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history of the entire world, i guess
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Author Archives: samuelharris
He Taught With a Cookie in His Hand
My brain is static. Something about the lights in the classroom turns my vision into noise. Maybe it’s got something to do with the caffeine too, rendering my memory dust.
Adrian opened class with another talk; he says computers down but I feel like I need to take notes because my brain is turning to shreds. By the time he’s spitting out points I feel are important and want to take down, they dissolve from memory. I need more sleep. I need to see a chiropractor.
I tried to remember key sentences but they went away. I tried to think of impressive blog post titles but they went away. Thursdays are usually the day when I channel my blog writing but today ain’t that day. Brain fried. Memory……. fading. Things about romanticised individual ideas, the notion that all ideas are already taken and our job is to find the relations between them, marry them to form something that’s your own.
Something about risks. Take them. An answer to the mind-numbing question that your girlfriend’s parents are always asking: what are you gonna be when you grow up? Where does your course lead? What are your options? The answer really is “I don’t know” – keep your prejudices at bay. You don’t know where you’ll end up. You don’t know how this landscape is going to look in 5 years.
Note: sleep more, take more notes, learn a thing or two.
I don’t even like cats. EDIT: I love them after this
“What is it to make a film from the cat’s point of view?” — Alexander Hammid and Maya Deren did it 70 years ago. Watch.
Participation, better than you’d think
It’s been a while my friend.
Participation for this studio has definitely gone up. From the painfully lacklustre last few weeks of minimal contribution (and maximum time wasting) I find myself back in the routine again. The pre-assignment submission rush is an exhilarating time (and of course, stressful – controlled stress this time, schedules have been figured out and sleep is a little more wholesome) but the flurry of collaboration is a refreshing change from the usual self-submission rush. Pats on the back do nicely, and a completed piece that everyone is happy with is even better. The scraps I do remember from my initial participation criteria are fairly basic scraps and probably need reworking (is it too late at this point? can I ramp up my participation to compensate?). Let’s see:
- Make notes on the readings
Zzz. Boring. You’re meant to do this regardless, ya idiot. How about: read the reading twice, and make notes only on the second time (unless it’s really really long and impractical to get around to, or, you’re really confident you know what’s important in the reading and the only way to make the highlighter in your hand stop trembling is to let it take its course on the page). Ah: much better, though probably a few weeks late. The new ’20 things you don’t know’ method has worked wonders for my participation in this. I don’t know anything!
- Socialise – make an effort to talk to others
This has worked in part. Considering groups were made and that’s where most of our/my time is concentrated, I’ll give this a tick. I feel more comfortable in class now than in the first few weeks. Thanks, group. Effort made.
- Start assignments earlier
Sigh. “I swear I’ll do better next time!” — time flies, huh?
- Familiarise myself with content, definitions, concepts
Ok, I like this. This can definitely be extended to: gain a better understand of the world: how we operate as humans, which systems are at work, what does what, who is who, how selfish really are we, and how can I make real the learning I do in this class? I’ll admit, this studio really threw a spanner in the works (cool blog title, huh). But in 9 weeks, I’ve learned not only what a spanner is, but learned how to properly bend down, pick it up, and to use it for purposes beyond being thrown. This studio changed my life, all cliches aside.
- Refine documenting/filmmaking skills
Less refine, more understand how to properly use the formal elements of the screen or of the sound and use these in the creation of small scale media used to represent an idea, or place, or thing, and of course, it’s relations. And hey, stories! you suck! (alright, you don’t suck, but you’ve had your time to shine. Time to pass the baton).
RE
Who gave Paul WS Anderson $40 million to create an avant-garde blockbuster? All I’m saying.
How’s this for a low effort post?
It’s a good day
- Actor-network theory – Latour – way of thinking about meshes, interconnectedness
- Internet is a network, has no command and control, no hierarchy
- Latour
- ‘matters of concern’ – when somebody, through their practice, says this matters
- Anthropocene – “relating to or denoting the current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment.”
- matter of concern – moral panics?
