"It is enough to conjecture that a film need not be an aesthetic or scientific performance: it can become the arena of an inquiry." (128)
"Thus the observational filmmaker finds himself cut off from many of the channels that normally characterize human inquiry. He is dependent for his understanding (or for the understanding of his audience) upon the unprovoked ways in which his subjects manifest the patterns of their lives during the moments he is filming them. He is denied access to anything they know but take for granted, anything latent in their culture which events do not bring to the surface." (124)
"The viewfinder of the camera, one could say, has the opposite function of the gunsight that a soldier levels at his enemy. The latter frames an image for annihilation; the former frames an image for preservation, thereby annihilating the surrounding multitude of images which could have been formed at that precise point in time and space." (123)
"Invisibility and omniscience. From this desire it is not a great leap to begin viewing the camera as a secret weapon in the pursuit of knowledge." (120)
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Lecture on Nothing
"Structure is simple be-cause it can be thought out, figured out, measured. It is a discipline which, accepted, in return accepts whatever, even those rare moments of ecstasy, which, as sugar loaves train horses, train us to make what we make."
"Structure without life is dead. But Life without structure is unseen. Pure life expresses itself within and through structure. Each moment is absolute, alive and significant."
"Clearly we are beginning to get nowhere."
Benjamin Walter - Illuminations
"The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced." (221)
"One might subsume the eliminated element in the term "aura" and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." (221)
"One might subsume the eliminated element in the term "aura" and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art." (221)
The Politics of Hearing
"Music is supposed to bring out the spontaneous, essentially human element in its listeners and in virtually all human relations." (74)
"The greater the drabness of this existence, the sweeter the melody. The underlying need expressed by this inconsistency springs from the frustrations imposed on the masses of the people by social conditions." (74)
"Music as an art has always been an attempt to circumvent this taboo, to transform the indolence, dreaminess, and dullness of the ear into a matter of concentration, effort, and serious work. Today indolence is not so much overcome as it is managed and enhanced scientifically." (75)
"The greater the drabness of this existence, the sweeter the melody. The underlying need expressed by this inconsistency springs from the frustrations imposed on the masses of the people by social conditions." (74)
"Music as an art has always been an attempt to circumvent this taboo, to transform the indolence, dreaminess, and dullness of the ear into a matter of concentration, effort, and serious work. Today indolence is not so much overcome as it is managed and enhanced scientifically." (75)
The Unspoken Thing - Tom Wolfe
"To put it into so many words, to define it, was to limit it. If it's this, then it can't be that... Yet there it was!" (126)
"We are Beautiful People, ascendent from your robot junkyard::::::" (135)
"Huge stripes of Day-Glo green and orange ran up the soaring redwoods and gleamed out at dusk as if Nature had said at last, Aw freak it, and had freaked out." (138)
"There are historical and social lags, where people are living by what their ancestors or somebody else perceived, and they may be twenty-five or fifty years or centuries behind, and nobody can be creative without overcoming all those lags first of all." (145)
"We are Beautiful People, ascendent from your robot junkyard::::::" (135)
"Huge stripes of Day-Glo green and orange ran up the soaring redwoods and gleamed out at dusk as if Nature had said at last, Aw freak it, and had freaked out." (138)
"There are historical and social lags, where people are living by what their ancestors or somebody else perceived, and they may be twenty-five or fifty years or centuries behind, and nobody can be creative without overcoming all those lags first of all." (145)
Turning on the World - Timothy Leary
"...and they were continually disappointed to discover that human society didn't want to have its mind changed..." (331)
"...and told about how the machines complicate our lives and how cold and hot were abstractions and how we didn't really need houses and shoes and clothes because it was just our concepts that made us think we needed these things." (337)
"I've come down to preach love to the world. We're going to walk through the streets and teach people to stop hating. I DECIDED I MIGHT AS WELL BE THE ONE TO DO SO-PRONOUNCED MY NAKEDNESS AS THE FIRST ACT OF REVOLUTION AGAINST THE DESTROYERS OF THE HUMAN IMAGE." (338)
"...and told about how the machines complicate our lives and how cold and hot were abstractions and how we didn't really need houses and shoes and clothes because it was just our concepts that made us think we needed these things." (337)
"I've come down to preach love to the world. We're going to walk through the streets and teach people to stop hating. I DECIDED I MIGHT AS WELL BE THE ONE TO DO SO-PRONOUNCED MY NAKEDNESS AS THE FIRST ACT OF REVOLUTION AGAINST THE DESTROYERS OF THE HUMAN IMAGE." (338)
The Possibilian
"Clocks offer at best a convenient fiction, he says. They imply that time ticks steadily, predictably forward, when our experience shows that time often does the opposite: it stretches and compresses, skips a beat and doubles back."
