NavigatingViewers: Montage,SpaceandMetaͲ ArtinNewMediaVideo Installation

AtanasDjonov



 AthesissubmittedtotheUniversityofNewSouthWales infulfilmentoftherequirementforthedegreeof DoctorofPhilosophy

 SchoolofMediaArts,CollegeofFineArts TheUniversityofNewSouthWales Australia 2012

ORIGINALITYSTATEMENT

‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’

Signed:

Date: 1 April 2011

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Abstract

A significant challenge for new media installation art is how to avoid overwhelming the audience with multiple modes, media, genres and interaction options that lack meaningful organisation and how to encourage critical engagement with social issues, with other audience members and with new media installation art itself. This project addresses these questions by extending to new media installation art montage as a principle for making meaning developed by the 1920s constructivist Soviet film directors Kuleshov, Einsenstein and Vertov and meta-art as art that draws critical attention to itself. This is achieved through Compass II, a new media installation art work, and through this thesis.

Compass II (2003–2010) is an interactive multi-channel new media video installation and has a database comprising nine stand-alone video works and segments from various stages in each work’s development. It shows two distinct geographic and socio-cultural environments – Australia and Bulgaria – and uses revolutionary/propaganda and traditional/folk songs. Compass II employs montage to create meta-art at all its levels of organisation (cinematic, installation and new media) and provides different opportunities for audience engagement with and within the art work, from passive to active observation, involuntary participation, and intentional navigation. It thus seeks to encourage the audience to reflect on the concept behind, construction of and assumptions built into the art work and on the issue of art’s potential to stimulate social engagement which the work seeks to raise.

This thesis develops a set of categories for describing physical and represented space in the cinematic, installation and new media organisation of a new media video installation, which incorporate insights from film and new media studies, semiotics, architecture and philosophy. Using these categories, it demonstrates that montage can be employed beyond film to create meta-art. This is achieved through examples from the work of a range of film, installation and new media artists and the analysis of Compass II’s ability to encourage critical reflection on the issue of social engagement and on itself as an interactive new media video installation.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to John Gillies for supervising me patiently during the years, through all the ups and downs of this project. His insightful knowledge in the arts and history, experience as an artist across the fields of moving image, performance, photography, installation, sound and music, and invaluable guidance have been a great inspiration and provided vital navigation towards the completion of this thesis.

I would also like to thank Allan Giddy for his technical advice and professional help throughout the stages of my art practice and every exhibition of Compass II, as well as for his friendship.

Tara Cook’s software expertise and last minute Isadora first aid during exhibitions of Compass II are also greatly appreciated.

Thank you also to the following staff at College of Fine Arts and UNSW for their academic and administrative support: Michele Barker, Jill Bennett, Penelope Benton, Adrian Davies, Su Goldfish, Simon Hunt, Volker Kuchelmeister, Mark Mitchell, Anna Munster and Martin Sims.

Mark D’Astoli and his A Cappella Choir Nothing Without Belinda have brought life and warmth to several presentations of Dawn and Pole Shiroko through their brilliant arrangements and performances of the songs More Sokol Pie and Pole Shiroko and their contagious enthusiasm, generosity and community spirit.

This thesis would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my family and friends.

Emilia has been a great inspiration and support, and provided critical assistance during this project, especially in the final stages by editing the thesis.

A huge thank-you to my family in Bulgaria and in Australia for their timeless and unconditional support, to Veronika for proofreading the entire final copy of the thesis, and to Tony for helping me set up the exhibitions of Compass II, for his friendship and high spirits.

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Special thanks also go out to many of my friends, who have helped me in more ways than I can fit on this page: Benjamin Cole, Lochie Beh, Louise Curham, Bec Dean, Carmen Esplandiu, Debora Freifeld, George Hristov, Hristo Hristov, Peter Humble, Geeta Jatania, Yorgo Kaporis, Gerard Kleist, Sandra Landolt, David Mackenzie Jr and David Mackenzie Sr, Sam Manning, Eva Muller, Lena Obergfell, Sebastian O’Reilly, Peter Shaw and Jamil Yamani.

I would like to dedicate this thesis to my son Ollen who has given me a real time frame for this project by impatiently reminding me to finish it.

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ContentsofAttachedDVDs

DVD1:CompassII,2003–2010

EXHIBITION2009 18min58sec   EXHIBITION2010 11min20sec    VIDEOWORKS   TransitionalTheme Dawn(2005–2006) 3min23sec PoleShiroko(2005) 3min17sec   AquaticTheme Apart(2009) 3min49sec Arrival(2007) 4min19sec   DemographicTheme PostcardfromAustralia(2005–2006) 2min14sec ElPueblo(2007) 3min43sec WalkingTogether(2007) 2min30sec   TerrestrialTheme Advance(2005–2006) 2min14sec Departure(2009) 2min25sec

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DVD2:CompassII,2003–2010,ThemesandStages

TRANSITIONALTHEME Stage1  3’23” Layer1 0’00”–2’09” Layer2 2’09”–3’23”  Stage2  3’23” Layer1 0’00”–1’22” Layer2 1’22”–3’23”  Stage3  2’28” Layer1 0’00”–2’00” Layer2 2’00”–2’28”  Stage4  3’17” Layer1 0’00”–2’14” Layer2 2’14–3’17” AQUATICTHEME Stage1  3’42” Layer1 0’00”–1’53” Layer2 1’53”–3’42”  Stage2  7’45”  Stage3  4’18” Layer1 0’00”–1’49” Layer2 1’49”–4’18”  Stage4  5’34” Layer1 0’00”–1’06” Layer2 1’06–5’34” DEMOGRAPHICTHEME Stage1  2’21”  Stage2  7’12” Layer1 0’00”–4’51” Layer2 4’51”–7’12”  Stage3  5’57” Layer1 0’00”–3’43” Layer2 3’43”–5’57”  Stage4  3’57” Layer1 0’00”–1’11” Layer2 1’11–3’57” TERRESTRIALTHEME Stage1  3’36” Layer1 0’00”–1’48” Layer2 1’48”–3’36”  Stage2  3’19”  Stage3  1’48” Layer1 0’00”–0’55” Layer2 0’55”–1’48”  Stage4  4’00” Layer1 0’00”–1’26” Layer2 1’26–4’00”



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DVD3:AdditionalArtWorks2002–2010 

VIDEOWORKS Aurora(2004–2006) 1’52” Block!(2009) 2’19” Takeoff(2009) 0’45” Waiting(2009) 0’57” Wave(2005) 2’52”  INSTALLATIONWORKS CrossͲsection(2009) 1’55” PostcardfromAustralia(2005–2006) 1’22” TerrotateII(2009) 1’05” Compass(2002) 1’57  PERFORMANCEWORKS  PoleShiroko–ACappellaChoirRehearsal(2006) 3’45” TerrotateI(2006) 22’12”  ANIMATIONWORKS  Escape(2004–2005) 3’45” GoogleMontage(2005) 1’25” KeyholeHome(2002) 0’35” Renaissance(2005) 0’23” PA(2005) 0’36”

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TableofContents

ORIGINALITYSTATEMENT...... II

ABSTRACT...... III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... IV

CONTENTSOFATTACHEDDVDS...... VI

DVD1:COMPASSII,2003–2010...... VI

DVD2:COMPASSII,2003–2010,THEMESANDSTAGES...... VII

DVD3:ADDITIONALARTWORKS2002–2010...... VIII

TABLEOFCONTENTS...... IX

LISTOFFIGURES...... XIII

LISTOFPLATES...... XIV

LISTOFTABLES...... XV



CHAPTER1ORIENTATION...... 1

1.1MOTIVATIONANDRATIONALE...... 2

1.2CONTEXT:NEWMEDIAINSTALLATIONART...... 4 1.2.1Defininginstallationart...... 4 1.2.2Definingnewmediaart...... 6 1.2.3Interactivity...... 9 1.2.4MetaͲart...... 11

1.3CONCLUSIONANDTHESISOUTLINE...... 13



CHAPTER2MONTAGETHEORY...... 15

2.1KULESHOV’SEXPERIMENTALAPPROACH...... 16 2.1.1Theoryandapproach...... 16 2.1.2Roleofartistandaudience...... 18

2.2EISENSTEIN’SICONOGRAPHICMETHOD...... 20 2.2.1Theoryandapproach...... 20 2.2.2Roleofartistandaudience...... 29

2.3VERTOV’SFACTOLOGICALAPPROACH...... 31 2.3.1Theoryandmethod...... 31

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2.3.2Roleofartistandaudience...... 40

2.4CONCLUSION...... 44



CHAPTER3SPACE,MONTAGE,ANDNEWMEDIAVIDEOINSTALLATIONART...... 47

3.1SPACEINNEWMEDIAVIDEOINSTALLATIONART...... 47 3.1.1Spaceincinema...... 48 Physicalspace:screenandtheatre...... 48 Representedspace:explicitandimplied...... 50 3.1.2Spaceininstallationart...... 52 Physicaldimensions...... 53 Socialdimensions...... 55 Representationaldimensions...... 57 3.1.3Spaceinnewmediaart...... 58 Databasespace...... 58 Interfacespace...... 62 3.2MONTAGEANDSPACE...... 67 3.2.1Montageandspaceincinema...... 67 3.2.2Montageandspaceinnewmedia...... 70 3.2.3Montageandspaceinnewmediavideoinstallation...... 73

3.3CONCLUSION...... 74



CHAPTER4COMPASSII...... 75

4.1OVERVIEW...... 75

4.2THEMATICORGANISATION...... 77 4.2.1TransitionalTheme...... 79 Dawn...... 79 PoleShiroko(WideͲopenField)...... 81 4.2.2AquaticTheme...... 83 Apart...... 83 Arrival...... 85 4.2.3DemographicTheme...... 87 PostcardfromAustralia...... 88 ElPueblo(ThePeople)...... 91 WalkingTogether...... 92 4.2.4TerrestrialTheme...... 94 Advance!...... 94 Departure...... 95

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4.3SCULPTURALͲARCHITECTURALORGANISATION...... 98

4.4NEWMEDIAORGANISATION...... 103

4.5SUMMARY...... 105



CHAPTER5NAVIGATINGVIEWERSINCOMPASSII...... 106

5.1CINEMATICORGANISATION...... 106 5.1.1Visualmontagewithinthescreen...... 107 InterͲshotrelations...... 107 IntraͲshotrelations...... 110 5.1.2Multimodalmontagewithinandbeyondthescreen...... 115 Relationsbetweensonggenres...... 116 Relationsbetweensongsandimages...... 117 Locationsounds...... 122 5.2VIDEOINSTALLATIONORGANISATION...... 123 5.2.1InterͲchannelrelations...... 123 Typesofconflictbetweenchannels...... 123 RevealingstagesinthedevelopmentofastandͲalonework...... 128 Drawingattentiontoavideo’smultimodalconstruction...... 129 Invitingactiveobservation:panoramicandcompositespaces...... 130 Temporalrelations...... 134 5.2.2SculpturalͲarchitecturalorganisation...... 134 Physicaldimensions...... 135 Socialdimensions...... 139 Representationaldimensions...... 142 5.3NEWMEDIAORGANISATION...... 145 5.3.1Databasespace...... 146 Selection...... 146 Organisation...... 148 Socialinteraction:size,accessandflexibility...... 149 5.3.2Interfacespace...... 149 Interfacerelations...... 150 Virtuality...... 150 Plurality...... 152 Visibility...... 153 Transparency...... 154 5.4CONCLUSION...... 155





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CHAPTER6CONCLUSION...... 157

6.1RESEARCHSUMMARY:MOTIVATION,AIMSANDMETHODS...... 157

6.2RESEARCHOUTCOMES...... 159 6.2.1Montagetheorybeyondfilm...... 159 6.2.2Parametersfordescribingspaceinnewmediavideoinstallationart...... 160 6.2.3CompassII...... 161

6.3CONTRIBUTIONS...... 163

6.4FUTUREDIRECTIONS...... 164



BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 166



APPENDIXALYRICSOFSONGSINCLUDEDINCOMPASSII...... 177



APPENDIXBEXHIBITIONS,CURATORIALEXPERIENCEANDRELATEDPUBLICATIONSAND PRESENTATIONS...... 187

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ListofFigures

Figure2.1SelectedfilmeffectsfromTheManwiththeMovieCamera(Vertov,1929)...... 36 Figure2.2SelfͲreferentialityinTheManwiththeMovieCamera(Vertov,1929)...... 43 Figure4.1LayoutofsculpturalelementsinCompassII...... 102 Figure4.2SequentialarrangementofthemesandstagesinCompassII...... 104

