New Types of Auras

New Types of Auras

As opposed to Marina Grzinic’s article “Exposure Time, the Aura, and Telerobotics,” I think the elimination of lag time and the actual meeting of two virtual people in cyberspace complicates and adds to the definition of the aura. In this article, the aura is defined as “an appearance or semblance of distance” which is usually conveyed by “exposure time” or “transmission time.” Yet in the performance “The Reception,” the absence of lag time made the virtual image of the woman on the screen in Illinios seem more real, her presence actually felt close. The ability for this woman’s 3-D image to share the same space and the same real-time as the audience and the dancers allowed for a different aura to glow from her. I do agree that if her image were to lag, she would seem further away and we would have a greater perception of the distance the image has traversed in order to be present for us, therefore having the aura that Grzinic talks about. Yet, the fact that her image is not actually in the same space as the dancers and audience is enough also to emphasize the distance the image is traversing. The woman’s point cloud image shows her as a different type of being that has a more complicated presence and aura in its own space: cyberspace.

The dance movements themselves seemed to be pretty random and not very related to the theme of “presence.” I tried to make sense of the repetitive walking, jogging, running in a circle. The rotating circle the dancers formed seemed to be like the dialing of an old fashioned phone and I think I heard the dancers calling out numbers as they were running, yet they only ran in one direction so maybe this is an incorrect interpretation. Also, the woman on the TV set seemed the most real when she “saw” the guy on stage and directly addressed him “Hey!” It actually seemed like she was present as a being, not just as an image. Then when the dancers moved with the cart, the cart seemed to be her body. The woman embodied the TV and cart, she was a different kind of being.

The digression from the "loop" in Game Systems and Thought Processes

Lev Manovich’s text “The New Temporality: The Loop as a Narrative Engine” discusses how the “loop,” a repetition of some sort, manifests itself in the earliest forms of animations and computers and still exists today as a primitive device to simulate movement, life and narrative. The digression from the loop as a “narrative engine" as Manovich discusses relates directly to today’s competing video game systems. The PS3, Xbox, and Wii all strive to make their virtual reality more “real,” which in Monovich’s theory involve leaving the “loop” of movements behind. The PS3 for example is a powerful machine capable of giving each “blade of grass” individual movement in response to “a nonexistent wind.” However, Manovich also discusses the “hardware limitations” that “never go away” with each new media device. In terms of the PS3, the graphics of the environments the games set in are quite close to reality, yet the characters themselves don’t seem to compare. This points to the limited space that the system has, the manufacturers have to make a sacrifice do to the limited space the system can provide. Today’s entertainment systems are the peak of our technology.

Just as the digression of the “loop” is seen in the latest video games and most advanced software, Manovich also argues that computer functionality’s influence on our minds has also caused our thinking processes to digress from the “loop.” As a society we have already hit the point of no return regarding computers: the spatial and temporal reality we currently experience would be impossible without computers. Also, as people become more addicted to video games and other virtual realities, living in the actual reality might become a thing of the past just as the “loop” has. Just as Manovich claims conspicuous repetition is now deemed as primitive, repetition currently seems to be associated with simulation or a fake. Our current infatuation with making virtual realities as real as possible shows how our minds are in a way digressing from the “loop” in synchrony with the computer and other technologies, thus showing an instance of Manovich’s earlier argument. Just as computers and video systems enforce individualism and uniqueness to achieve reality, we also begin to think this is what we need to achieve.

Lost in Time and Space in BAM and Links to MWMC

One of the most interesting pieces of Nauman’s work was the “Get Out of my Mind, Get Out of this Room” piece. This was the white room with two loud speakers right in the center of two walls. The noises playing were Nauman’s recorded grunts, breathes, blows, slurps, growls, whispers, strange and random noises, and apparently he also whispered repeatedly, “Get Out of my Mind, Get Out of this Room.” Upon entering the room, the sound instantly envelops the mind and the spirit of the viewer; the viewer is “immersed” into the room as opposed just included in it. This sudden ‘immersion” into Nauman’s noises, into his mind gives the effect of being lost in time and space. The only marker of the passage of time was the continuous, endless sounds that came from the speakers. This is not the usual time marker, such as a clock or metronome, which mechanically marks time; these noises vary in loudness and are not spaced out in even time intervals. This gives the effect that time in his mind is slowing down at moments when he makes soft noises separated by longer periods of time while time in his mind speeds up when the noises are made louder and more frequently.