"How much of what we perceive exists outside of us and how much is a product of our minds?"
"'What if we were to land on a planet with aliens who live at a different time scale from us?' he asked me at one point. 'Would we seem like statues to them the way trees do to us?'"
"Time and memory are so tightly intertwined that they may be impossible to tease apart."
"I'm just celebrating the vastness of our ignorance."
"How much of what we perceive exists outside of us and how much is a product of our minds?"
"'What if we were to land on a planet with aliens who live at a different time scale from us?' he asked me at one point. 'Would we seem like statues to them the way trees do to us?'"
"Time and memory are so tightly intertwined that they may be impossible to tease apart."
"I'm just celebrating the vastness of our ignorance."
Repeated Takes - Michael Chanan
"'I am astonished and somewhat terrified at the results of this evening's experiment -- astonished at the wonderful power you have developed, and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be on record forever!'"(26) --Arthur Sullivan
"The telegraph was the first technology to establish information as a commodity by measuring it." (32)
"The phonograph industry, however, was to follow a different pattern from photography. The photograph, once it is printed, no longer needs the camera. In the case of the phonogram, the recording is of no use without the instrument to play it on. The difference is significant." (32)
"The telegraph was the first technology to establish information as a commodity by measuring it." (32)
"The phonograph industry, however, was to follow a different pattern from photography. The photograph, once it is printed, no longer needs the camera. In the case of the phonogram, the recording is of no use without the instrument to play it on. The difference is significant." (32)
The Fact of Blackness
"I found that I was an object in the midst of other objects." (109)
"Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to tears, but laughter had become impossible." (112)
"When people like me, they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that ti is not because of my color. Either way, I am locked into the infernal circle." (116)
"The Negro is a toy in the white man's hands; so, in order to shatter the hellish cycle, he explodes." (140)
"Frightened! Now they were beginning to be afraid of me. I made up my mind to laugh myself to tears, but laughter had become impossible." (112)
"When people like me, they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that ti is not because of my color. Either way, I am locked into the infernal circle." (116)
"The Negro is a toy in the white man's hands; so, in order to shatter the hellish cycle, he explodes." (140)
Freire -- Education for Critical Conciousness
"The ordinary person is crushed, diminished, converted into a spectator, maneuvered by myths which powerful social forces have created. These myths turn against him; they destroy and annihilate him. Tragically frightened, men fear authentic relationships and even doubt the possibility of their existence." (5)
"Perhaps the greatest tragedy of modern man is his domination by the force of these myths and his manipulation by organized advertising, ideological or otherwise." (5)
"Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen. It is predominantly critical, loving, humble, and communicative, and therefore a positive stance. The man who has made a radical option does not deny another man's right to choose, nor does he try to impose his own choice. He can discuss their respective positions. He is convinced he is right, but respects another man's prerogative to judge himself correct. He tries to convince and convert, not to crush his opponent. The radical does, however, have the duty, imposed by love itself, to react against the violence of those who try to silence him-of those who, in the name of freedom, kill his freedom and their own. To be radical does not imply self-flagellation. Radicals cannot passively accept a situation in which the excessive power of a few leads to the dehumanization of all. " (9)
"Perhaps the greatest tragedy of modern man is his domination by the force of these myths and his manipulation by organized advertising, ideological or otherwise." (5)
"Radicalization involves increased commitment to the position one has chosen. It is predominantly critical, loving, humble, and communicative, and therefore a positive stance. The man who has made a radical option does not deny another man's right to choose, nor does he try to impose his own choice. He can discuss their respective positions. He is convinced he is right, but respects another man's prerogative to judge himself correct. He tries to convince and convert, not to crush his opponent. The radical does, however, have the duty, imposed by love itself, to react against the violence of those who try to silence him-of those who, in the name of freedom, kill his freedom and their own. To be radical does not imply self-flagellation. Radicals cannot passively accept a situation in which the excessive power of a few leads to the dehumanization of all. " (9)
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
On Contradictions
“One of the ways out of a contradiction is innovation. We
can adapt our ideas and practices to new circumstances and learn to be a far
better and more tolerant person from the experience.” (3)
“There is a powerful subjective element in defining and
feeling the power of contradictions” (3)
"At the outset, however, I must first open up what is
perhaps the most important contradictions of all: that between reality and
appearance in the world in which we live." (4)