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ListofPlates

Plate4.1CompassII(Exhibition2008)...... 77 Plate4.2Dawn(2005–2006)....... 80 Plate4.3Dawn(2005–2006)....... 80 Plate4.4PoleShiroko(2004–2005)...... 82 Plate4.5PoleShiroko(2004–2005)...... 82 Plate4.6Apart(2009)...... 84 Plate4.7Apart(2009)...... 84 Plate4.8Apart(2003)...... 85 Plate4.9Arrival(2009)...... 86 Plate4.10Arrival(2009)...... 86 Plate4.11FootagefromSofia,BulgariaincludedinDemographicTheme...... 87 Plate4.12PostcardfromAustralia(2005Ͳ2006)...... 88 Plate4.13PostcardfromAustralia(2005–2006)...... 89 Plate4.14PostcardfromAustralia–installation(frontalview)...... 90 Plate4.15PostcardfromAustralia–installation(backview)...... 91 Plate4.16ElPueblo(2007)...... 92 Plate4.17WalkingTogether(2007)...... 93 Plate4.18WalkingTogether(2007)...... 93 Plate4.19Advance!(2005)...... 95 Plate4.20Depature(2009)...... 96 Plate4.21Depature(2009)...... 96 Plate4.22Depature(2009)...... 97 Plate4.23CompassII,MainNavigationApparatus...... 98 Plate4.24CompassII–screenonblackmetalstandswithinfraredswitchesonitslegs(eachswitch formsaninfraredlinewithaswitchfromtheoppositescreen)andwithmegaphoneontop, projector(inthetopcorneroftheexhibitionroom)andtwoloudspeakers(ontheground behindthe screen,nexttothewall)...... 100 Plate4.25AprotestpostermodelforthescreensinCompassII.MayDayMarch,Wollongong,Australia, 1959.(Image:courtesyoftheNationalArchivesofAustralia)...... 101 Plate5.1QuevivaMexico!(Eisenstein,1931)...... 114 Plate5.2Czechoslovakia,August1968–JosefKoudelka...... 115 Plate5.3ConflictofpresenceandabsenceofthecompassinDemographicTheme...... 124 Plate5.4ConflictofdirectionsinTransitionalTheme...... 124 Plate5.5ConflictofstaticanddynamicrepresentationsinDemographicTheme...... 125 Plate5.6ConflictofdifferentmassesandvolumesinAquaticTheme...... 125 Plate5.7ConflictoflightintensitiesinTransitionalTheme...... 126 Plate5.8ConflictofcoloursandspeedinTransitionalTheme...... 126 Plate5.9ConflictofframesizesinTransitionalTheme...... 127 Plate5.10ConflictofdepthsinTransitionalTheme...... 127 Plate5.11PanoramicrepresentationofacityinDemographicTheme...... 131 Plate5.12Panoramicrepresentation:continuoushorizonlineacrosschannelsinAquaticTheme...... 131 Plate5.13CompositerepresentationofapedestriantunnelinDemographicTheme...... 133 Plate5.14Compositerepresentation:DifferentviewsfromatraininTransitionalTheme...... 133 Plate5.15Compositerepresentation:ConflictofspeedinTransitionalTheme...... 134 Plate5.16CompassII:Allfourscreens(2008Exhibition)...... 136 Plate5.17CompassII:Compassasfocalelement(2010Exhibition)...... 136 Plate5.18CompassII:Sideview(2010Exhibition)...... 138 Plate5.19CompassII:Sideview(2010Exhibition)...... 139 Plate5.20CompassIIwithviewersinthecentralzone(2010Exhibition)...... 140 Plate5.21CompassIIwithviewersincentralandmarginalzones...... 141 Plate5.22CompassIIwithaudiencemembersinteractingwitheachother(2009Exhibition)...... 142

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ListofTables

Table2.1.ExamplesofintraͲshotmontagefromEisenstein’s(1924)Strike...... 23 Table2.2.ExamplesofinterͲshotmontagefromEisenstein’s(1924)Strike...... 23 Table2.3.MontageofAttractionsinPart6ofStrike,“TheLiquidation”(Eisenstein,1924)...... 28 Table4.1ThematicorganisationofsingleͲchannelvideoworksincludedinCompassII...... 78 Table4.2DistributionofsingleͲchannelworksacrossaudioͲvisualchannels...... 102 Table5.1ExamplesofinterͲshotmontageinCompassII...... 108 Table5.2ExamplesofintraͲshotmontagefromCompassII...... 113 Table5.3Distributionoftraditional/folkandrevolutionary/propagandasongsinCompassII...... 117

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Chapter1 Orientation

New media installation art offers abundant opportunities for combining various modes (language, images, sound, movement), media (visual, aural, tactile) and genres and is strongly associated with interactivity, or the availability of different choices for exploring and participating in an art work. These characteristics allow artists to provide the audience with freedom of interaction with and within an installation. They also present a significant challenge: how to avoid overwhelming the audience with a multitude of modes, genres and interaction options that lack meaningful organisation, and instead harness the potential of new media installation art to raise key socio-cultural and political issues and to encourage social engagement, that is, critical engagement with these issues, among audience members and with art itself.

In this practice-based doctoral project I address this challenge through Compass II, a new media video installation art work, and through this thesis. In Compass II, I employ montage as a central principle for establishing meaningful relations within and between all three levels of the work’s organisation (which in this thesis are labelled ‘cinematic’, ‘installation’ and ‘new media’ organisation) in order to create meta-art, that is, to encourage the audience to reflect on the concept behind, construction of and assumptions built into the art work itself and on the issue of social engagement which it seeks to raise.

In this thesis, I demonstrate that montage can be applied beyond cinema1, to establish meaningful relations between different elements and spatial dimensions in installation, new media, and new media installation art. I focus specifically on the constructivist theories of and approaches to montage of the 1920s Soviet film directors Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov and the potential of montage to create meta-art and stimulate social engagement in cinema, installation

1 In this thesis, the terms ‘cinema’ and ‘theatre’ refer to traditional cinema and theatre, unless specified otherwise.

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and interactive new media art. To achieve this, I develop a set of categories for describing physical and represented space in cinema, installation and new media art by drawing on research in film, cinema and new media studies, semiotics, architecture and philosophy. I illustrate how montage can be applied beyond cinema with selected examples from the work of a range of film, installation and new media artists and, most importantly, through an analysis of the use of montage in the cinematic, installation and new media organisation of Compass II. In particular, I argue that using montage to create meta-art in an interactive new media installation allows the art work to reveal and draw critical attention to the framework the artist has provided for the audience’s exploration of the work, that is, to how the art work navigates viewers’ navigation through it.

1.1 Motivationandrationale

Compass II aims to increase awareness of socio-cultural and political conditions that I have observed in Australia and Bulgaria over the last decade and to encourage reflection on these conditions and on the similarities and differences between the two environments. The work seeks to engage audience members in an active physical and conceptual interaction with itself and with each other, and thereby to inspire them to critically examine both the social issues it presents and the art work itself. I also hope that the audience may be able to extend this critical engagement beyond the installation, to socio-cultural and political questions outside the gallery context.

Compass II reflects a particular view of the role of the artist and viewers in new media video installation art. This view is informed by the process of social integration in a new socio-cultural environment and the goal of transforming one’s self from a passive to an active, critical, observer and ultimately a conscious participant in that environment. This goal has defined my relation to two different socio-cultural and political environments, Bulgaria and Australia, since the mid 1990s when I immigrated to Australia and adopted a new role – that of an artist working across the fields of video, animation, performance, installation and later new media art and a curator of several screenings of contemporary Australian video art (see DVD3 and Appendix B). This challenge raised questions about the role of art

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in stimulating critical social engagement – that is, engagement with socio-cultural and political issues presented in the work, engagement among audience members, and engagement with art itself. These include:

ƒ How can an art work encourage its audience to engage critically with social issues, within and outside the gallery context? ƒ How can it promote social engagement among audience members? ƒ How can it invite audience members to reflect upon the art work’s own and art’s general capacity to promote social engagement? Compass II and this thesis explore these questions from the perspective of interactive new media installation art. This exploration adopts ‘navigation’ as a bi-directional metaphor, highlighting both the artist’s responsibility for navigating viewers, or establishing parameters for their interaction with the art work, and the need for these parameters to allow viewers to create unique navigation paths through the work.

To raise the issue of social engagement and draw the audience’s attention to the parameters for exploring Compass II and invite them to critically evaluate the work as an interactive new media art installation, I have adopted the principles of montage and meta-art. The montage theory informed by the differences and similarities in the work of Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, and presented in detail in Chapter 2, is particularly relevant to this project for two reasons. Firstly, as new media art researchers have argued, film studies and montage in particular can help understand how to establish meaningful relations and avoid merely co-presenting various modes and genres in new media. Secondly, these film directors theorised and applied montage as a means of raising critical awareness of socio-cultural and political issues during the 1920s, in line with the constructivist agenda of employing art to foster social progress and the aims of this project to encourage social engagement with and within an art work. Adrian Piper’s notion of meta-art, which is discussed in Section 1.2.4, involves creating art that reveals the origin, process and thoughts behind its own construction and has the potential to stimulate a critical approach to new media installation art and help artists overcome some of the challenges of this art form which are discussed next.

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1.2 Context:Newmediainstallationart

This section situates this project in the context of new media installation art by briefly introducing Compass II and outlining the key affordances of installation and new media art and the challenges they present.

Compass II is a new media video installation developed in the period 2003–2010; it is described in detail in Chapter 4 and documented in DVD1 and DVD2. It is an installation as it presents a particular sculptural-architectural arrangement of objects within an exhibition space, where a marine compass is positioned on top of a black plinth in the middle of a square area formed by four screens. Each screen is aligned with one of the four major geographic directions, is designed to resemble a propaganda poster, and has a megaphone speaker mounted on top. As the screens are used to project video sequences, Compass II can be further defined as a video installation. Compass II is also a new media work as it employs computer technology, a database of digital video files and an interface comprising two responsive apparatuses that allow users to navigate through the database. This, alongside other features, differentiates it considerably from Compass, a video installation created by the artist in 2002 (see DVD3)2. Exploring the research questions presented in the previous section through Compass II and this thesis requires an understanding of the potential and key challenges of new media installation art.

1.2.1 Defininginstallationart

Despite acknowledging installation art as the most popular art form today and tracing its beginnings back to the 1920s work of artists like Duchamp, artists and art theorists are struggling to define it (cf. Coulter-Smith, 2006; Geczy & Genocchio, 2001; Oliveira, Oxley, & Petry, 1994, 2003; Rosenthal, 2003). Attempts to define installation art in terms of genre, media, or the response that art installations seek from their audiences have been unable to capture the great variation associated with this art form, perhaps because “[t]here is no such thing as Installation because

2 Most of my works are also presented online at vimeo.com and youtube.com, and can be retrieved by searching for ‘Atanas Djonov’.

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“Installation” is a stand-in term for a state of relative disappearance then reappearance of the art object.” (Geczy & Genocchio, 2001, p. 1)

While no unanimously accepted definition of installation art exists, there is a broad consensus, as Rosenthal (2003) has argued, that it offers rich possibilities for integrating two- and three-dimensional objects and multiple modes (e.g. images, language, music and movement), media (e.g. visual, aural, tactile) and genres (e.g. documentary film, experimental, animation) in real space and time. Space and, in works that involve time-based components, time serve as integrative semiotic resources, allowing an artist to overcome the challenge of establishing meaningful relations between all the objects, modes, media and genres comprising an installation.

As the defining feature of installation art, three-dimensional space also enables it to “place itself not in front of but around, behind, underneath (literally) the audience” (Burton, 1980, cited in A. Jones, 2000, p. 345) and so to offer the audience different possibilities for experiencing an art work kinaesthetically, moving within, through or around an installation. The importance of space is also emphasised in Geczy and Genocchio’s (2001) broad definition of installation as “an activity that activates a space. It is less a style than an attitude, tendency and aesthetic strategy insofar as we now read every art object as inseparable from the location in which it is placed” (p. 2). Central to this definition is “the principle of Installation Art as an activation of space which takes into account the subjective, temporal specificity of the beholder” (ibid., p. 3).

By activating space, “[i]nstallation provides places for exchange in which the audience becomes an integral part of the work” (de Oliviera et al., 2003, p. 107), Geczy and Genocchio (2001, p. 5) see this as the essence of interactivity:

Interactivity implies that the visual is not the primary term by which the work is perceived or is judged. Its definition does not rest with people doing things to, and with, a work of art, it goes further – the act of being there and the being that is there is incorporated into the work’s content and form.

The potential for interactivity in installation art opens possibilities for activating space in ways that encourage social engagement among audience members within an installation. Compass II employs this potential for drawing attention to issues of

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social engagement and inviting audience members to adopt a critical stance towards the work itself.

Space is even further enhanced in film and video installation art. As Iles (2000, p. 252) demonstrates with references to all three stages she identifies in film and video installation art since the 1960s – performative, sculptural and cinematic – “[t]he moving image always transforms the space it occupies”. Compass II employs video for its ability to represent other spaces and bring together different socio- cultural environments within the gallery context (see also Kaye, 2007).

The centrality of space in installation art is reflected in the dominant, albeit problematic, distinction between site-specific and non-site-specific works (cf. Kwon, 2000; Meyer, 2000; Suderburg, 2000). Compass II can be described as non-site- specific as it is not designed for a specific site but can be exhibited in different spaces. Yet, the sites and times represented in Compass II as well as those in which it is experienced are bound to affect the audience’s interaction with the work. As Rosenthal contends, “there is no frame separating [installation] art from its viewing context, the work and the space having melted together into an approximation of a life experience” and it is their melting that, together with the complex interplay of multiple modes, media and genres, enables installation artists “to create a synaesthetic environment” (2003, p. 25).

If employed as an extension of interactivity, synaesthetic environments have the potential to stimulate rich, immersive experiences. Yet, they need to be designed so as to maintain a critical distance between audience and art work and thereby support a reflective engagement with the art work and the issues it raises (cf. Coulter-Smith, 2006; Geczy & Genocchio, 2001; Grau, 2003b).

1.2.2 Definingnewmediaart

In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich (2001) argues that:

we are in the middle of a new media revolution – the shift of all culture to computer-mediated forms of production, distribution, and communication [and that] the computer media revolution affects all stages of communication, including acquisition, manipulation, storage, and distribution [as well as] all types of media – texts, still images, moving images, sound, and spatial constructions (p.19).

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Manovich (ibid., p. 27-48) also outlines five principles which establish the centrality of computer technology to new media:

1. Numerical representation – the possibility of describing a new media object mathematically and manipulating it through an algorithm.

2. Modularity – the quality of new media objects to retain their independence as separate entities even when combined into larger objects.

