she was one of the first video bloggers in Germany. She also received nice reactions from authors who wanted her to make a promotion video for their books. These were than send to Youtube. Although this was all new for Germany, Sterngast does not want to call her work experimental.

Her video’s are still on the website. For example this video. Although video blogging is much more used nowadays, Sterngast is still recognizable for her own style.

This diary at Daily Kos confused me at first, because it was completely empty. No title, no text: there was nothing there. But looking at the various tags for the diary makes it clear why:

Justification for Iran War, Justification for IRAQ war, Faith-based diaries, Harry Reid’s Leadership, The Truth about 9-11, Cultists Only, John McCain Policy Map, Obama Madrassa Evidence, Rosemary Woods, 17 minutes of audio tape from the Nixon White House, Huckabee’s Missing Votes, fnord, WMDs, Impeachment Hearings, Subpoena Power, Checks and Balances, Congressional Oversight

The empty diary is now on the recommended list, and users are adding more milk-carton tags as I write.

(I promise my obsession with tagging will be over soon.)

The drone. An unmanned aircraft, flying over enemy territory by itself. Secretly photographing enemy targets. Session moderator Mike Harding vividly explains to the audience at De Balie, during Sonic Acts XII, the properties of the drone, which is, in the first place, this information based weapon system. The drone now has numerous references in modern culture, of which drone music is one.

Harding pours out a hard to find drone of the midshipman fish, courtesy of BBC, which finds its source in the animal kingdom. It is what Harding calls a ‘true drone from the animal kingdom’. It is a continuous sound that doesn’t change much, but Harding is ‘not content with that definition. A sound can change radically but still retain drone qualities. There are no temporal limits on a drone, how short can a drone be? A starting point for a drone could perhaps be, that it is longer than your natural breath.’But drones are not just that. The role of the drone can also be to ‘underpin, or underscore, a composition an an essential part of the orchestra’. A drone can also be a part of a musical instrument in itself, as is evident in Leif Elggren’s Royal Organ.

Von Hausswolff
Definitions of drone music are still fluid, a member of the audience for example pointed that throat singers can not be forgotten in the discourse. But what is drone music according to its musicians? Carl Michael von Hausswolff says: ‘It is silent and beautiful, it can make you stop skiing in the middle of a forest and in that moment you achieve a certain kind of rest. A state that you would like to be in for a long time. You lose a lot of the separation that can stand between yourself as human being and nature. There are no cars rushing by and its a personal dialogue. if you want to use it as a tool for practical living: It helps me understand the processes of life and being alive’.

Von Hausswollf also mentions a connection with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: ‘There is no start, no end. A kind of eternity. You become aware of a flood in your life. It is really stimulating and perhaps a positive way of trying to… well… live’. According to Von Hausswollf, this even applies to a live performance situation, where faders tend to remind you of time. Harding responds by asking if it is perhaps a kind of metastate. Von Hausswollf: ‘If you look at a concept such as transcendental meditation. Perhaps I could do it too, but I’m too western… And I’m too f*cked up to be able to list myself. I try to find other methods to achieve this kind of calm, or… whatever’.

Nordwall
Joachim Nordwall tends to touch upon the other side of the drone music spectrum. Nordwall: ‘How do you make drone? The drone is an illusion of safety for mankind, I like to recreate a certain feeling I had when growing up. The only fun thing of growing up for me was: cheap drugs and some place me and my friend could experiment with analogue synthesizers. There was this mix of drugs and analogue drones. In my work I have realized that I wanted to recreate that room where we grew up. Yesterday (during the Paradiso performance, ed.), I wanted to fill the room with the sound. A drone is convenient to fill up the room, and filling up the room creates a kind of safety. And moreover, that specific room where life was in front of me’.

During live shows, according to Nordwall, a ‘loud volume is important and the physical aspect of the drone is very interesting. To physically feel a change can be more interesting than the mental change. You get a feeling in the stomach. You can feel some parts of the body that sometimes do not exist’. Nordwall mentions Sunn as an example of a band that is enormously loud: ‘It has an effect that will get stuck in your bones for days after’.

In the discussion afterwards, volume levels at live performances sparked an interesting discussion. Is the artist responsible for exposing people to that kind of volume? Undoubtedly, there are physical consequences of sound. However, these consequences are largely unknown to the artist. The Pitch Police says: RESPECT THE HERTZ!

Links
Report by Twan Eikelenboom – newmw.wordpress.com
Photography by Roos Menkman – http://www.flickr.com/photos/r00s

Tim Creswell talks from within a framework of ‘twenty years of thinking about place and mobility.’ His talk at the The Mobile City 2008 conference therefore is less about new technology, but more about political issues and the role power. For this, he outlines three ideas, being the “dromology”, the “social kinetics” and the “kinetic elite”.

