Tag / week 8

by amandathai

Assignment 2 – Review

Name: Amanda Thai s3656343

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services

Blog Posts

Week 5 (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/amanda-thai/2018/08/15/week-5-jerry-uelsmanns-untitled/)

Week 6 (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/amanda-thai/2018/08/22/week-6-the-hills-are-alive/)

Week 7 (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/amanda-thai/2018/09/05/week-7-intimacy-and-instagram/)

Week 8 (http://www.mediafactory.org.au/amanda-thai/2018/09/11/week-8-online-video-and-being-human/)

Review

Word Count: 1065

1. Provide your own definition (in your own words) on ‘photography’ in relation to legacy and online media, by referring to the readings, additional research and the practice analyses completed in your blog.

Photography can be defined as a visual medium that involves the active capture of instants in time and space and preserving them in still images. If life is like a mediation, a photo is the ‘active practice of cutting through the flow of mediation’ (Zylinska 2016, p.13). Ubiquitous both in art and social media (Wells 2015), the image has become an integral communicative device of our culture, one that has evolved through advances in technology. In the age of legacy media, photography was elite and exclusive, open only to those with the training, resources and money to support such a new and experimental medium, one that required bulky equipment and a specialised darkroom for developing. In legacy photography, especially in journalism, the photo had an ‘assumed power of accurate, dispassionate recording’ (Wells 2015, p.14) and was almost omnipotent in how it could capture ‘information beyond that which concerned the photographer’ (Wells 2015, p.17). Plenty stock was placed in its objectivity and impartiality. In the age of online media however, after the disillusionment of modernism, photography also considers the source, purpose and circumstances of a photo, rather than viewing it as representative of absolute truth (Wells 2015). Online photography is democratic (Wells 2015), available to more than just the wealthy. When absolute truth is disregarded, photography allows the world to be viewed from alternate perspectives (Wells 2015).

2. Provide your own definition (in your own words) on ‘video practice’ in relation to legacy and online media, by referring to the readings, additional research and the practice analyses completed in your blog.

Video practice can be defined similar to photography as a medium that captures audio-visual data in a moving image, accompanied by sound. In the era of legacy video practice, film and television were the dominant forms of video, ‘a centralised, one-to-many broadcast medium’ (Sherman 2008, p.161). However, the advent of Sony’s portable video cameras allowed artists and social activists to use video practice as a way to circumvent and challenge the commercialised central narratives and instead allow a wider scope of representation (Horsfield 2006). Legacy video practice was valued for its ‘straight-from-the-scene authenticity’ (Horsfield 2006, p.3), in opposition to the government and corporate controlled television of the time. Still, it was considered ‘alternative media, using television-based technology to record images of their own choosing’ (Horsfield 2006, p.2). However, video practice evolved along with, or perhaps in demand of, new technologies. With smartphones and their ability to record, display and distribute video effortlessly and at no cost, video has become ‘the vernacular form of the era – it is the common and everyday way that people communicate’ (Sherman 2008, p.161). It functions almost like a new visual language as sometimes entire online conversations can be had using only short video clips like GIFs. Video practice has grown to encompass a culture of participation, from the pre-YouTube videoblogging to modern Instagram and Snapchat stories. Interestingly enough, where video practice once rebelled against the corporate and commercial, now, as it becomes more ingrained in our culture, we are witnessing ‘a shift in digital video consumption from amateur to professional, often corporate sponsored, content’ (Berry 2018, p.9), evident in the sponsorship of popular Instagrammers.

3. What differences and similarities did you discover between the way legacy and online photos are authored, published and distributed?

Legacy photography was often authored with extreme care and concern, as film was expensive and the amount of shots available were limited. It was an art reserved for the rich and technologically savvy. Post production editing, like that done by Jerry Uelsmann, was also time-consuming and difficult. In online photography, ‘we take for granted the seemingly unlimited storage aspects for photo and video’ (Berry 2018, p.8) and hence the authoring of online photos requires less care in the actual act of capturing. Even so, the idea of capturing a snapshot of life continues to prevail. Unlike legacy photography, the ubiquity of smartphones and their attached cameras lowers the entry barrier for online photography, allowing a wider variety of authors. In both types, the authoring process is in some way affected by commercial potential, either in a future gallery or Instagram sponsorship.

The avenues for publication of online photography are much wider and more abundant than they were during legacy photography. Legacy photos were often displayed in print, either in books or galleries. Online photos can be published on the very same device that took them through a multitude of apps and platforms.

In terms of distribution, online photography dissolves any delay between them. People can be notified the instant a photo is posted and they can immediately hold a digital copy on their iPhones, as opposed to legacy photos, displayed in galleries that people have to physically transport themselves to.

Though there are many differences between legacy and online photos, one similarity is their intimacy and tactility. Where legacy photography had physical prints and photo albums, the iPhone, with its touchscreen display has reinvented this tactility and has become ‘a miniature photo album that can be passed around the dinner table with friends’ (Palmer 2014, p.248).

4. What differences and similarities did you discover between the way legacy and online videos are authored, published and distributed?

Authoring legacy video required a huge amount of equipment and expertise, elevating the entry barriers significantly. With smartphones, nearly everyone can author online video. However, where legacy video was mostly concerned with subverting the commercial and corporate, now, online video has become a major avenue for sponsorship and native advertising. Both types provide a method for challenging the dominant cultural canons (Horsfield 2006). In terms of editing, where legacy video required designated equipment and often the help of a specialist, the smartphone and its apps afford editing on the same device that took the video.