3. Automation – the principle that new media objects can be automatically created, manipulated and accessed, which may remove human agency and intention from these processes.

4. Variability – that new media objects can exist in “different, potentially infinite versions” (p.36), which may in part be created solely by a computer and often involve the bringing together of different, otherwise independent, digitally stored objects.

5. Transcoding – that new media objects are realised in different codes: the codes perceived by and meaningful to humans and those that allow computers to manipulate these objects and their relationships.

The last three of these principles are consequences of the first two, and each may manifest itself to varying degrees.

At the same time as seeing computer technology as unique to new media, Manovich joins others in emphasising the continuity between old (e.g. sculpture, print, film and video) and new media (cf. Bolter & Grusin, 1999; Conomos, 2007; Dixon, 2007; Jennings, 1996; Morgan, 1992; Tofts, 2005; Weil, 2002; Willemen, 2004). He illustrates this continuity, giving examples of earlier technologies that enable random access, such as the record-player, and of media and art forms, like sculpture and painting, that can be explored non-linearly.

It is undeniable, however, that computer technology significantly amplifies the ease with which different modes, media and genres can be combined to create new media objects, the rate at which these objects multiply, and the range of possibilities for providing access to them. This has led to new media adopting what Manovich (1999, 2000, 2001) contrasts with linear, ‘narrative logic’ and terms ‘database logic’. Database logic is one of addition and co-presence and involves presenting collections of new media objects with relatively loose organisation and interfaces through which these can be accessed (as discussed in detail in Section 3.1.3). This opens possibilities for giving considerable freedom of access to rich collections of

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new media objects, and involving the audience in selecting which objects to attend to and in what sequence (Paul, 2003). There is consequently a strong expectation that new media art – that is, art that employs new media, as do “interactive multimedia installations, virtual reality environments, and Web-based art” (Tribe & Jana, 2006, p.7) – should be interactive and offer different options for accessing and even manipulating and creating media objects. Interactivity in new media presents new opportunities for audience engagement and participation, including the possibility of creating immersive environments that are changed by the actions of the audience in real-time (Manovich, 2001, 2006).

Many attempts to meet this expectation, however, have resulted in new media environments which offer a mere co-presence of images and other elements that are brought together “without any attempt to establish contrast, complementarity, or dissonance between them” (Manovich, 2001, p. 143), which equate interactivity “with physical interaction between a user and a media object (pressing a button, choosing a link, moving the body)” (2001, p.57), and which immerse the audience in ways that prevent them from maintaining a critical distance (cf. Grau, 2003b; Kwastek, 2008b; Lovejoy, 2004). As such environments cannot make statements or pose specific questions (cf. Poissant, 2007), they are unable to encourage the audience to engage critically with either art or other socio-cultural and political issues. To overcome this inability, it has been argued, artists can adapt to new media principles for making meaning developed for earlier media and art forms, such as the principle of montage as a means of establishing relations between visual, verbal, aural and kinetic elements in cinema (cf. Manovich, 1999, 2001; Phillips, 2000; Poissant, 2007; Rush, 2005; Willemen, 2004). Compass II and this thesis take on that challenge by extending montage to a new media video installation with the purpose of creating meta-art.

As the overview presented in this section shows, new media and installation art share the potential for and challenges associated with multiplicity of modes, media and genres, immersion and interactivity. Amongst them, the notion of interactivity is of particular relevance to this project’s key aim of stimulating social engagement with and within an interactive art work. It is therefore important to present the

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perspective on interactivity adopted for this project, prior to introducing meta-art as a principle for enabling an art work to encourage critical reflection on socio-cultural and political issues and on art itself.

1.2.3 Interactivity

Understandings of interactivity vary widely across different fields and are often left implicit (cf. Daniels, 2008; Kluszczynski, 2007; Kwastek, 2008a; Manovich, 2001; Popper, 2007). This project adopts a broad perspective on interactivity, which is motivated by the research questions it seeks to address. From this perspective, interactivity is not confined to new media art (i.e. it does not require human- computer interaction), and can be defined in terms of (i) the nature of involvement an art work requires from its audience and (ii) the author’s degree of control over their involvement.

This perspective on interactivity, like many attempts to define the term, is informed by Umberto Eco’s (1979) distinction between the ‘open work’, which is designed to invite multiple interpretations from its audience, and the ‘closed text’, which guides its readers to a single interpretation (e.g. a road traffic sign). Giving the audience freedom in interpreting an art work requires a degree of ambiguity, or semantic ambivalence and indeterminacy (Eco, 1979; see also Kwastek, 2008b; Marinis, 1987).

In addition to inviting interpretation, an open work may also invite participation. This idea is reflected in the finer distinction Eco draws among open works between:

[works] based on the theoretical, mental collaboration of the consumer, who must freely interpret an artistic datum, a product that has already been organised in its structural entirety (even if this structure allows for an indefinite plurality of interpretation) [and] ‘works in movement,’ [which] characteristically consist of unplanned or physically incomplete structural units. (1979, p. 56, original emphasis)

Eco exemplifies ‘works in movement’ with musical works that are open in terms of both meaning and structure, in that they require performers “to impose [their] judgement on the form of the piece” (ibid., p. 47) by arranging different pre-given modules and so to “collaborate with the composer in making the composition” (ibid., p. 56). Performers are thus involved not only intellectually (in interpreting the work), but also as participants – physically (in playing the music) and

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semiotically (in arranging its components). As illustrated in Section 3.1.3, a new media art work may allow the audience not merely to arrange media elements as they navigate through it, but to modify its existing components and/or expand its database by adding or creating new ones. As well, there are also initiatives to involve the audience in a dialogue with artists and curators in stages of the development of art works and their presentation (cf. Edmonds, Muller, & Connell, 2006; Muller, Edmonds, & Connell, 2006).

Regardless of an art work’s degree of openness and the types of involvement it invites, however, this involvement can only occur “within the context delineated by the artist” (Kluszczynski, 2007, p. 216). Recognising this, far from ‘the death of the author’ (Barthes, 1977 [1968]), Eco emphasises the author’s responsibility for controlling the nature and extent of audience involvement:

…the “work in movement” is the possibility of numerous different personal interventions, but it is not an amorphous invitation to indiscriminate participation. The invitation offers the performer the opportunity for an oriented insertion into something which always remains the world intended by the author.

In other words, the author offers the interpreter, the performer, the addressee a work to be completed. […] The author is the one who proposed a number of possibilities which had already been rationally organized, oriented, and endowed with specifications for proper development. (Eco, 1979, p. 62, original emphasis)

An awareness of the artist’s role in creating the parameters for the audience’s interaction with and participation in the work is a defining quality of the critical approach to new media installation art that this project seeks to stimulate.

The broad perspective of interactivity adopted in this project also allows opportunities for audience involvement offered by cinema, installation art and new media to be exploited simultaneously, as they are in Compass II, and theorised side by side, as they are in this thesis. It also overcomes some of the difficulties experienced in attempts to classify interactive new media art installations such as Compass II, which are illustrated in this observation:

In installations where visitors’ walking or movement triggers sensors to activate planned events and programmed sequences and effects, it is arguable whether the primary interactive paradigm is, according to our continuum, navigation (the course the user takes), participation (users helping to bring to life the environment’s sensory features), conversation (a dialogue between the

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user and the computer) or collaboration (the user and computer creating art together). (Dixon, 2007, p. 583)

This perspective also supports the aim of this project to stimulate a critical engagement with art itself, as it defines interactivity not only in terms of the types of audience involvement within an art work but also in terms of the degree of control an artist exercises over an art work and its audience.

1.2.4 MetaͲart

Meta-art is art that draws attention to itself and for this project holds the promise of encouraging the audience to engage in critical reflection about art as well as the socio-cultural and political context in which it operates. The concept was first proposed by Adrian Piper (1999 [1973], p. 298) and defined as “the activity of making explicit the thought processes, procedures, and presuppositions of making whatever kind of art we make”. This activity, Piper claimed, can occur as part of art (e.g. art exhibition text labels and artist statements) or alongside art (e.g. art criticism), but will only realise its full potential if it replaces art, if it leads to art itself revealing the “thought processes, procedures, and presuppositions” that have played a role in its creation and existence.

Thought processes may involve:

how we hypothesise a work into existence: whether we reason from problems encountered in the last work to possible solutions in the next; or get “inspired” by seeing someone else’s work, or a previously unnoticed aspect of our own; or read something, experience something, or talk; or find ourselves blindly working away for no good reason; or any, all, or other processes of this kind. (ibid., p. 299).

Procedures relate to “what we do to realise the work as contrasted with how and what we think” (ibid.) and include the materials, methods, decision-making principles (e.g. aesthetic, economical) employed in the process of constructing a work and the extent of collaboration involved in this process. Revealing the affordances and limitations of a medium, for example, was a key focus of film and video installation art in the 1960–1970s (cf. Iles, 2000; Leggett, 2007; Windhausen, 2008).

Revealing an art work’s presuppositions means “specifying the work with respect to the system of which it is part”, that is, with respect to “the conditions necessary

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to bring it into existence”, which may be “social, psychological, metaphysical, aesthetic, or any combination thereof” (ibid., p. 299). Revealing these conditions can encourage the audience to question not only the art work itself but also the context of its production and reception and thus raise their awareness and enhance their ability to interrogate social conditions outside the gallery context. For Piper, engagement with social issues is the ultimate justification for meta-art, or as she puts it: “the meta-artist need merely explicate his or her particular condition in order to suggest the condition of the society.” (p. 300), and “meta-art is social, because it is concerned with artists, and artists are social: we are not exempt from the forces or fate of this society” (p. 301)

The potential of meta-art to transcend a work of art and stimulate critical engagement with the broader socio-cultural context of this work is also suggested in Waugh’s definition of meta-fiction as a type of meta-art:

Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality. In providing a critique of their own methods of construction, such writings not only examine the fundamental structures of narrative fiction, they also explore the possible fictionality of the world outside the literary fictional text. (Waugh, 1993, p. 2, emphasis added)

In other words, ‘meta’ in ‘meta-art’ implies not only art that is turned back on itself, art that exposes itself as a construction, but also art that exposes the relationship between art and reality, and offers the audience means of exploring that relationship.

Even when the term ‘meta-art’ itself is not explicitly used or defined, as is often the case, the question of how art can draw attention to its own conception, construction and context of production and reception has been and continues to be at the core of much art history and theory as well as art and design practice debates. A prominent example is provided by Bertolt Brecht’s (1964) theorisation and application of strategies (e.g. Verfremdungseffekt and epic, as opposed to dramatic, theatre) for making the familiar strange and maintaining a critical distance between art and its audience so as to raise awareness of art as a representation of reality. These strategies incorporated and further developed earlier work, such as that of Erwin Piscator (1980) and Vsevolod Meyerhold (1969), aimed at employing theatre

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as a platform for presenting and engaging the audience with socio-political issues, and can and have been productively extended to video and video installation art, as discussed in detail in Djonov (2002). While reviewing debates related to ‘meta-art’ is clearly beyond the scope of this practice-based thesis, Adrian Piper’s conceptualisation of ‘meta-art’ plays a central role in the review of the montage theories of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov presented in Chapter 2, in the discussion of the ability of montage to the be extended to installation and new media art in Chapter 3, and of the analysis of Compass II presented in Chapter 5.

1.3 Conclusionandthesisoutline

Chapter 1 set the context for this PhD project by discussing its motivation and aims, and situating it at the intersection between installation and new media art. It established space as the defining feature of installation art and argued that installation and new media art both offer a multiplicity of modes, media and genres and the potential for interactivity and immersion. Finally, it presented the concepts of interactivity and meta-art, which are essential for the goal of this project to encourage social engagement with and within an interactive new media video installation and critical reflection on the social issues it raises and on art itself.

Chapter 2 outlines the montage theories that inform the construction and analysis of Compass II, namely those of the constructivist Soviet film directors Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, who all saw montage as a means of educating viewers and inspiring social change through film art. It draws attention specifically to the potential of their theories (i) to be extended beyond their original work, which was mostly in silent film, to interactions between different modes such as images, language, sound, movement, and space, and to new media as well as (ii) to support the development of meta-art.

Chapter 3 extends montage theory to new media video installation art by considering how montage can be used to create meaningful relationships between different elements in three different spatial dimensions: cinematic space, installation space and new media space. Among these relationships, again, the focus is primarily on those that encourage engagement between the audience members and

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social issues presented in installation art, among audience members, and between the audience and art itself.

Chapters 4 describes the organisation of Compass II, including the stand-alone single channel works included in the installation, their organisation into themes, and the overall sculptural-architectural and new media design of the installation.

Chapter 5 presents an analysis of Compass II, focusing on how montage is used in the cinematic, video installation and new media organisation of the work in order to create meta-art and make explicit the key social and political issues raised by the art work, and thereby encourage viewers’ active and critical participation in it.

Chapter 6 concludes this thesis by evaluating the extent to which Compass II has achieved the goals of this project and discussing the project’s overall contribution to new media installation art practice and theory. Avenues for future art practice and research are also proposed.

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Chapter2 MontageTheory

Defined in broad terms, montage is a semiotic principle, or a tool for making meaning. It is strongly associated with the film medium and involves juxtaposing and creating unity out of separate elements. Most relevant to this study are the constructivist theories of montage developed in the 1920s by the Russian film directors Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov, Vsevolod Pudovkin and Alexander Dovzhenko, as they conceptualised and applied montage as a means of communicating their stance towards social and political issues and provoking socio- political awareness in their audience.