“Rarely is it the case that what is created and what is
destroyed is predetermined and rarely is it the case that everything that is
created is bad and everything that was good was destroyed… Crises are moments
of transformation in which capital typically reinvents itself and morphs into
something else.” (4)
“’If everything were as it appeared on the surface,’ [Marx]
wrote, ‘there would be no need for science.’” (4)
Phenemonology
"...cognition
is a faculty of a definite kind of scope, and thus, without a more precise
definition of its nature and limits, we might grasp clouds of error instead of
the heaven of truth." (46)
"…instead of
putting up with excuses which create the incapacity of Science by assuming
relationships of this kind in order to be exempt from the hard work of Science,
while at the same time giving the impression of working seriously and
zealously; instead of bothering to refute all these ideas, we could reject them
out of hand as adventitious and arbitrary…" (48)
"... the resolve, in Science, not to give oneself over
to the thoughts of others, upon mere authority, but to examine everything for
oneself and follow only one's own conviction, or better still, to produce
everything oneself, and accept only one's own deed as what is true." (50)
“For an
examination consists in applying an accepted standard, and in determining
whether something is right or wrong on the basis of the resulting agreement or
disagreement of the thing examined…” (52)
“If we designate
knowledge as the Notion, but the essence or the True as what exists, or the
object, then the examination consists in seeing whether the Notion corresponds
to the object. “ (53)
The Doors of Perception
We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. (12)
From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." (13)
A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St. Michael and all the angels. (28)
However expressive, symbols can never be the things they stand for. (29)
"One ought to be able" I said, "to see these trousers as infinitely important and human beings as still more infinitely important." (35)
Vermeer never asked his girls to look like apples. On the contrary, he insisted on their being girls to the very limit--but always with the proviso that they refrain from behaving girlishly. (38-39)
All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all. (52)
"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be a proof of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot." (57)
From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes. Most island universes are sufficiently like one another to permit of inferential understanding or even of mutual empathy or "feeling into." (13)
A rose is a rose is a rose. But these chair legs were chair legs were St. Michael and all the angels. (28)
However expressive, symbols can never be the things they stand for. (29)
"One ought to be able" I said, "to see these trousers as infinitely important and human beings as still more infinitely important." (35)
Vermeer never asked his girls to look like apples. On the contrary, he insisted on their being girls to the very limit--but always with the proviso that they refrain from behaving girlishly. (38-39)
All that the conscious ego can do is to formulate wishes, which are then carried out by forces which it controls very little and understands not at all. (52)
"If you started in the wrong way," I said in answer to the investigator's questions, "everything that happened would be a proof of the conspiracy against you. It would all be self-validating. You couldn't draw a breath without knowing it was part of the plot." (57)
Monday, October 5, 2015
Marx
...the worker sinks to the level of commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities... (70)
But the estrangement is manifested not only in the result but in the act of production--within the producing activity itself. How would the worker come to face the product of his activity as a stranger, were it not that in the very act of production he was estranging himself from himself? (73)
Man is a species being, not only because in practice and in theory he adopts the species as his object (his own as well as those of other things), but--and this is only another way of expressing it--but also because he treats himself as the actual, living species; because he treats himself as a universal and therefore a free being. (75)
Appropriation appears as estrangement, as alienation; and alienation appears as appropriation, estrangement as true enfranchisement. (81)
Slouka: Listening for Silence
...silence, like light or love, requires a medium to give it meaning, takes on the color of its host, adapts easily to our fears and needs. (40)
As silence disappears, the world draws tighter, borders collapse, the public and private bleed and intermix. (41)
The harvest of dictatorship, properly understood, is not death, but silence. (43)
Art, whatever its medium, attempts to force a wedge beneath the closed lid of the world, and fails; the artist, in his or her minutes and seconds, attempts to say--to paint, to carve; in sum, to communicate--what ultimately cannot be communicated. (44)
Galileo
Gawking is not seeing. (49)
Because we are like the worms who are little and have dim eyes and can hardly see the stars at all, and the new astronomy is a framework of guesses or very little more--yet. (50)
We are aware that there are phenomena which are beyond us, but man can't expect to understand everything. (72)
It is not given to man to know the truth: it is granted to him to seek after the truth. (79)
Beaten humanity can lift its head. A man has stood up and said No. (113)
"Unhappy is the land that breeds no hero."