Upon “immersing” into the room, there was also a sense of familiar yet lost space. The noises that Nauman makes are familiar, noises that every person makes at certain moments in life. Yet Nauman’s noises also feel alienating since weird noises stringed together with whispers for long periods of time give the effect of being in a room that’s completely alienated from the rest of the world. This might signify that Nauman’s mind is completely alienated from society, as most artists are. In return, the room and random noises make the room feel like it is lost space, lost because being in the space of someone’s mind is not an experience people can identify. The two speakers on opposite walls made Nauman’s mind seem as if it was constantly going back and forth between thoughts very rapidly. This is reminiscent of the effect time traveling (by the camera or fictional machine) has on the Time Traveler in Time Machine. This speed and movement of thoughts was also experienced by the early audiences when cinema was first screened.

The other piece of art that I found interesting in the Measure of Time exhibit was the cage-like cylinder made of thin, corroded metal bars welded together into a net-like fence that served as the skeleton of the structure. This structure was hanging from the ceiling and had little turning, squeaky wheel-like circles within the cylinder that were made of the same material. This kinetic sculpture was surprising because sculptures usually do not move, they are almost always static art pieces. The little turning circles, which moved at different speeds relative to each other, were reminiscent of the gears in the machines shown in Man with the Movie Camera. The “gears” going at different speeds signify a sense of dichotomy as opposed to unity as Vertov represents them by showing them going at constant, quick speeds in unison with the rest of the gears in the machines. Also, the “gears” on this sculpture did not turn at constant speeds, they moved rather slowly and they were squeaky. This a huge contrast, almost rebellion to the well-oiled, fast and harmoniously humming of machined in the Industrial Revolution as shown by Vertov. The discordant squeaky noises also starkly crash with the convention of everything and everyone being in unison and harmony with each other as represented by Vertov.

Linking Kinetoscope, Man with the Movie Camera, and Camera Lucida Temporally and Spatially

Broader Connections in “The Kinetoscope of Time”:

In “The Kinetoscope of Time,” Brander Matthews sets up a narrative structure quite similar to that of a film. Just as the film camera is used to show a representation of space and time based on the director’s and editors’ interests and biases, Matthews gives a representation of time and space by providing exclusive visual details—only the details he wishes the reader to imagine. Matthews sets up this narrative structure as a tool to bring “scenes” or “images” to life, just as Vertov brings still images to life in MWMC. The difference between film and text though in this case is that in film, the interpretation of images is left to the viewer; only the images themselves are concrete, even though the film itself is biased towards the director’s and editors’ interests. In the text, on the other hand, Matthews says what conclusions should be drawn from the specific details he provides to set up an image or scene. Besides the details he provides, the rest of an image or scene is left up to the imagination of the reader. His narrative structure seems to follow a pattern: he sets up an “image” or “scene” with concrete and evaluative details, then conclusions are drawn from these images and scenes, and this order is repeated for each succeeding vision the narrator sees (Matthews 8-11). The evaluative details especially, such as ”irresolute paces,” “curiously shaped,” “anticipated triumph” (Matthews 8) suggested certain embedded presumptions and assumptions about that particular person or object the details referred to. It seems as though the diction Matthew uses to describe images enslaves the mind to picture only what he finds significant, just as the film camera enslaves the human eye to certain images, as Vertov states in his manifesto..

Other Significant Aspects:

Matthews seems to mark the passage of time through his succession of visual details. The successive visions the narrator sees mark how they help give the narrator a sense of time. The narrator senses time and space through the intervals of “darkness” and “light.” He describes these opposites differently each time: “blackness” vs. “blackness robed in color,” “darkness” vs. “glow,” “darkness” vs. “disappearing darkness,” “light died away, void blackness, nothing” vs. “full clear light,” (Matthews 8-10) and then he describes the lack of light more dramatically: “empty blackness”, “inexorable veil of darkness,” “blackness,” “nothing,” “opaque depth.” (Matthews 10-11). His sense of time and space changes depending on the length of the intervals between visions. During the first time he had to wait long between visions, he starts describing the “darkness” as nothing. It seems as if the long passage of time changed his sense of space and soon saw “nothing” instead of “blackness” or “darkness.” He sensed the blackness would not be lit, consequently it failed to seem as blackness and just fritted away into nothing. The narrator’s dependence on time causes him to change his sense of space when he loses his sense of time. This could also be happening to the Time Traveler in Time Machine since the Time Traveler marks the passage of time in the future by day and night.

Connections to Camera Lucida:

This anxiety of waiting in unknown time also comes up in Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. Barthes speaks of this “waiting” as the only thing left for him to do after his mother’s death. He comes to his conclusion after describing how photographs produce “Death while trying to preserve life” (Barthes 92). He states: “The only “thought” I can have is that at the end of this first death, my own death is inscribed; between the two, nothing more that waiting…” (Barthes 93). Barthes connects how a photograph can give a negative perception of time. This paradoxical photograph of his mother that he says captures her “true being” also makes his mother’s and his own death more real. Barthes says that the details of this photograph seem to “puncture” or “prick” him because when he looks at it he thinks his mother is going to die. The photograph distorts his sense of time since his mother is already dead.