This chapter focuses on the ideas of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov since their work best represents the similarities and divergences in the theorisation and application of montage as a method of film construction and a means of influencing the viewer, and most directly informs the construction and analysis of the new media video installation developed for this PhD project, Compass II. I will present each director’s theory and approach to montage, and then consider his views on the role of montage in the relationship between author and audience, highlighting those that allow montage to be employed for creating meta-art. This necessarily selective review of the work of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov will also emphasise those ideas that enable montage to be extended beyond silent film, to video, installation and new media art; in other words, it will draw attention to those ideas that make montage applicable to the interaction of different modes (images, language, sound, movement and space) and so define it as a multimodal principle, for such interaction is distinctive of installation art works such as Compass II.

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2.1 Kuleshov’sexperimentalapproach

2.1.1 Theoryandapproach

Credited as “the first aesthetic theorist of the cinema”(Levaco, 1971, p. 86), Kuleshov laid the foundations essential for understanding the montage principle and the ways in which it was applied and further theorised by Eisenstein and Vertov among others. In line with the agenda of the formalist movement in semiotics prominent in Eastern Europe in the 1920s, Kuleshov sought to demonstrate those qualities that differentiate film from other forms of expression such as language, music, poetry and theatre. Defined narrowly as “[t]he joining of shots into a predetermined order from which a film is made” (Kuleshov, 1974 [1929], p. 49), montage was for him central to the nature of cinematography and film as an art form, and to their power to influence the audience. In agreement with this definition, Kuleshov (1974 [1929]) set montage apart from the shots (including the scenery and the acting within them), which in his terms were ‘the material’ of film, the ‘bricks’ layered in the construction of a film, and had to be constructed with economy so as to function similarly to the letters in a word.

To explore the power of the alternation of shots over viewers’ perceptions, Kuleshov conducted what is known in film studies as ‘the Kuleshov experiment’ – leading to his approach being defined as experimental – in which the image of an actor’s reportedly expressionless face was taken out of an existing film and shown to viewers followed by three different images. Followed by a close-up showing a bowl of soup, the face was read as expressing hunger; succeeded by an image of a child with a toy, its expression was considered one of happiness, while a portrait of a dead woman in a coffin made viewers see the actor as overcome by sadness. While it may not lend itself to replication and may therefore not classify as an experiment in today’s scientific standards, Kuleshov’s study has had an undeniable impact on film as well as semiotic theory and practice (cf. Prince, 1992).

Kuleshov’s experiment, together with his earlier careful observations of audiences’ reactions to the rapidly changing shots in popular American films such as those of Griffith, led him to prioritise montage as the key affordance of film as a means of communication:

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The secret of mastery over cinematic material – the essence of cinematography – lies in its composition, the alternation of photographed pieces. In the main, for the organization of impressions, what is important is not what is shot in a given piece, but how the pieces in a film succeed one another, how they are structured.

We must seek the organization of cinematography not in the limitations of the exposed shots, but in the alternations of these shots.

...in the case of the construction of any material, the crucial moment is the organizational moment, during which the relationship of parts to the material and their organic, spatial, and temporal connections are revealed. The juxtaposition and interrelationship of various elements much more vividly and more convincingly expresses essence and meaning – as with each separate element, so with the whole assemblage.

... the essence of cinema, its method of achieving maximal impression, is montage (Kuleshov, 1974 [1922], pp. 129-130; emphasis in original)

This conclusion was a strategic one and was later acknowledged by Kuleshov (1974 [1935]) as an overstatement made with the purpose of encouraging the artists in his group to focus on exploring the defining characteristics of film. Nevertheless, it had two important consequences. These can be explained using Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1966 [1916]) distinction between syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations in language. Whereas paradigmatic relations are those between choices available within language as a system, syntagmatic relations are those between choices executed in speech or writing in order to form meaningful spatio-temporal constructions. Kuleshov’s approach drew attention away from the composition of shots and frames as it focused on syntagmatic relations between shots, rather than syntagmatic relations within them. It also de-emphasised the importance of paradigmatic relations; in other words, it suggested that film makers and theorists should focus on the sequencing of shots within a film’s composition, rather than on relations arising out of how these shots were collected, organised and selected from available material in the construction of a film. As will be argued later in this chapter, by drawing attention back to the composition of shots and frames and by emphasising the significance of the process of selecting from available material Eisenstein and Vertov respectively expanded Kuleshov’s original definition of montage and redressed the balance in the search for film’s defining affordances as an art form.

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For Kuleshov, the strength of montage lay in enabling artists to overcome both weaknesses of the material and the constraints of real space and time. This strength, he argued, allowed artists to communicate a clear message to the audience:

the incredible potency of montage [consists in its ability] to alter the very essence of the material, [and] the basic strength of cinema lies in montage, because with montage it becomes possible both to break down and to reconstruct, and ultimately to remake the material. (Kuleshov, 1974 [1929], p. 52).

To illustrate, montage could change the direction of an actor’s movements and the time it took for scenery to be constructed and perceived. It was the role of montage “to express and organize the material, to bring out its thematic essence” (Kuleshov, 2004 [1927], p.274).

Montage was also a means of transcending space and time boundaries. According to Ronald Levaco, it was Kuleshov who put forward the idea

that physical space and “real” time could be made virtually subordinate to montage. And he sought to prove, in turn, that the source of the associational power of montage was in the viewer’s consciousness, his perception of the edited material, which did not necessarily bear any relationship to “objective reality”. (Levaco, 1971, p. 88)

Kuleshov’s work itself demonstrated that it was possible “to create, solely through montage, a cinematic terrain that existed nowhere in reality”, an effect which he termed “‘artificial landscape’ [or] ‘creative geography’” (Levaco, 1971, p. 87). Using montage, for example, allowed him to present the White House as though it were situated in Moscow and thus to create a non-existent landscape, as well as to compose a woman’s body from close-up shots of different models as an exercise in ‘creative anatomy’ (Prince, 1992, p. 60).

2.1.2 Roleofartistandaudience

For Kuleshov, both montage and the material used in film construction were essential tools for fulfilling what he saw as the artist’s responsibility – raising the audience’s awareness of key social issues, whether through fiction or newsreel. While employing montage to transcend the limitations of reality, in his later writing Kuleshov insisted on the importance of using ‘real’ material and argued against the dominance in Soviet cinema of fiction films that relied heavily on theatrical devices and famous actors.

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…the material of cinematography is real events, real things, real people, and the demonstration of their behaviour in the daily life that surrounds them. (Kuleshov, 2004 [1927], p. 275).

Real material in Kuleshov’s sense, it must be noted, was a broad notion, not limited to filming life facts, or life as it is, as in Vertov’s theory and practice (see Section 2.3); Kuleshov, for example, used scripts and model actors, or actor types (Yampolsky, 1991), to represent ‘real’ events and people in his films. His emphasis on ‘real’ material is thus an expression of the view that film construction should not obey aesthetic principles or the artist’s subjective emotions but serve to bring out the ‘thematic essence’ of the material (ibid., p.274). This would allow artists to present events “in such a way that [viewers] can examine them properly” (ibid., p. 272). By contrast, he argued that films that were too theatrical in nature, just like the use of the rapid style of montage characteristic of American films (cf. Kuleshov, 1974 [1922]), did not invite analysis.

Stimulating reflection on the conditions of reality, according to Kuleshov, was a key responsibility of the artist. Acknowledging that both the material of film and its arrangement in montage are subject to the artist’s class consciousness, he argued that “the artist, perceiving and generalizing reality, performs a definite, purposeful ideological work” and that “[r]eflecting in his production an objective reality, the artist must express his ideas, demonstrate something, propagandize something” (Kuleshov, 1974 [1935], p. 188). As this statement suggests, propaganda, in Kuleshov’s sense of the term, is not concerned with immediate current events in isolation but with major socio-political issues and seeks to show their multiple facets and interrelationships so as to deliver a clearly defined message; it is its purpose-driven, conscious nature that distinguishes propaganda from mere agitation (see further Taylor, 1979). These propaganda principles could also be employed to encourage critical engagement not only with the conditions of reality but with the ways reality is represented in film as an art form, and thus function as principles for creating meta-art.

Whether the object of propaganda was reality itself or its representation in film, however, it was montage that played the central role in delivering the message and making the artist’s intentions clear to the audience:

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…the location of the shot in a montage phrase is crucial, because it is the position that, more often than not, explains the essence of the meaning intended by the artist-editor, his purpose (Kuleshov, 1974 [1935], p. 194).

Thus, although in his later work Kuleshov (1974 [1935], p. 195) conceded that “[i]n no case should one assume the entire matter of cinematography to be in montage” and wrote of the importance of the composition of shots (to which he referred as ‘intra-shot montage’), the organisation of shots remained for him the essence of film as an art form and key to establishing a relationship between artist and viewers.

2.2 Eisenstein’siconographicmethod

2.2.1 Theoryandapproach

Whereas Kuleshov aimed to discover what made film unique amongst the arts, Eisenstein focused on the common ground it shared with other arts, including poetry, painting, music, opera and especially theatre. This unifying perspective has contributed to his being regarded as “the foremost aesthetician of the twentieth century” (Nowell-Smith, 2004, p. xvi). It is characteristic of theories of the total work of art, which originate with Wagner’s conceptualisation of the ‘total work of art’/’Gesamtkunstwerk’ (Wagner, 1993 [1895]) and are concerned with how all the arts and all the semiotic modes they activate (e.g. sound, language, movement, dress, images) can be integrated within a work of art in order to achieve a particular total effect on its audience (cf. Kirby, 1969; Moholy-Nagy, 1961; Piscator, 1980). This perspective is reflected in Eisenstein’s broad theorisation of montage as conflict, as a principle based on the understanding that:

Two film pieces of any kind, placed together, inevitably combine into a new concept, a new quality, arising out of that juxtaposition. Or: Representation A and representation B must be so selected from all the possible features within the theme that is being developed, that their juxtaposition shall evoke in the perception and feelings of the spectator the most complete image of the theme itself. (Eisenstein, 1942, pp. 69-70)

Evident in this statement are three distinctive features of Eisenstein’s concept and application of montage. The first is that montage is a fractal principle, that is, a principle applicable at various scales, to “film pieces of any kind”. Extending the

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principle of montage beyond relationships between alternating shots, Eisenstein (1949, p. 39) argues that montage can create conflicts both within frames and between shots. Within a frame, there may be conflict of graphic directions (i.e. of static and dynamic lines), scale, volumes, masses (i.e. volumes filled with various intensities of light), or depths. Meaningful relations between shots, for example, may result from conflict between close and long shots, lightness and darkness, an object and its dimensions, or an event and its duration. Examples of some of these possibilities from Eisenstein’s Strike are provided in Tables 2.1 and 2.2.

Type of conflict Example Graphic Smoke is coming directions: out of one of the static vs. chimneys and dynamic creating a dynamic line, whereas the second chimney forms a static one.

Graphic Both vertical and directions: horizontal lines horizontal vs. define the vertical dimensions of the window.

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Type of conflict Example Scale The water reflection reduces the scale of the electricity pole and the chimneys to present these symbolic objects as closer in scale to the bodies of the factory’s security guards.

Volumes The large volume of the crane contrasts with the small volumes of the workers.

Masses The heavy weight of a pile of iron train wheels is juxtaposed with the lightness of the foliage.

Volumes filled The dark shadows with various of the factory intensities of managers are light presented against the light tone of the moving wheel in the background.

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Type of conflict Example The woman’s bright figure is juxtaposed with the man’s darker one.

Depths The figure in the foreground contrasts with the corridor’s depth of field.

Table 2.1. Examples of intra-shot montage from Eisenstein’s (1924) Strike

Type of conflict Example Close vs. long Close-up shots of a shots dying bull’s head alternate with wide shots of a field of scattered dead human bodies.

Directions Contrasting directions

Object and its Distorted depiction dimensions of an object through the use of a special lens or an unusual angle

Event and its Strike takes place over a few days, whereas in the film its duration is condensed duration to an hour. Both slow and fast motion are used. Table 2.2. Examples of inter-shot montage from Eisenstein’s (1924) Strike

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Indeed, a key motivation behind defining montage as conflict was Eisenstein’s “seeking for a unified system for methods of cinematographic expressiveness that shall hold good for all its elements” (1949, p. 39). This system, however, relies on the frame, the smallest unit of the shot, as an essential generative element:

…montage is a stage derived from the shot; in other words, […] the conflict of compositional elements within the frame is, as it were, a cell, a nucleus of montage which obeys the law of fission as the tension of that conflict rises. (Eisenstein, 1991, p. 12)

In contrast to Kuleshov, who equated the shot to the letter in a word, Eisenstein viewed each frame as an ideogram and a mise-en-scene shot as an example of ‘spatial calligraphy’ (1991, p. 15). A frame in his view was necessarily polysemous:

The film-frame can never be an inflexible letter of the alphabet, but must always remain a multiple-meaning ideogram. And it can be read only in juxtaposition, just as an ideogram acquires its specific significance, meaning, and even pronunciation (occasionally in diametric opposition to one another) only when combined with a separately indicated reading or tiny meaning – an indicator for the exact reading – placed alongside the basic hieroglyph. (Eisenstein, 1949, pp.65-66, original emphasis)

The second distinctive feature of Eisenstein’s montage, and the reason why it can be applied at various scales, is its abstract nature. Montage is about creating new ideas by juxtaposing representations. This conceptualisation – unlike Kuleshov’s, which was tied to relationships between alternating shots – frees montage from the materiality and linearity of film and makes it applicable beyond the visual mode as well as beyond cinema. To illustrate, a conflict may exist between the parts of a musical composition as well as between a character’s words and facial expressions in theatre.

