Korsakow is an interactive software program that was built in Java and was invented by Florian Thalhofer, a German media artist. The program involves the audience to be active participants in order to view multilinear documentary Korsakow films that can be experimental in nature, to view a Korsakow film, the viewer selects an individual scene that relates to each of the other scenes through forms such as pattern, for example, shapes, lighting or an idea. The viewer may view each of the scenes more than once if they desire to obtain an indication of what the film is about, that depends on the author of the film who sets the limitation for the amount of times the viewer is able to watch the scene again.

 The Korsakow film ‘Love’ made in 2013 was created by Ka Mun Chen, Inocensius Valentino, Nikki Liu, and Rachel Moreira in Melbourne, Australia, the pattern that the film Love explored is list. A list is a series of things that is either grouped or categorised together to make sense, for example, a list of cassettes and a list of VIP guests in a function. Ian Bogost, a media scholar, proposes an ontographical method about lists, he argues that ‘language generally puts the signs that signify objects or things into certain associations with one another’ (Bogost, pp. 39), that is so we are able to clarify certain things and characterise them also.

 The subject of love is a constant theme in the film. The makers of the film used vox populi to interview people in different areas in the Melbourne CBD on the topic of love. There are relatively equal participants of both genders female and male with varying age groups from young people, middle age-people and to the elderly from diverse cultural backgrounds that are subjects in this film. The questions that the makers of the film asked to the general public may be, ‘what is love?’, ‘what is the meaning of love?’, ‘what does love mean to you?’ and/or ‘What are the five things you love?’.

 There is a clear correlation between the framing of the shots and the list of the subject’s answers on the topic of love. The framing of the scenes are shot tightly and the sound recorded is slightly muffed due background noise in the environment that subjects were in. There are three distinct shots that stand out including a close-up shot of the subject’s eyes, nose and forehead (upper half of the face), a close-up shot of the subject’s nose, mouth and chin (lower half of the face) and a mid close-up shot of the subjects chest – no neck and no waist – (upper body), other shots includes mid-shots and two shots. There is a scene of a heavily pregnant woman shot with a mid close-up of her belly indicating that love making concluded with conceiving her baby, there is also scene of an elderly couple with years of experience defining what love is.

 The interface guides the viewer to watch a variety of subjects being asked different questions about love. The larger scene is systematically related to each of the other scenes with a smaller aspect ratio in the interface and the subject’s responses are interlinked with one another. Bogost considers lists as ‘perfect tools to free us from the prison of representation’ (Bogost, pp. 40), that is, people may not fully recognise the underlining idea that may be meant to be explored further, what something means in a media text may essentially mean something else. The interface is easy to grasp and simple to navigate, this makes it straightforward for the viewer to understand what links the keywords to the scenes, the viewer gets a sense of the pattern of list as the they continue to click on more clips as they go along and watch the film.

 The Korsakow interface in the film consists of four individual displays that the viewer can click on, there is one larger clip with a greater aspect ratio on the left hand side and three smaller clips with a smaller aspect ratio on the right hand side of the larger clip. A Korsakow interface are arrangements that the ‘viewer sees when the film plays in the web browser’ (Korsakow). At the start of Love, a fast sequence of shots with female subjects defining one word that is associated with love can be viewed once. After the sequence stops, there is ‘Click To Start’ text button situated underneath the large clip that the viewer clicks on which leads to the text ‘Take Your Pick’, the viewer then chooses one of three clips to watch by clicking the clip. Each clip is balanced out by the keywords that are associated with that clip such as the keywords may include different shot sizes and a list of things that the subject loves.

 There are various perceptions of what people in the Melbourne CBD thoughts are on the idea of love. The film touches upon the notion of the Biblical passage ‘love is patient, love is kind’ (New International Version, pp. 1754) as there are a couple scenes that have similar explanations of what love is. Some subjects in some scenes lists the things of what they think love is, such as what they want from love, the comparison of love to something, for example, giving someone a glass of water when they are thirsty is an act of love, different people have different meanings about what love is but as a whole, the film interprets that love is positive and hopeful.

Bibliography:

Bogost, I. ‘Ontography’, Alien Phenomenology, or, What It’s Like to Be a Thing. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2012, pp. 39-40.

Bordwell, D, Thompson, K, 2013, ‘Framing’, Film Art: An Introduction, 10th Edn, McGraw-Hill, New York, USA, pp. 190.

Chen, KM, Valentino, I, Liu, N, & Moreira, R, 2013, ‘Love’, Vogmae, Korsakow, viewed 26 March 2014,

<http://vogmae.net.au/classworks/2013/Love.html>

Korsakow, ‘About’, Korsakow, 25 March 2014,

<http://korsakow.org/about/>

Korsakow, ‘Manual’, Korsakow, 25 March 2014,

<http://korsakow.org/learn/manual/>

Reflecting God Study Bible: New International Version (NIV), Grand Rapids, Michigan, Zondervan, 2000, pp. 1754.