- all these trails that have to come to for something to matter – safe schools only became a matter of concern when conservative politicians brought it to the fore
- remindmebot – 15 years when this is dominant teaching in high schools
- learning = trying to achieve a qualitative change in your understanding – not knowing more, it’s knowing differently
matters of concern
- learned how to see things from other perspectives, from the perspective of things (non-anthropocentric)
- realised that story isn’t everything, that the formal elements of something may be much more interesting than the narrative these elements are telling
- learning to be open to new things/theories
crit feedback:
- ripple effect gives impression of looking through water
- colour across 4 panels – red, blue
- “searching” description of audio
- video – relation between images of human bodies, audio – relation between voice and non-human aspects
general feedback/notes:
- different analysis when viewing your work with others
- process – video influencing audio, audio influencing video? – order of creation
- limitations of our technology – inability to hear sound accurately/wholly through class speakers
- idea: extract small clip of Offenberg audio and make sounds with that
- confidence with ‘banal’ imagery noted
- contextualising practice – different opinion/interpretation from creator to viewer
- reassurance that what we are doing is interesting
Today’s the sort of day we need a fireplace
- once upon a time, what you knew helped you get a job. Adrian believes that what you don’t know and how you negotiate that matters more.
- rapid and continual change – your ability to identify and ask about what you don’t know that is fundamental to your success in that environment. The stuff you’re sure about will be wrong in the space of 3 years.
- iPhone invented an entire new area of media practice that we’re still trying to figure out. Vine (let it rest in piece), Instagram.
- what you don’t know is what matters.
- you need to be able to evidence your work. blogs! keep going! it’s a portfolio, evidence of your capacity/capability. document.
- extra-curricular-y stuff
- T-shaped people – breadth x depth.
- the more you know about something, the bigger it gets. Thanks, Bogost.
- there’s a joy in surrendering mastery.
- you need trails. the thicker the trail, the stronger your narrative will be.
- materiality, actors, relationality.
- everything has a material form – including ideas, ideas don’t come to matter until they become things.
other scribbled notes on the margins of Ingold:
- media trail follows lived experience:
- 1. photo
- 2. Instagram
- the photo is taken first, and the idea to upload comes later
- what are we but “provisional constellation of DNA + some other stuff”. perfect.
- hormones/flu influence us to do things, eg. be more sociable in order to spread the virus
- language: a dance between writer and words.
- what is it to move from ‘occupying’ it to becoming part of the habitat
all good blog post starting points methinks.
PS. song recommendation for the day.
Frank Ocean in 2017
2017 is the year of Frank Ocean.
Ok, to be fair, Frank Ocean is my favourite artist (of all time!) and this proposal may be laced with hyperbole considering April isn’t even over, but the man has had an incredible output in 2017 so far. Frank fans went from famished to obese in the space of nine months. Following his debut record channel ORANGE in 2012, Frank hit the switch on hibernation mode. Between 2012 and 2016 he limited his appearances to rare sightings and guest verses on tracks like Beyoncé’s Superpower and John Mayer’s Wildfire among other big names, as the world presumed he was hard at work on that highly anticipated sophomore record.
Everything changed when the calendar rolled over to August 2016, and on the first day of the month a livestream was launched on his website. This effectively marked the beginning of a new Frank Ocean (and a new me: I spent every night from the 1st to the 20th with a headache, lying in a half-awake state, dreaming twisted dreams about release dates and the possibilities of new stuff), a man who made his own rules. Spoilers: the livestream culminated in a visual album, Endless, released on the 19th, which fulfilled (and freed) him from his contract with Def Jam, a signal of his new creative independence. A day later Frank followed this with (what could be the greatest album of all time) Blonde, the ‘real’ album, a departure from channel ORANGE‘s RNB-inspired ballads, an avant-garde mix of soul and pop exploding into the musical stratosphere. Frank was officially back. I slept like a baby that night.