The potential of montage to express abstract ideas is captured in Eisenstein’s theorisation of ‘vertical montage’ as “the superimposition of the various audio- visual elements of the film to construct an idea-image through a unified rhythm” (Antoine-Dunne, 2004, p. 9). Eisenstein’s montage can therefore be viewed as ‘a multimodal principle’ for making meaning (cf. Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). Just as Eisenstein foresaw that montage can be used to address “the conflict in the sound film of acoustics and optics” (1949, p.40) and later applied montage to create meaning with music, image and sound (Robertson, 2009), so too in the art practice

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project presented in this thesis montage constructs multimodal relationships between screen space and three-dimensional space, song and moving image.

The third feature that sets Eisenstein’s montage apart is the focus on representation and the related mobilisation of narrative. Like Kuleshov and Vertov, who were advocates for using real material and rejected material constructed on the basis of aesthetic principles alone, Eisenstein employed real locations, which Kuleshov interpreted as a revolutionary idea:

Eisenstein, as virtually the first person in agit-films, led people out of the props and trappings of the studio and showed things which had been well conceived but poorly constructed. Things and environments which were actual - factories, locomotives, cranes, industrial housing, etc.

Hardly any one of the other directors ever thought of using the aforementioned materials, and this was Eisenstein’s major victory in cinema. (Kuleshov, 1974 [1926], p. 138).

Real locations allow Eisenstein to achieve the feel of authenticity essential for the effect of a docudrama, a genre which seeks to recreate actual people and events through actors and staging (cf. Lipkin, 2002; Toplin, 1988).

However, while inspired by actual socio-political historical events, Eisenstein did not constrain himself to the images he could find in reality, or by what he could directly document. Rather, as McCullough (2004, p. 51) argues: “Eisenstein shifted things from Vertov’s emphasis on documentary reality [as he] mixed Vertov’s unstaged recording of film facts with staged materials, stylization of shot composition, and mise-en-scene as a conscious remaking of reality – altogether a much more purposeful, artistic, intention”.

This is illustrated by the artificially created movement of a lion in The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925), where the images of three different lion statues, of a sleeping, just awoken and rising lion, are sequenced so as to represent a moving lion. The careful staging and composition of Eisenstein’s images, which led Kuleshov to define him as “more a director of the shot – tasteful and expressive – than of montage and human movement” (1974 [1926], p. 138), as well as his use of symbolic representations, such as that of the rising lion, define his method of montage as predominantly iconographic and distinguish it from Vertov’s ‘factological’ one, which is outlined in Section 2.3.

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As well, Eisenstein’s approach is characterised by making each and every part of a film obey a central theme; frames, shots and scenes are carefully constructed and props, scenery and acting are treated as far more than mere material – every element helps advance the central theme, every object is endowed with symbolic power. For Eisenstein, building a central theme is the key purpose of montage:

the basic aim and function [of montage is to fulfil] the need for connected and sequential exposition of the theme, the material, the plot, the action, the movement within the film sequence and within the film drama as a whole (Eisenstein, 1942, p. 3, emphasis added).

As this statement suggests, and all his films evidence, Eisenstein considered narrative ideally suited to advancing a central theme, perhaps because of the genre’s telos-driven nature, leading from orientation to people and settings through to crisis and positive or negative resolution.

Eisenstein’s emphasis on the need for every element of a film to obey one central theme has led Henderson (1980) to describe his theory of film as a ‘part-whole’ formalist theory, in contradistinction to realist theories, such as Bazin’s, where cinema is valued for its ability to simulate the viewer’s relation with reality. In stark contrast to such theories, Henderson explains, Eisenstein saw reality as only a starting point for film as an art form, and in alignment with this principle declared long-take uncut shots to be “outside the strict jurisdiction of the film-form” (Eisenstein, 1949, p.39) and montage to be “the mightiest means for a really important creative remolding of nature” (Eisenstein, 1949, p.5).

Carefully constructed part-whole relationships, according to Eisenstein, were also at the centre of the power of montage to convey the film-maker’s ideas to viewers and influence them. To achieve that through montage, Eisenstein developed and deployed the principle of ‘montage of attractions’. Based on his explorations of the dynamics of the circus, theatre and later film construction, ‘montage of attractions’ refers to a construction in which ‘attractions’, which can be elements of various types, are carefully positioned throughout a film’s unfolding in order to emphasise particular ideas and relationships between them and to power the exposition of a central theme.

The attraction (in our diagnosis of the theatre) is every aggressive moment in it, i.e., every element of it that brings to light in the spectator those senses or

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that psychology that influence his experience – every element that can be verified and mathematically calculated to produce certain emotional shocks in a proper order within the totality – the only means by which it is possible to make the final ideological conclusion perceptible. (Eisenstein, 1942, pp. 230-231)

Strike, widely recognised as his most eclectic film, since it employs a wide range of Eisenstein’s film techniques, eloquently demonstrates the potential of such attractions, within frames as well as within and between shots and scenes. The opening sequence repeatedly shows several grotesque close ups of the laughing faces of factory owners shot from a low angle. This repetition of homogeneous frames serves to build tension and vicariously place viewers in the position of the oppressed factory workers. Moving beyond the frame, attractions can also be composed at higher levels. For instance, as selected stills in Table 2.3. illustrate, Part 6 of Strike (Eisenstein, 1924), “The Liquidation”, uses both intra- and inter- shot montage to prepare the audience for the dramatic climax in which a White Army officer kills a child by throwing him from a balcony (k-n in Table 2.3). Initially, this child is depicted playing with another one, and intra-shot montage juxtaposes their relatively static sitting position with the dynamic lines created by the children’s consecutive acts of throwing down their toys and finally a cat in anger (e and h in Table 2.3). These shots of the playing children are interrupted by inter-shot montage representing falling people from balconies on upper floors of the building; for instance, one shot is a high-angle close-up of a worker trying to hold on to the bars of a balcony, the next, long medium shot shows him falling down from an eye-level perspective, and the final, long shot depicts his body spread on the ground (a, c and d in Table 2.3). Montage of attractions is also applied across different scenes: the laughing face of one of the factory owners (shot p in Table 2.3) is superimposed on the image of the dead child thrown by the officer.

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a b c d e

f g h i k

l m n o p Table 2.3. Montage of Attractions in Part 6 of Strike, “The Liquidation” (Eisenstein, 1924)

2.2.2 Roleofartistandaudience

As a tool for carefully guiding the audience to a desired conclusion, for presenting an ideological point, montage of attractions epitomises Eisenstein’s authoritarian views on the relationship between artist and viewers. It also exposes their contrast to Kuleshov’s. Whereas Kuleshov argued for the need to leave space for the audience to reflect on events represented in the film, Eisenstein was concerned with deliberately constructing film action in a way that most forcefully led the audience to the author’s conclusions:

Approached genuinely, this basically determines the possible principle of construction as “an action construction” (of the whole production). Instead of a static “reflection” of an event with all possibilities for activity within the limits of the event’s logical action, we advance to a new plane – free montage of arbitrarily selected, independent (within the given composition and the subject links that hold the influencing actions together) attractions – all from the stand of establishing certain final thematic effects – this is montage of attractions. (Eisenstein, 1942, p.232, emphasis added)

For Eisenstein, the role of the artist is a didactic one – the artist is responsible for laying the path and guiding viewers towards a given theme, and dynamic narrative action is the means of ensuring that viewers would be drawn into the process of taking that path.

A work of art, understood dynamically, is just this process of arranging images in the feelings and mind of the spectator. It is this that constitutes the peculiarity of a truly vital work of art and distinguishes it from a lifeless one, in which the spectator receives the represented result of a given consummated process of creation, instead of being drawn into the process as it occurs. (Eisenstein, 1942, p.17)

This authoritarian perspective is evident even in Eisenstein’s attempts to acknowledge the role of individual variation among viewers:

…the spectator is drawn into a creative act in which his individuality is not subordinated to the author’s individuality, but is opened up throughout the process of fusion with the author’s intention […]. In fact every spectator, in correspondence with his individuality, and in his own way and out of his own experience – out of the womb of his fantasy, out of the warp and weft of his associations, all conditioned by the premises of his character, habits and social appurtenances, creates an image in accordance with the representational guidance suggested by the author, leading him to understanding and experience of the author’s theme. (Eisenstein, 1942, p.33)

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Notably, as these statements suggest and his films testify, Eisenstein’s theory and art are not concerned with revealing how the artist has constructed a work and thereby opening the artist’s intentions to scrutiny. Nor are they concerned with encouraging the audience to take a critical standpoint and consider multiple perspectives on a given issue. Rather, his aim was to captivate the audience emotionally and intellectually and immerse them into the unfolding of represented events so he could enforce a single argument or idea. This is reflected upon in Roland Barthes’ (1977) comparison of Eisenstein’s films with epic theatre, which both employ aesthetic principles to influence the audience but for different aims: “nothing separates the scene in epic theatre from the Eisenstein shot (except that in Brecht the tableau is offered to the spectator for criticism, not for adherence)” (p. 71). This is evident even in Eisenstein’s earlier films, which aim “to alienate the viewer into a state of raised consciousness (Strike, October, The Battleship Potemkin) [and are] generally deemed to be more radical [than] his later films, with their focus on unity and the emotional power of cinema, […] and affinity with conventional narrative” (Ging, 2004, p. 69). For instance, the alienation effect of metaphorically juxtaposing the bull’s slaughtering with the field of dead workers’ bodies (see Table 2.2) is aimed at instilling in the audience rage against capitalist oppression, rather than presenting them with different perspectives on this social conflict or raising their awareness of the artist’s power to manipulate their views.

Eisenstein’s strong desire to influence the audience in a single, precisely defined direction has led to his films being seen as agitation, that is, as much more closed and much more forceful than propaganda films (such as Kuleshov’s or Vertov’s). Consider, for example, the following analysis of Strike:

The film Strike is conceived as an agit-piece, which should affect the audience’s psyche in a precise direction which has been calculated in advance and which goes beyond the boundaries of film as such, that is to say that it should have an agit-political and broadly ideological influence – in short, that it is conceived thematically. Every shot in Strike is therefore selected by the director to create the greatest impression, to create the attraction (which should not be confused with the stunt), and to create dynamic action. This is what causes the plot shifts, the parallelism, the poster character of the shots, the stepped build-up of homogeneous shots, and so on. (Arvatov, 2004 [1925], p.130)

Eisenstein’s “affective, subconscious, illusionist cinema” (Polan, 1977, p.27) features no examples of meta-art because:

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Eisenstein was not concerned with a liberation or even an investigation within film of the signifier. His signifier is controlled by an intent to cause the viewer to get at a signified (if we can call affect a signified or a content as he did) in the best way possible – that is, in the simplest and most economical way. His is a theory of how to organize the signifier as an expression of a signified. (Polan, 1977, p. 27)

This characteristic of Eisenstein’s work and theory is irreconcilable with the key motivation of this project – to build open new media art works that encourage the audience not only to engage with various issues but to question the artist’s decisions executed in the process of constructing these works. On the other hand, his broad perspective on montage as conflict, with its potential to transcend boundaries between different modes (e.g. images, sound, three-dimensional objects), forms of art (e.g. film, video installation and performance) and genres (e.g. fictional narrative and documentary), allows montage to inform the construction and interpretation of new media art works such as those developed in this project.

2.3 Vertov’sfactologicalapproach

2.3.1 Theoryandmethod

Considered one of the foremost theorists of documentary film-making, Dziga Vertov outlined his views on cinema in manifestos and prescriptive pieces concerned with detailing a methodology for a new movement in film-making, called ‘kino-eye’. Although his writings display consistency in the use of the terms that are central to his views such as ‘montage’, they present an “insufficiently developed” theory (Petric, 1978, p. 42). Moreover, Vertov’s notion of ‘montage’ encompasses all tenets of kino-eye. Gaining an insight into Vertov’s theory of montage is therefore best achieved through engagement with the broader doctrine of kino-eye as well as his last silent film, The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), “the practical manifestation of his theoretical conviction” (ibid., p. 37) “that the cinema can function as a truly international language of expression and communication” (ibid., p. 29).

The objective of kino-eye was “the decoding of life as it is” through the use of “carefully selected, recorded, and organized facts”, and the total rejection of “surrogates for life (theatrical presentations, film-drama, etc.)”(Vertov, 1984 [1926]-

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b, p. 66). This idea is materialised in The Man with the Movie Camera, which Vertov himself described as “a theoretical manifestation on the screen”(Vertov, 1984 [1928]-a, p. 83). The film’s introduction reveals a vision of cinema different from those of Eisenstein and Kuleshov:

A FRAGMENT FROM THE DIARY OF A CAMERAMAN

A Note to the viewer:

This film is, in itself, AN EXPERIMENT

It is a film-communicator OF VISIBLE EVENTS

A film

Without the help of written titles (film without intertitles)

Without the help of screenplay (film without script)

Without the help of theater (film without sets, actors, etc.)

This experimental work is made with the intention of constructing a genuine international and absolutely visual language of cinema, on the basis of its total separation from the language of theater and literature.