Like legacy photography, legacy video was often treated like art and hence it was often published through galleries in the form of exhibitions. In online video, because the camera and communication device are combined, videos can be published immediately after being taken and to a variety of platforms.

Legacy video’s gallery exhibitions were often limited to a few months, much like art, and required a viewer to physically transport themselves to a designated place of viewing, or, in the case of films, own a physical copy on bulky VHS or DVD. In online video, distribution is instantaneous and people can view a copy of the video with only a smartphone. Also, due to the vast storage space available today, online videos published can stay on platforms of distribution for years to come, allowing people to discover it years after publication. However, both legacy and online video ‘depend entirely on physical technology both during production, distribution and consumption’ (Berry 2018, p.19). Legacy video required rolls of film, projectors, and galleries but even online videos require hard drives and smartphones.

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References

Horsfield, K 2006, Busting the Tube: A Brief History of Video Art, Video Data Bank, School of Art Institute of Chicago.

Palmer, D 2014, “Mobile Media Photography”, The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, pp.245-255.

Sherman, T 2008, “Vernacular Video”, Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, pp.161-168.

Wells, L 2015, Photography: A Critical Introduction, 5th ed, Routledge, New York.

Zylinska, J 2016, ‘Photomediations: An Introduction by Joanna Zylinska’, Photomediations: A Reader, Open Humanities Press, http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/photomediations/.

by amandathai

Week 8: Online Video and Being Human

Like last week, I had to go out and find this Instagram videographer. Once again, back to the listicles. This practitioner was number 4 on a list of ‘5 Video Artists to Follow on Instagram’.

The video I have chosen to analyse is this:

Source

Why did I choose this video? It had a simple aesthetic and theme, however the production looked intricate, almost magical. I found its message, ‘let your light shine’, sweet and uplifting.

Who is the practitioner (what is their name?) and when were they practicing?

This Instagram animator and illustrator is named Rachel Ryle and she has been active since 2014. The video can be found at the link above.

With the photo or video you are examining, when was it produced (date)?

Rachel Ryle posted this video to her Instagram account @rachelryle on the 15th of June 2016, but due to the time and work required for a stop motion video, production probably began days or weeks prior to publication. (That alliteration!)

How was the photo or video authored?

Rachel Ryle created this stop motion video by drawing on physical paper and capturing it frame by frame from a top-down angle. She has used cutouts of illustrations like the projector and projector screen to make her illustrations move across the white background and she has also utilised small lights to illuminate the light bulb and projector.

The video has been captured in the square format popularised by Instagram and in the top left corner is her website URL, presumably added in during post-production.

The caption of this video is emotional and personal, speaking of the Orlando shootings that occured around the time of posting and also of Ryle’s own fear of her first Father’s Day without her father.

What I find most interesting about the authoring of this video is that really, it’s just a bunch of photos, but put one after another, they create a time sequence, a video. It’s photos becoming video. Additionally, it uses stop motion, a very old method of animation, yet it was published on Instagram, the epitome of modern online video.

How was the photo or video published?

This video was published on Rachel Ryle’s Instagram (@rachelryle) on the 15th of June 2016. It was also posted to Rachel Ryle’s YouTube account on the same day, with the title ‘Let It Shine! – Stop Motion Animation by Rachel Ryle’. Additionally, the YouTube video was embed in a post on Rachel Ryle’s website. As she also has a Facebook and Twitter account, I presume she posted the video (or links to other publications of the video) on those platforms too.

In this article about Rachel Ryle on Tech.Co, I discovered that she has a background in marketing and partnering with brands, one that she combined with her art and Instagram’s then-new video affordances to create beautiful and viral online videos. As the ‘internet continues to move in a more commercial direction’ (Berry 2018, p.9), it was this background that allowed Ryle to be an Instagram illustrator and animator full-time.

How was the photo or video distributed?

Because of the variety of platforms Ryle posted her video on, it would’ve reached a wide audience almost instantaneously. As I mentioned in last week’s post, thanks to smartphones, people can literally hold a copy of this video the second it is published. Online media makes publishing and distributing almost one and the same.

Often ‘we take for granted the delivery of different media forms streaming seamlessly across the web, just as much as we take for granted the seemingly unlimited storage aspects for photo and video’ (Berry 2018, p.8). Over two years after publication, I easily found Ryle’s video, on Instagram, YouTube, and her website. With the affordances of the internet, not only can people access content immediately after it is published, they can also continue to access it for years to come.

 

For my final thought: In this week’s reading, Berry (2018) writes that ‘videoblogs depend entirely on physical technology both during production, distribution and consumption’ (Berry 2018, p.19). And that’s the case for this video too. This video was produced frame by frame, with drawings done on old school pen and paper. Though the video file itself may be intangible, just a bunch of numbers, those numbers have to be stored on a hard drive. I have no idea how hard drives work. Maybe Rachel Ryle has no idea how hard drives work either. But regardless, we depend on its ‘materiality, and it’s [sic] stability, for [our] work’ (Berry 2018, p.19). Not only is the video stored on physical devices, it is also distributed and consumed on them.

I think it’s remarkably interesting that despite the growing intangibility of our data, stored in a cloud, our relationships, suspended in text bubbles, and our identities, defined by pages on various websites, we keep returning to the physical plane, the space where our bodies exist and play and interact.

It’s so very human and I think it’s lovely.

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References:

Berry, T 2018, ‘Situating Videoblogging’, Videoblogging Before YouTube, Institute of Network Cultures.