Of course the independent release and giant ‘middle finger to the man’ of Blonde stirred some noise at Universal as Frank took to Apple Music as his platform of choice, their model appearing a beacon of hope in the world of ‘independent’ artistry. Blonde received 20 days exclusivity on iTunes and Apple Music before being deployed to all the regular streaming services, following in the footsteps of proud independent artist Chance the Rapper, who himself released his latest mixtape Coloring Book (discarding the word ‘album’ as a gesture to the independence and ‘freeness’ of his music) with two weeks Apple Music exclusivity. These deals generated conversation about ‘true’ independence in the music industry, new canals for music releases and in many ways foreshadowed the launch of Frank’s new endeavours. In light of their (semi?-)post-industrial approach, both artists have earned comparisons to Prince (imo Frank’s comparison more apt in its ideas of breaking down walls of sexuality and identity of black artists) in their rejection of the traditional hierarchy, their “finding a way to use the system to serve their music, rather than becoming servants of the industry“.
After four years of waiting and being fed two full length releases in such a small period of time, no one expected to be eating again so soon; the dust had hardly settled on Blonde and everyone was strapped in for another elongated interval of radio silence. No one expected a plate of scraps, let alone the buffet that followed. Fast forward to the end of February this year and badabing badaboom! banzanga!, here’s your first episode of Frank’s new blonded RADIO, a radio station on Apple’s free-to-air Beats 1 radio, accompanying the release of Slide by Calvin Harris (feat. Frank Ocean). The man was back in the driver’s seat. It was smooth sailing from here on out; “oh, you’re happy about that release? Here’s the next episode of blonded RADIO with a new song, and another episode with a new song, and just if you’re feeling lucky, have this: another episode with a new song” (real quote). The famine was over. New Frank was pouring out of every crack in the sky straight into the mouths of every starved stan.
Frank going independent following Endless was a blessing; his output in the time succeeding is representative of the post-industrial media era that is increasingly becoming the norm. No more big labels. No more quotas to fill. Using the framework of industrial media to launch his career, Frank developed a fanbase that was loyal to him as an artist, not just as a brand (influenced by his reclusive persona); he absorbed the way things were now done and then cut the cord. Within two months he has released 4 songs (three to his name, one feature) with little-to-no release dates, a simple tweet by Beats 1 or a post on his personal tumblr a mere few hours (or minutes) before the episode airs to generate a stir (followed by a press release no doubt) and act as a signal for new music.
As we know, streaming services have already changed the game up drastically and Apple Music Radio’s new relationship with artists, foregrounding their creativity is telling in terms of the messy shift from an industrial to post-industrial era. blonded RADIO can be streamed without an Apple Music subscription on Beats 1 radio (opening the service up to the ~700 million iPhone users that have the Music app integrated into their phones), and Frank’s releases eventually roll out worldwide on streaming services to all. As the endgame for this new radio project remains ambiguous one finds solace in this remark from his first interview post-Blonde:
“Because I’m not in a record deal, I don’t have to operate in an album format. I can operate in half-a-song format.”
Of course, I don’t have the answers to any of this. What’s going on under the hood is undoubtedly a complex process and this simplification of these underlying structures is bold but I’ll take any chance to lament on the secrets of my favourite musician (and this isn’t even touching on the alternative versions of his new songs, their features and some stuff on the low-fi/high-fi dynamic). His seemingly autonomous approach to releasing music post-Endless (ties to Apple Music leave some things unknown) could lead the way in revolutionising the way music releases currently roll out. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; for now, let’s wait and see. This ‘half-a-song format’ may just become the norm.
Thursday
An interesting class. Breaking us out of our groups into others for at least a small part of the studio was a nice refresher and talking to new faces is always a plus (participation +10 points). Adrian’s rants/spiels/musings on the future of our practice are always of great interest, his confidence in presentation an enrapturing listen. Points about broadcast TV, monument/industrial vs post-industrial/post-monument eras, old models vs new models are, as Adrian agrees, exciting, and being on the brink of this new wave is certainly a cool experience, and considering I never really wanted to come out of this course operating a camera in a studio it’s kind of a relief.
Presentation of work has always been a nerve-wracking activity for me but the feedback was favourable and definitely of help to unraveling the ideas of the next essay. Seeing everyone else’s work up on the screen was comforting and it’s evident from this work that we have all learned from our previous work. What’s next is to go even further than this, as Adrian noted; more specific, finer tuned, greater attention. Learn to paint, not just to compose.
The German work is again wonderful and inspires me to replicate their technical genius.
PS: Lana Del Rey and The Weeknd have a new song.
Murmuration