(Vertov, 1929)

Whereas Kuleshov sought to establish cinema’s uniqueness among the arts, and Eisenstein’s aesthetics drew inspiration from and could be applied to all the arts, Vertov saw film as superior to other forms of expression. This superiority was partly due to the camera’s ability to enable the “precise recording of real facts[,] factography” (Prunes, 2003, p. 255). Factography, however, was only a starting point for Vertov’s approach, whose main purpose was “propaganda through facts”(Vertov, 2004 [1926], p.133), or using facts in order to promote the Marxist- Leninist communist ideology. Since Vertov “insisted that authentic film material (“life facts” or “life as it is”) be reorganized into cinematic structures (“film-things” [or “film-objects”]), a new unity with a particular ideological meaning” (Petric, 1978, p. 30), his approach is more appropriately described as factological, as the following slogan suggests:

To see and hear life, to note its turns and turning points, to catch the crunch of the old bones of everyday existence beneath the press of the Revolution, to follow the growth of the young Soviet organism, to record and organize the individual characteristics of life’s phenomena into a whole, an essence, a conclusion – this is our immediate objective. (Vertov, 1984 [1924]-a, p. 47)

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Vertov’s method is thus defined by three features: the exclusive reliance on facts (as opposed to fiction), the belief in the power of the film camera (and later radio technology) to document and reveal life as it is, and the emphasis on organisation of recorded facts into themes or statements. This is expressed by the formula: “Kino-eye = kino-seeing (I see through the camera) + kino-writing (I write on film with the camera) + kino-organization (I edit).” (Vertov, 1984 [1929], p. 87)

The notion of fact in kino-eye was more radical than both Eisenstein’s use of real locations such as the Odessa Steps in The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925) or the factory in Strike (Eisenstein, 1924) and what Kuleshov considered ‘real’ material. The doctrine did not permit the use of scenarios, actors (not even Kuleshov’s ‘actor types’), studios, sets and costumes and emphasised the need for all filmed subjects to “continue to do what they usually do in life”(Vertov, 1984 [1923]-b, p. 34). Moreover, Vertov strongly opposed the use of constructed shots, a key ingredient of Eisenstein’s aesthetic in which “meaning is produced in the structural relations of the filmic system, rather than in the relation of image to reality” (Quigley, 2004, p. 161). Instead, kino-eye was “extremely concerned with the ontological authenticity of each separate shot as the basis of the documentary film” (Petric, 1978, p. 31). This authenticity was ensured by employing the technique of ‘life caught unawares’, filming real-life events and people, including mundane ones, so as to remain “unnoticed, to shoot so that [the cameraman’s] own work does not hinder that of others” (Vertov, 1984 [n.d.], p. 287). This involved using hidden cameras as well as filming from above or from a distance, and catching people “off-guard”, when they are on the move or engaged in activities that demand their attention, and less likely to be distracted by the camera’s presence (Hicks, 2007). This authenticity is evident in the inclusion in The Man with the Movie Camera of shots showing spontaneous (sometimes negative) reactions of film subjects towards being filmed and of images of Soviet reality that do not comply with the communist vision of a just and harmonious society, such as shots of beggars, drunk and poor people as well as crowded trams.

The strong denouncement of staged shots in Vertov’s writings, however, is not echoed by a lack of staging or performance in his films. This discrepancy was noted several years before The Man with the Movie Camera appeared and harshly criticised

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by Vertov’s contemporary documentary film director Erofeev (2004 [1924]). As Hicks (2007) explains, and illustrates with reference to several of Vertov’s films:

The total absence of performance was an ideal towards which Vertov strove, but which he was never quite able to attain. […] Vertov’s peculiarity lies in the fact that he was actively hostile to performance and attempted to reduce its influence over his films, despite the fact that it features in each of them. He had at least freed documentary from the posed portraits and staging that dominated early newsreel. (p. 32)

To understand Vertov’s notion of ‘life facts’ in relation to his films requires a broader perspective, where ‘facts’ can extend to include representations of real events, events that have been observed, rather than scripted, and then re-enacted for the camera: “What makes Vertov’s work valid is not that he prefers real people to actors, but that he sees the film form not as a plot composition but as the pure juxtaposition of facts.” (Shklovsky, 2004 [1927], p. 140). From this perspective, all shots in a documentary, staged or unstaged, are subservient to its main goal – to present the essence of life as it is (focusing on general themes that define it) so as to build an argument in support of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Thus, for example, staged shots in The Man with the Movie Camera include the opening shot, which depicts a woman getting out of bed and getting dressed, and the one where the camera shows from above the film’s cinematographer, Mikhail Kaufman, filming on the side of a speeding train. The former symbolises a day’s beginning, while the latter is part of the film’s secondary theme, that of revealing the process of the film’s construction (for detailed analyses, see Petric, 1987; Roberts, 2000).

In line with futurism, the movement that dominated Russian avant-garde prior to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution (Bordwell, 1972), Vertov saw the camera as an essential instrument for achieving a perfect, machine-aided vision and the starting point for fulfilling cinema’s essential role as defined by the kino-eye artists (the kinoks):

The main and essential thing is:

The sensory exploration of the world through film.

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.

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The kino-eye lives and moves in time and space; it gathers and records impressions in a manner wholly different from that of the human eye. The position of our bodies while observing or our perception of a certain number of features of a visual phenomenon in a given instant are by no means obligatory limitations for the camera which, since it is perfected, perceives more and better.

We cannot improve the making of our eyes, but we can endlessly perfect the camera. (Vertov, 1984 [1923]-a, pp. 14-15)

In practical terms, this view is embodied in experimentation with effects such as decelerated, accelerated and reverse motion, superimposition, animation and various transitions, “since implied in kino-eye were: all cinematic means, all cinematic inventions, all methods and means that might serve to reveal and show the truth.” (Vertov, 1984 [1924]-b, p. 41). To illustrate, The Man with the Movie Camera, which is characterised by “the use of every optical device and filming strategy then available to film technology” (Michelson, 1984a, p. xxxvii), features a long shot of a cameraman superimposed on the top of a film camera close-up (Figure 2.1a), shots of cityscapes presented at different angles against the background of an extreme close-up of an eye (Figure 2.1b), as well as images of streets and buildings tilted sideways (Figure 2.1c) (for an analysis, see Petric, 1987).

Such experimentation had the aim to “provide fresh access to the true, concealed nature of the phenomenal world” (Michelson, 1984a, p. xliii), and functioned to defamiliarise reality and transform the audience by drawing critical attention to everyday life. Thus, as Tsivian (2007) has argued, such experimentation was not a mere formalist or futurist exercise; rather, together with the use of found material (i.e. ‘film facts’ for the kinoks), it was an essential part of the constructivist agenda to educate the human eye, outlined by Rodchenko as follows:

[I]n order to teach man to see from all viewpoints, it is necessary to photograph ordinary, well-known objects from completely unexpected viewpoints and in unexpected positions, and photograph new objects from various viewpoints, thereby giving a full impression of the object. We don’t see what we are looking at. We don’t see marvellous perspectives – foreshortening and the positioning of objects. We who have been taught to see the inculcated, must discover the world of the visible. . . . We must revolutionize our visual thinking. (Rodchenko cited in Tsivian, 2007, p. 109)

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a b

c Figure 2.1. Selected film effects from The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)

The third distinctive element of Vertov’s theory is the centrality of selecting and organising life facts into a film object at every stage of film production, “beginning with the initial observation and ending with the finished film-object”(Vertov, 1984 [1926]-b, p. 72). Vertov’s writings equate organisation to montage (or editing3) and define both in contradistinction to theatrical and literary construction methods.

Montage means organizing film fragments (shots) into a film object. […] It does not mean selecting fragments for “scenes” (the theatrical bias) or for titles (the literary bias).

Every kino-eye production is subject to montage from the moment a theme is chosen until the film’s release in its completed form. (Vertov, 1984 [1929], p. 88)

An example is offered by the plan for The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1984 [n.d.]) and its subsequent execution. Here it is important to point out that Vertov insisted on the distinction between a plan and a script, seeing the former as “the plan of action for the movie camera once the given theme appears in life, but not a plan

3 As a translator’s note explains in Michelson’s (1984b, p. 8) edited collection of Vertov’s writings, Russian uses one and the same word, ‘ɦɨɧɬɚɠ’, for what in English is sometimes translated as ‘montage’ and at other times as ‘editing’.

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for staging the same theme” (Vertov, 1984 [1928]-b, p. 82, original emphasis). Themes specified in this plan include: “Streets and streetcars intersect. And buildings and busses. Legs and smiling faces. […] Men and women meet. Birth and death. Divorce and marriage. Slaps and handshakes.” (Vertov, 1984 [n.d.], p. 284). It also includes a “small, secondary production theme – the film’s passage from camera through laboratory and editing room to screen” (ibid., p. 289), which is an instance of meta-art, as will be discussed next. These themes then define every subsequent stage of film production: what material will be observed and recorded from reality and how this will be done (what camera effects may be used, for example); the ways in which the footage will be catalogued into themes and subthemes; which footage will be selected from that catalogue; and how it will be organised into a film in order to present the film-maker’s stance on certain social issues, or what Vertov called “film-truth” (kino-pravda) (cf. Vertov, 1984 [1926]-b, p. 72; 1984 [1929], pp. 89-90). This final stage of organisation was based upon Vertov’s theory of intervals, the carefully timed duration of and movement between shots, determined on the basis of their correlations in terms of planes (close-up, long shot, etc.), foreshortenings, movements within the frame, light and shadow, and recording speeds (Vertov, 1984 [1929], pp. 90-91).

As this example reveals, Vertov’s method of film construction, like Eisenstein’s, is conceptual in nature as it relies on contrasts between ideas. His notion of montage is broad too. Its broad scope rests on three principles. Firstly, although kino-eye’s requirement for using ‘life facts’ renders Vertov’s notion of limited and in some cases no applicability to arts such as theatre, literature and music, in stark contrast to Eisenstein’s, Vertov’s – like Eisenstein’s – montage is a multimodal principle of film construction. Life facts could be recorded as both images and sounds: “We are promoting propaganda using facts, not on the level of vision alone, but on that of hearing too.” (Vertov, 1984 [1925], p. 56). Sounds, like images, could also be presented using different effects, catalogued and organised according to the theory of intervals, as evidenced in Vertov’s sound films Three Songs of Lenin (1924) and Enthusiasm (Symphony of the Donbass) (1930), or as Vertov stated “[s]ound and silent shots are both edited according to the same principles and can coincide, not coincide, or blend with one another in various, essential combinations” (1984 [1930], p. 106).

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Secondly, because Vertov’s montage encompasses all stages of film conception and construction it extends far beyond Kuleshov’s definition of montage as the process of building relationships between consecutive shots. To elaborate, in kino- eye the collection of footage was always guided by predetermined themes and so the content of shots (and how it was recorded through the camera’s eye) was as important as their position in a sequence of shots: “Just as good bricks are needed for a house, good film footage is needed to organize a film-object.”(Vertov, 1984 [1924]-c, p. 45). In other words, structural (or syntagmatic) relations within shots and frames are carefully considered in the kino-eye method in making decisions about what footage to collect. Yet, perhaps because of the kino-eye doctrine’s radical statements against using shots and frames that are staged, as they are in Eisenstein’s films, some theorists mistakenly define Vertov’s montage as being inter-shot rather than intra-shot (cf. Petric, 1978).

Thirdly, for Vertov the role of cataloguing and selecting from available film material (that is, of paradigmatic relations) was as important in constructing meaning as the syntagmatic relationships within shots and frames and between contiguous as well as non-contiguous shots within a film. Cataloguing film material was in line with Vertov’s concern with preserving the ontological authenticity of separate shots, that is of ‘film facts’, in the construction of ‘film-things’:

Every instant of life shot unstaged, every individual frame shot just as it is in life […] represents a fact recorded on film, a film fact as we call it.

In a film archive, a storehouse, or museum where footage from current newsreels is kept in numbered chronological order, all the necessary data can be appended to each box of negatives, such as a detailed description of each film-fact, relevant newspaper clippings, biographical and other data.

[…]

In those films where space is overcome by montage (for example, “workers of one country see those of another”), it’s all the more essential that the editor take into account all data of the film footage to be organized. (Vertov, 1984 [1926]-c, p. 57, original emphasis)

In this way, his notion of montage draws attention to the system of paradigmatic relationships between shots classified and catalogued according to various principles, or themes in Vertov’s case. As Manovich (1999) argues, Vertov’s theory and practice emphasise and successfully combine dynamic, linear ‘narrative’ logic

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alongside ‘database’ logic – the non-linear, seemingly objective and static logic that underlies the material organisation of all new media objects regardless of how they are presented – and thereby anticipates a key problem faced by new media art today. According to Manovich, Vertov’s ability to successfully combine these two organisational principles, the ‘narrative’ and the ‘database’, which are often wrongly seen as incompatible, can be attributed to his commitment to the goal of using the power of montage to present a clear argument and thereby transform viewers.

According to Bordwell (1972), Vertov shared with Eisenstein a strong belief in the power of montage to transform the audience, and this distinguished the films of both directors as more ambitious and revolutionary than those of Kuleshov and his colleagues Pudovkin and Dovzhenko. For example, both Vertov and Eisenstein strived to use montage for expressing abstract ideas. Eisenstein claimed that his method of montage allowed “transmuting to screen form the abstract concept, the course and halt of concepts and ideas”(Eisenstein, 1949, p. 125), while for Vertov, “[t]he unusual flexibility of montage construction enable[d] one to introduce into a film study any given motif – political, economic, or other”(Vertov, 1984 [1923]-a, p. 21).

Echoing Kuleshov’s ideas of artificial geography and anatomy discussed in Section 2.1, Vertov believed that montage could overcome the limitations of space and time. Yet, Vertov’s argument was considerably more radical: transcending the barriers of iconicity (that is, the fact that individual images, ‘film-facts’, can only represent concrete material existence by showing specific individuals, places, and events) would allow film to express more abstract, general ideas (‘film-truth’). This could be achieved both within a frame (e.g. through camera movement and effects such as superimposition, see Figure 2.1) and between shots, as these examples from Vertov’s essay “Kinoks: A Revolution” illustrate:

… the coffins of national heroes are lowered into the grave (shot in Astrakhan in 1918); the grave is filled in (Kronstadt, 1921); cannon salute (Petrograd, 1920); memorial service, hats are removed (Moscow, 1922) … The montage of crowds and machines greeting Comrade Lenin (Kinopravda no. 14), filmed in different places and different times…

From one person I take the hands, the strongest and most dexterous; from another I take the legs, the swiftest and most shapely; from a third, the most

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beautiful and expressive head – and through montage I create a new, perfect man.