"Unhappy is the land that needs a hero." (115)
This age of ours turned out to be a whore, spattered with blood. Maybe, new ages look like blood-spattered whores. (124)
Kino-Eye
The most scrupulous examination does not reveal a single film, a single artistic experiment, properly directed to the emancipation of the camera, which is reduced to a state of pitiable slavery, of subordination to the imperfections and the shortsightedness of the human eye. (14)
We therefore take as the point of departure the use of the camera as a kino-eye, more perfect than the human eye, for the exploration of the chaos of visual phenomena that fills space. (15)
I am kino-eye. I am a builder. (17)
I, a machine, show you the world as only I can see it. (17)
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Frankenstein (Pt. 2)
I am malicious because I am miserable. (104)
My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union. (109)
But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and intolerable to myself. (116-117)
All my speculation and hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. (157)
..but, I fear, I have gained him only to know his value, and lose him. (157)
My future hopes and prospects are entirely bound up in the expectation of our union. (109)
But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others, and intolerable to myself. (116-117)
All my speculation and hopes are as nothing; and, like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. (157)
..but, I fear, I have gained him only to know his value, and lose him. (157)
Monday, September 28, 2015
Frankenstein (Pt. 1)
I was required to exchange chimeras of boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. (27)
So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein, --more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. (28)
The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact. (50)
Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom you art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. (68)
[I didn't have any idea that Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the monster, until somewhere around chapter six... the second quote listed, therefore, only made any sense to me upon later reflection...Monsieur Frankenstein reads so strangely! Pop culture has done me a general disservice--but Rocky Horror naming makes much more sense now.]
So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of Frankenstein, --more, far more, will I achieve: treading in the steps already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. (28)
The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact. (50)
Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom you art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us. (68)
[I didn't have any idea that Frankenstein was the name of the scientist, not the monster, until somewhere around chapter six... the second quote listed, therefore, only made any sense to me upon later reflection...Monsieur Frankenstein reads so strangely! Pop culture has done me a general disservice--but Rocky Horror naming makes much more sense now.]
Sound
What is sound? What is listening?
Sound aides you in experiencing emotion. It reveals distance and indicates your surroundings.
Listening is devoting your attention to the sounds around you.
What is your earliest memory of sound? How do you feel about it now?
I think one of my earliest memories of sounds comes from around the age of four or five. At that time in my life, my dad used to travel throughout California to attend conferences and would often get home late at night/early in the morning. I remember trying to stay up throughout the night so I could be assured he would get home safely, listening to the creaks in the house and the cats moving around, waiting for the noise of the car pulling in the driveway, the keys in the lock, the door squealing open to let me know that he was home.
Do you listen for sound in your dreams? What do you hear?
I can't recall ever hearing sound in my dream, or at least I can't recall it when I wake up. People talk a lot in my dreams, but I can't ever remember the sound of their voices, just the words they say.
Can you describe a rhythm pattern in your daily life?
The sound of the AC sets the rhythm of my life in my dorm. on/off/on/off to beat the heat but spare energy.
My life back home it's easier to describe a pattern to. Here it's more spontaneous and set by the random noises of the people who happen to be near me.
What sound fascinates you?
The sound of the wind, the sound of the oceans. Sounds that seem repetitive but really are not. The sound of the birds especially!!! The sound of the elevator because it constantly seems on the brink of destruction and it terrifies me.
Sound aides you in experiencing emotion. It reveals distance and indicates your surroundings.
Listening is devoting your attention to the sounds around you.
What is your earliest memory of sound? How do you feel about it now?
I think one of my earliest memories of sounds comes from around the age of four or five. At that time in my life, my dad used to travel throughout California to attend conferences and would often get home late at night/early in the morning. I remember trying to stay up throughout the night so I could be assured he would get home safely, listening to the creaks in the house and the cats moving around, waiting for the noise of the car pulling in the driveway, the keys in the lock, the door squealing open to let me know that he was home.
Do you listen for sound in your dreams? What do you hear?
I can't recall ever hearing sound in my dream, or at least I can't recall it when I wake up. People talk a lot in my dreams, but I can't ever remember the sound of their voices, just the words they say.
Can you describe a rhythm pattern in your daily life?
The sound of the AC sets the rhythm of my life in my dorm. on/off/on/off to beat the heat but spare energy.
My life back home it's easier to describe a pattern to. Here it's more spontaneous and set by the random noises of the people who happen to be near me.
What sound fascinates you?
The sound of the wind, the sound of the oceans. Sounds that seem repetitive but really are not. The sound of the birds especially!!! The sound of the elevator because it constantly seems on the brink of destruction and it terrifies me.
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