The dromology, as discussed by Paul Virilio, is about the power to stop and put into motion, to incarcerate and accelerate objects and people. Social kinetics, mentioned by Norman Bryson, is a field which would chart the history of socially structured movement. The kinetic elite, by Peter Slotendijk, deals with a more or less insulated gorup of people who are able to move around the world at will. Creswell takes up these ideas to think about particularly the politics of moving, and, arguably even more important, the politics of standing still. (Image below by: bgiles1999)

Mobility is experienced differently by many groups. It can be comfortable or free, it can be done by man or woman, by domestic servan or refugee. Creswell takes the example of the Mexican immigrant that is trying to get into the United States. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the world that respects the rich man, the globetrotter, who uses first class cabins and pullman cars.

Consequently, there are certain aspects of mobility. Creswell: ‘It is not just homogenous, but something that has aspects to it to be defined for analytical purposes.’ He defines six aspects. Firstly there is the motive force: Why does a thing move? Creswell: ‘High up, people can choose destinations according to joys they offer, low down people are thrown out of places they would like to stay in.’ Secondly, there is velocity. How fast does a person or thing move? Paul Virilio in this aspect mentioned that the it is the prime engine for historical development. Creswell: The faster we get, the more our freedoms are threatened.Speed doesnt just mean fastness, but also slowness. slowness can be a privelege.’ Thirdly, there is rhythm. With what rhythm does a person or thing move? Rhythm in public space is discussed by Lefebvre. A vivid example of this is gate analysis, for example by individual finger print analysis. Another interesting example of the ministery of silly walks (a reference to the hilarious Monthy Python scene). The mapping of people’s walks, however has been incorporated with cctv, basically to find out who is walking in a funny way.

The fourth is the route, what route does a person or thing take? Creswell mentions Guattari in this aspect. Route is about the channeling of mobility. About producing order and predictability. Highways, highspeed train lines ignore cities in between and routes are turned into dromological space. Fifth: How does it feel? Creswell: ‘Mobility is experienced such as luxury and pampering, think of the economy and business class which gives you more; toilets, internet, movies, etc.’ In earlier ages, walking was for the poor, the criminal, the young and above all the ignorant. Creswell: ‘It was not untill the 19th century that people started to take walking as an end in itself, beyond the confines of the landscaped garden or gallery.’ The sixth aspect of mobility is friction: How does mobility stop? Is stopping a choice, or is it force? New forms are not about the city walls, but about higlhy valued speeds, global interconnections and CCTV. This is also about racial profiling: Blacks are more prone to be stopped by police. And in post 9-11 UK, a man was shot in the head who did not stop in an underground metro station. Creswell: ‘Friction, therefore, is an important component of mobility studies.’

In between all these aspects is the concept of the vagabond: A person with no established home who drifts from place to place without visible or lawful means or support. Creswell takes this back to the origins of the narrative of resistance: In 1599 a Spanish novellist created the picaresque novel which included stories of the vagabond who contradicts with established norms of the homes. A more recent example of the vagabond, Creswell recalls, is the song Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan. An example, also mentioned in Anthony Dunne’s book Hertzian Tales, is that of the homeless vehicle. Creswell: ‘This is an artistic way of bringing to life what would remain invisible. The heroic figure that lives outside of norms and conventions. It is something that challenges expectations within a society.’

Report by Twan Eikelenboom

Although blogs do provide coverage of the struggle of the SGP youth (the most conversative Dutch Christian party), this seems to be a one-sided debate.

The news is clearly stated on the (static) website of the SGP youth (except on sundays), but on the majority of the Dutch blogs there doesn’t seem to a be a single good word for the actions of the Conservative Christian youth of the SGP just a couple of days before her concert in the Amsterdam Arena. Their actions include the sueing of Madonna for the part of the show in which she is hanging on the cross. (Rest of the post in Dutch)

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Concise conspiracy guide to the web

Films
‘Loose change’ – www.loosechange911.com
‘Martial Law’ – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6517776133137328105&q=alex+jones
‘Everybody’s got to learn sometime’ – http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8372366181300641663

Sites on conspiracy
www.ditkannietwaarzijn.nl
www.vkmag.com/zapruder/C50
www.daanspeak.com/1/911.html
www.911review.org
www.911blogger.com
www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
www.rense.com/general66/dirt.htm
www.pentagonresearch.com
www.911truth.org
www.st911.org

Sites that go against conspiracy theories
www.911myths.com
www.911getthefacts.blogspot.com
www.geocities.com/debunking911/pull.htm
www.lolloosechange.co.nr
www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

Fragment ‘de leugen regeert‘ (Vara 08-09-2006)