… free from the limits of time and space, I put together any given points in the universe, no matter where I’ve recorded them. (Vertov, 1984 [1923]-a, pp. 17-18)

While Eisenstein constructed spaces within as well as between frames and shots, Vertov built them through intervals between shots:

I am kino-eye. I am a builder. I have placed you, whom I’ve created today, in an extraordinary room which did not exist until just now when I also created it. In this room there are twelve walls shot by me in various parts of the world. In bringing together shots of walls and details, I’ve managed to arrange them in an order that is pleasing and to construct with intervals, correctly, a film-phrase which is the room. (ibid., p. 17, emphasis added)

Furthermore, as these examples suggest, and Petric (1978) has eloquently argued, there is a dialectical relationship between film-fact and film-truth: the latter, a more general, abstract theme expressing an ideological stance is constructed using the former, authentic fragments selected directly from specific, concrete, material reality.

2.3.2 Roleofartistandaudience

The materialist basis of Vertov’s method is the source of the three central means – life facts, intervals and meta-art – through which he sought to realise the power of montage to influence the audience and which most clearly distinguish his approach from Eisenstein’s.

Firstly, in opposition to what he called “Eisenstein’s ‘factory of attractions’”, which relied on carefully constructed frames and shots, on acting, decors and narrative to create his montage of attractions and thereby influence the audience, Vertov wanted to build “the FACTORY OF FACTS. Filming facts. Sorting facts. Disseminating facts. Agitating with facts. Propaganda with facts. Fists made of facts”(Vertov, 1984 [1926]-a, p. 59, original emphasis). Vertov (1984 [1926]-b) promoted the “influence of facts upon workers’ consciousness” (p. 66) as the main objective of kino-eye and means of combating the influence of film drama, which he defined as “the opium of the people”(p.71) and which for him aimed “to divert the workers’ attention from their basic aim: the struggle against their masters” (p. 67) though entertainment, “stupefaction and suggestion” (p. 63). (See also Vertov,

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1984 [1924]-a, 2004 [1925]-b). Whereas facts allowed kino-eye “to bring clarity into the worker’s awareness of the phenomena concerning him and surrounding him” (Vertov, 1984 [1926]-b, p. 73), for Eisenstein facts were an insufficiently powerful means of influencing the audience:

In our conception a work of art […] is first and foremost a tractor ploughing over the audience’s psyche with a class purpose in mind. […] The work that the kinocs produce has neither this characteristic nor this mindset. […] Vertov takes from his surroundings the things that impress him rather than the things with which, by impressing the audience, he will plough its psyche.

[…]

The Kino-Eye is not just a symbol of vision: it is also a symbol of contemplation. But we need not contemplation, but action.

It is not a “Kino-Eye” that we need, but a “Kino-Fist”. (Eisenstein, 2004 [1925], pp. 127-128, original emphasis)4

Secondly, for Vertov, as for Eisenstein, organising film segments into “an organic whole” (1984 [1928]-a, p. 84) through precisely calculated part-whole relations was a prerequisite for realising the power of montage. To meet this requirement, Eisenstein developed the theory of attractions and Vertov the theory of intervals. While the former relied on affective relations evoking a specific psychological response, the latter sought to evoke “a most exciting sensory-motor” (Petric, 1978, p. 63) response from the audience kinaesthetically, through movement.

The geometrical extract of movement through an exciting succession of images is what’s required of montage.

Kinochestvo is the art of organizing the necessary movements of objects in space as a rhythmical artistic whole, in harmony with the properties of the material and the internal rhythm of each object.

Intervals (the transitions from one movement to another) are the material, the elements of the art of movement, and by no means the movements themselves. It is they (the intervals) which draw the movement to a kinetic resolution. (Vertov, 1984 [1922], p. 8, original emphasis)

As a means of constructing part-whole relations, Vertov’s theory of intervals is therefore another feature that defines his method as materialist, distinguishing it from Eisenstein’s predominantly emotional and dramatic, intellectual montage.

4 On the debate between Eisenstein and Vertov, see further Vertov (2004 [1925]-b, 2004 [1928]) and Michelson (1984a).

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Intervals build a sensory, as opposed to emotional or intellectual, experience and, like rhythm in music, rely on it to stimulate viewer engagement with the themes presented in a film. Petric (1978) provides the following example of this quality of intervals:

The unique kinesthetic power of the “Train and Wakening” sequence in Man with the Movie Camera is created by the juxtaposition of the movements which occur within the shots of the speeding train and the motion of the head of the sleeping girl. The kinesthetic impact of this short sequence reveals the wakening mood in pure cinematic terms. (p. 36)

Vertov saw intervals, alongside the use of facts, as a tool for “establishing a clear visual link between subjects and [thus] significantly weaken[ing] the importance of intertitles [and bringing] the movie screen closer to the uneducated viewers” (1984 [1923]-c, p. 38). The aim of reaching a wide audience is in line with Vertov’s (cf. 1984 [1924]-a; 2004 [1923], 2004 [1925]-a) refusal to draw a border between art and reality, or artists and other workers. At the same time, however, relying on sensory experience to achieve this aim seems discordant with kino-eye’s strong criticism towards artistic drama and its means of exercising subliminal influence on audiences, which is implicit in Vertov’s slogan “We need conscious men, not an unconscious mass submissive to any passing suggestion” (1984 [1926]-b, p. 66).

The possibly subconscious influence of intervals, however, was countered by the third distinctive feature of kino-eye’s materialist approach to film construction – meta-art. In The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929), this feature is realised both in the heavy use of camera effects and other experimental techniques (e.g. not using intertitles) and in the film’s “self-referential structure” (Petric, 1978, p. 34). Also employed in earlier kino-eye productions, experimentation was relied on “to open the eyes of the masses to the connection (not one of kisses or detectives) between the social and visual phenomena interpreted by the camera” (Vertov, 1984 [1923]-b, p. 35).

The film’s self-referential structure, on the other hand, revealed the basic tenets and processes of a kino-eye production by showing “the film’s passage from camera through laboratory and editing room to screen – […] included, by montage, in the film’s beginning, middle, and end” (Vertov, 1984 [n.d.], p. 289). By showing the film’s cameraman, Mikhail Kauffman, observing and collecting ‘life-facts’, the

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editor, Yelizaveta Svilova, repeatedly organising film footage into themes, selecting shots from these categories and splicing them together, and finally an audience viewing the film in a theatre (see Figure 2.2), Vertov makes explicit the stages in the production of the film as well as the responsibility and power that film-makers have to influence viewers and raise their awareness of various social injustices. For example, superimposition is employed to place the cameraman above the reality that he is observing and recording, in an omniviewing position of power and responsibility.

Figure 2.2 Self-referentiality in The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929)

At the same time, by making the powerful position of film-makers explicit and by drawing attention to its own constructed nature (through both experimentation and self-reference), the film not only unveils but also invites critical engagement with the methods deployed in its construction as well as with its ideological stance. These methods include group authorship, a method promoting a collectivist ideology opposed to the individualist drive of artistic drama films:

This departure from authorship by one person or a group of persons to mass authorship will, in our view, accelerate the destruction of bourgeois, artistic cinema and its attributes: the poser-actor, fairy-tale script, those costly toys – sets, and the director-high priest. (Vertov, 1984 [1926]-b, p. 71)

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While ‘mass authorship’ (e.g. allowing the audience to directly influence the structure of the film) was a utopian goal for the kinoks, kino-eye’s group authorship is a manifestation of their desire to create more open works that invite multiple perspectives as well as critique. This desire accords well with Vertov’s refusal to trade exploratory work for ‘light propaganda’, or for what Arvatov would describe as ‘agitation’, in order to achieve the kinok’s goal of reaching the masses:

One of the chief accusations leveled at us is that we are not intelligible to the masses. […] If the masses need light propaganda pamphlets, does that mean they don’t need the serious articles of Engels, Lenin? (Vertov, 1984 [1923]-c, p. 38) 2.4 Conclusion

This chapter has outlined those ideas of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov that are most relevant to the construction of the new media video installation developed for this PhD project and its analysis presented in Chapter 5. In this, it has focused on how each director theorised montage and the role of artist and audience, highlighting aspects of their theories and work that present montage as applicable to multimodal interaction (and by implication to installation and new media) and as suitable for creating meta-art.

To summarise, Kuleshov’s ‘brick-layering’ approach to montage focused almost exclusively on syntagmatic relationships between consecutive shots, rather than on the content or construction of shots. Such relationships for Kuleshov allowed montage to transcend the limitations of real space and time, and create artificial geography. For Kuleshov, the role of the artist was to stimulate reflection on key social issues, through facts or fiction, and both montage and film material. To achieve that, he suggested leaving the audience space for intellectual engagement (e.g. by avoiding rapid montage), that is, space to construct ideas and reach conclusions on the basis of the material arranged for and presented to them by the artist.

Eisenstein’s iconographic method emphasised both relations between consecutive shots as well as relations between non-adjacent shots, but is perhaps most well known for its focus on staging and thereby artistically constructing syntagmatic relations between elements within shots. All these relations could be

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used to create ‘vertical montage’, or montage designed to build an abstract ‘idea- image’ through the rhythmical alternation of and juxtapositions between elements. Eisenstein’s broad definition of montage as a method for establishing conflicts that contribute to a work’s total effect is fractal (i.e. applicable both to elements of different scale – frames, shots, sequences) as well as multimodal (i.e. applicable to elements realised in different modes – image, language, sound). From Eisenstein’s authoritarian perspective, a film had to guide viewers towards an unambiguous ideological conclusion on important social and political themes. To fulfil this didactic role and agitate viewers to take action against social injustice, his films relied on elements of attraction that individually and together have a specific emotional, psychological effect on the audience (‘montage of attractions’), on establishing authenticity constructed through the use of real locations as well as on fictional narrative as a genre with a clearly defined resolution-oriented structure and strong potential for emotional impact.

Vertov viewed montage as applicable to every stage of a film’s creation, from conception to presentation. This meant that montage applied not only to syntagmatic relations within and between adjacent and non-adjacent shots (i.e. relations between elements comprising a particular spatio-temporal structure) but also to paradigmatic relations, that is, relations between choices available to the artist in deciding what and how to film, how to catalogue footage (or create a database), and how to select from the catalogue when constructing a film. Distinctive of Vertov’s approach is its strong reliance on life facts (whether directly captured from reality or re-enacted for the camera), on film technology, and on editing life facts so as to construct more general socio-political themes, or ‘film- truth’. Vertov’s focus on using life facts (recorded aurally or visually) to present more abstract ideas makes his ‘factological’ approach as applicable to multimodal relations on different scales as Eisenstein’s iconographic one. The significance of paradigmatic relations, by contrast, allows it to be extended also to new media art works, which rely considerably on such relations for constructing database material and determining access to it. For Vertov, the role of the film worker was to create ‘propaganda through facts’, forcing viewers to (re)evaluate the material conditions of their lives. In addition to life facts, to draw the audience in that process, he stimulated kinaesthetic involvement (as opposed to Eisenstein’s emotional

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involvement) through the use of intervals in establishing part-whole relationships in his films. He also sought to stimulate reflection on the role of film as propaganda by revealing the process of film construction itself, including the key principles of the kino-eye method.

Drawing on theories of space from philosophy, sociology, architecture and semiotics, the following chapter will extend the ideas of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov to multimodal relations in cinematic, installation, and new media space. This extension is important for understanding how these ideas are incorporated in the new media video installation Compass II, and how montage as a semiotic principle allows Compass II to achieve its aim of offering its audience different degrees of engagement with the socio-political issues presented in the art work: from passive or active observation, through involuntary interaction, to active participation.

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Chapter3 Space,montage,andnewmedia videoinstallationart

This chapter presents a discussion of the applicability of the ideas of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov presented in Chapter 2 to new media video installation art works such as Compass II, which extends the notion of montage to juxtapositions beyond those found in film. This extension results from redefining Manovich’s (2001) term ‘spatial montage’ from a perspective that focuses not on new media in general but on new media video installation art. The discussion focuses on the potential of new media video installation to activate different aspects of space and thereby co-opt multiple meaning-making resources – visual, verbal, aural and kinetic – in the realisation of montage as a construction principle. Specifically, the discussion considers how montage can be employed in new media video installation art in order to encourage social engagement with socio-political and cultural issues represented in an art work, among audience members and between audience members and art itself.

3.1 Spaceinnewmediavideoinstallationart

As outlined in Section 1.2.1, the defining feature of installation art is its ability to activate space for the interaction of multiple modes, media and genres, as well as for the interaction between the work, its viewing context and the audience. Due to the centrality of space in all installation art, it is important to consider what aspects of space it can activate prior to understanding how montage may be applied in the construction of new media video installation art works.

While this thesis focuses on space, it must be acknowledged that activating space always also involves activating time:

It is precisely space, which, filled with atmospheric air, linking things together and destroying their individual closeness, gives things their temporal

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value and draws them into the cosmic interplay of phenomena. (Worringer, 1953 cited in Frank, 1991, p. 60)

This interaction between space and time opens possibilities for montage between elements that occupy a given space simultaneously (synchronous or overlapping interaction) as well as in sequence. Those elements that occur in sequence can be further defined as contiguous/adjacent or non-contiguous/non-adjacent.

New media video installation art mobilises multiple aspects of space by combining the potential for activating space associated with cinema, installation art, and new media. These aspects will now be described for each of these contexts in turn with reference to two types of space – physical and represented – and the modes and media that can be employed in each.

3.1.1 Spaceincinema

Cinema activates both physical and represented space. Physical space includes the two-dimensional screen space and the three-dimensional theatre space within which a film is projected and viewed, both of which make available different modes (static and moving images, written language and speech, as well as sound) for the construction of represented space.

Physicalspace:screenandtheatre Screen space has received considerable attention by film theorists in relation to its potential to represent not only two-dimensional spaces (e.g. when the projected image shows flat shapes or non-perspectival drawings, as in abstract film) but also three-dimensional ones, as in most narrative feature films. Much of this attention is devoted to explicating the techniques used to overcome the limitations of the screen’s plane surface and create an impression of depth in the representation of reality through the use of various cues such as lighting, setting, costumes, variations in size and movement, and sound (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010). Many of these conventions for constructing three-dimensional space have been adopted from painting and drawing, while others are specific to the moving image as a temporal medium (Arnheim, 1957). Spaces represented on the screen may thus be more or less dynamic depending on the presence and speed of movement within them as well as the length of shots and the frequency with which they succeed each other.

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This adds a dynamicity which for Manovich (2001) marks a pivotal point in the history of the screen, a point that warrants a distinction between what he terms the ‘classical screen’ of painting and the ‘dynamic screen’ of cinema. Screen space may also be used to superimpose written language (e.g. the name of a city) and other visual elements on the moving image, which too can represent spaces.

Cinema also activates three-dimensional, theatre space, which is defined by the positions of the projector, the cinema screen, the loudspeakers, and viewers in the theatre. Theatre space affects the perception of represented static and dynamic spaces shown on the screen, as Arnheim (1957) illustrates with a number of examples:

How large an object appears on the screen depends partly on the distance at which the camera was placed from it, but also on how much the picture is enlarged when the finished film is projected. […] The spectators in the front rows naturally see a much larger picture than those in the back rows. […] in a large projection, or when the spectator is near the picture, movements appear more rapid than in a small one […]. A movement which seems hurried and confused in a large picture may be perfectly right and normal in a smaller one. The relative size of the projection, moreover, determines how clearly the details in the picture are visible to the spectator. [As well,] when the rows of seats extend too far sideways, those sitting at the ends will see the picture distorted (pp. 19-20).

Theatre space also complements the screen as a platform for representing space by enabling spaces to be constructed aurally, using speech, music and other sounds. Such constructions can employ sounds associated with certain places (e.g. a train station) and soundscapes composed through sound perspective (on perspective in sound, see further Van Leeuwen, 1999). Depending on whether a sound is positioned as figure or ground, for example, which can be achieved by controlling amplification and other sound qualities, sound can be used to represent a space that appears far away from or close to the audience and/or envelops the listener.

Activating three-dimensional physical space, and blurring the boundaries between it and screen space, as well as between physical and represented space, was a key strategy for the expanded cinema movement in the 1960–70s (cf. Van Der Beek, 2008; Weibel, 2003; Youngblood, 1970). An example is Anthony Mc Call’s (1973) Line Describing a Cone, which he has described as ‘the first film to exist in real, three-dimensional space’ and where:

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The film is visible on the screen first as a white dot on a black ground. This dot grows into a line, which arcs around to form a circle. Over the duration of the film, all that is visible on the screen is the slow drawing of this circle. Meanwhile, between the screen and the projector, the beam of light is visible as a gradually growing cone, made visible as particles in the air are illuminated by the projector. For the viewer, therefore, there is no one point of focus: they can watch the growing circle on the screen, or the growing cone between screen and projector, or move their eyes between the two. (Godfrey & McCall, 2007)

While there is a clear continuity between the three-dimensional exhibition space of installation art and theatre space in cinema, the cinema viewer is restricted to a given position within the theatre and expected to immerse himself or herself into the spaces represented on the screen, rather than pay attention to any object other than the screen or move and interact with other viewers. These conventions in cinema form the basis of what Manovich (2001) terms the ‘viewing regime’ of the dynamic screen, in which a “singular image […] completely fills the screen” and the screen “functions to filter, or screen out, to take over, rendering nonexistent whatever is outside its frame [i.e. the rest of the theatre space]” (p. 96).

Representedspace:explicitandimplied Turning from physical to represented space in cinema, in addition to the communication modes they involve (e.g. written language, image, movement and sound), represented spaces may be defined in terms of the traditional distinction of explicit (or explicitly represented) versus implied space. In this thesis, taking a multimodal perspective, this distinction is reinterpreted as a scale, or continuum, thereby acknowledging that different modes can be involved in representing a space more or less explicitly. The greater the number of modes involved in representing a space and the more direct their relation to the actual space they represent, the more explicit (and naturalistic) the representation.

Perhaps due to the dominance of screen space in cinema, it has long been recognised that spaces represented in the projected image are more explicit than those not captured within its frame. With the exception of spaces constructed in abstract film, a space represented on the screen typically implies the existence of ‘off-screen’ space, space that is not shown on the screen but understood to be “part of the space of the scene: to each side and above and below the frame, behind the set and behind the camera” (Bordwell & Thompson, 2010, p. 493). ‘Off-screen’

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space may be implied by more than a single shot; it may be constructed between shots, through editing – for example, when consecutive shots (whether contiguous or not) show the same character boarding a train at one station and alighting from it at another. The degree of explicitness of ‘off-screen’ space may be influenced by various factors. Recognising ‘off-screen’ space depends on the audience’s familiarity with the specific space represented on the screen or generic spaces similar to it (e.g. train stations). Sound and written language too may play a role in making ‘off- screen’ space more explicit. A shot of empty railway tracks extending into the distance, for instance, may be accompanied by the sound of an approaching train, and the image of a train station may be overlaid with written language revealing the name of the location.

Of special importance in defining the explicitness of represented space in cinema is the interaction of sound and image at different stages of film production (e.g. recording of raw visual footage and sound and their manipulation during recording as well as in postproduction) and in the final work. To illustrate, in cinema, a space is represented most directly if it is shown on the screen and the soundtrack accompanying its image has been recorded at the same time as the image, without modifying either image or sound through various technologies during or after the recording. If the sound is recorded at the same location but not simultaneously with the image, the explicitness of the representation is likely to be slightly reduced, even if the soundtrack has been synchronised with the moving image in postproduction.

Any disjunction between the visually and aurally represented space, for instance in terms of distance or perspective, also reduces the explicitness of a represented space. Examples of this may be a very long shot of a man accompanied by the sound of the same man whispering, or a shot showing two people talking and walking along a very busy street while their voices can be heard clearly over the traffic noises. Another disjunction is when the soundtrack features sounds associated with a space that is visually represented (which may even have been recorded at the same time as the projected image) but the visual track does not show the source of the sounds at all or does not show it at the same time as the sounds occur; that is, when the sounds are ‘source-disconnected’ rather than ‘source-connected’ (Zettl, 2005, p. 332), the explicitness of the represented space is

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reduced. Such disjunctions reduce the authenticity of the audio-visual representation as a whole and rely on sound or image alone to represent certain aspects of the overall space (e.g. the image of traffic suggesting the street is noisy, although the volume of the traffic noise is lower than that of the conversation in the film). As well, ‘literal sound’, or sound that refers to a particular object or space, depending on its authenticity, would normally increase the explicitness of a represented space, while ‘non-literal sound’ (e.g. music) always reduces it (ibid.).5 A disjunction typically opens room for interpretation and may thus involve the audience more than does a representation characterised by a close and naturalistic correspondence between image and sound. The explicitness and naturalism of represented space in cinema thus influence each other, and are both realised through the interaction of sound and image.

3.1.2 Spaceininstallationart

Like cinema, all installation art activates three-dimensional physical space, the space where an installation is exhibited, or exhibition space. This can be illustrated with Duchamp’s installation Mile of String, which was conceived for a specific site as well as a specific event – the First Papers of Surrealism exhibition in 1942 in New York. This installation consists of threads stretched across the rooms of the exhibition, obstructing the visitors’ movements and so foregrounding the dimensions of the space housing the event. Unlike theatre space, however, an exhibition space invites the audience to move and experience an installation art work from various perspectives as well as to interact with each other in negotiating their movement through the exhibition space.

Installation art creates a situation into which the viewer physically enters, and insists that you regard this as a singular totality. Installation art therefore differs from traditional media (sculpture, painting, photography, video) in that it addresses the viewer directly as a literal presence in the space. Rather than imagining the viewer as a pair of disembodied eyes that survey the work from a distance, installation art presupposes an embodied viewer whose senses of touch, smell and sound are as heightened as their sense of vision. This insistence on the literal presence of the viewer is arguably the key characteristic of installation art. (Bishop, 2005, p. 6)

5 The distinction between literal and non-literal sound is similar to but at the same time broader than that between diegetic and non-diegetic for narrative film, since while non-literal sounds are always non-diegetic, a literal (or referential) sound may not be related to a story, that is literal sounds are not always diegetic.

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Exhibition space includes both the space taken up by the sculptural-structural elements comprising the installation (e.g. the threads in Mile of String) and the space that surrounds them. The latter may be designed for exhibitions, as are gallery and museum spaces, or may be a space in the natural or built environment appropriated by the artist as an essential setting for and component of the art work as in site- specific installation art such as Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s work The Gates (1979- 2005), designed for and exhibited in New York’s Central Park (on this project, see further Ferrera, Maysles, Maysles, & Prinzing, 2007).

Exhibition space expands the meaning-making potential not only of site-specific but also of non-site specific installations like Compass II significantly as it envelops the audience and enables a work to draw on a vast array of synaesthetically intertwined resources – visual, verbal, aural, olfactory and haptic (including movement, touch and proxemics). These allow artists to materialise ideas (which in philosophy and architecture are considered part of ‘abstract or mental space’) in physical (‘real’) space and thereby to construct both social and ‘representational’ space. The physical, social and representational dimensions of space have been studied and theorised, to various extents, in architecture, semiotics, sociology and philosophy. Drawing on these fields, I will now briefly introduce principles for describing each of these dimensions and their relationships which are useful for discussing the role of exhibition space in installation art.

Physicaldimensions Since the beginning of the twentieth century, architecture has evidenced a steadily increasing consensus that physical space is the essential element of architectural design, whether that design is conceived as concerned only with buildings that have interior space (cf. Zevi, 1993) or with any built environment (cf. Ching, 2007; Giedon, 2008 [1966]; Hertzberger, 2000, 2005; Unwin, 2003). It is also widely acknowledged that physical space cannot be understood in isolation from structure/form, on the one hand, and time/movement, on the other. Conceptualising the goal of architecture as giving identity to a space in order to create a place (i.e. a space that carries meanings and is designed with specific function/s in mind), Unwin argues that “[b]oth structure and space are media of architecture.” (2003, p. 161). It is by using various objects, volumes, structures,

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including more tangible ones, like walls, as well as less tangible, modifying elements, like light and texture, that architects create boundaries within a space, and thereby distinguish outside from inside and public from private areas as well as create ‘transitional’ (Unwin, 2003), or ‘in-between’, spaces allowing access from one type of area into another:

The threshold provides the key to the transition and connection between areas with divergent territorial claims and, as a place in its own right, it constitutes, essentially, the spatial condition for the meeting and dialogue between areas of different orders. (Hertzberger, 2005, p. 32).

Architects may also use structures to blur the distinction between one type of space and another; Giedon, for instance, considers “[t]he stairways in the upper levels of the Eiffel Tower [to be] among the earliest architectural expressions of the continuous interpenetration of outer and inner space” (2008 [1966], p. 436).

Physical space is also four-dimensional (non-Euclidean) as its nature both affects and is influenced by time and movement. Alongside space, time and movement have been described as key components of architecture (Unwin, 2003) and architecture as “the environment, the stage on which our lives unfold” (Zevi, 1993, p. 32), or as Tschumi (1995, p. 10) puts it: “Architecture is defined by the actions it witnesses as much as by the enclosure of its walls”. The construction of physical space and users’ movement through and actions within it stand in a dialectical relation. Just as a space can be designed to encourage users to spend different amounts of time in it, to quicken or expand the pace of their movement through and experience of the space, to view and to pull them inwards or outwards (Zevi, 1993), so too individual users will experience it differently from each other and may take different perspectives in each of their traversals through the space or other activities within it. The reason is that:

Experiencing products of architecture involves movement. One passes from outside to inside, or through the serial stages of a route. Even in a simple enclosed space it is not possible to look in all directions simultaneously, so one moves around. (Unwin, 2003, p. 197)

For this reason, Unwin views “[p]eople and their activities [as] an indispensable component of architecture, not merely as spectators to be entertained but as contributors and participants” (2003, p. 25), and works such as Mile of String draw attention to the Surrealist understanding of the art gallery as the “junction between

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space and performance”(Tschumi, 1995, p. 75). In other words, three-dimensional physical space is inherently open to variation in experience and makes installation art works open to different interpretations. This understanding is echoed in Bishop’s argument that:

Instead of representing texture, space, light and so on, installation art presents these elements directly for us to experience. This introduces an emphasis on sensory immediacy, on physical participation (the viewer must walk into and around the work), and on a heightened awareness of other visitors who become part of the piece. Many artists and critics have argued that this need to move around and through the work in order to experience it activates the viewer, in contrast to art that simply requires optical contemplation (which is considered to be passive and detached). This activation is, moreover, regarded as emancipatory, since it is analogous to the viewer’s engagement in the world. A transitive relationship therefore comes to be implied between ‘activated spectatorship’ and active engagement in the social-political arena. (Bishop, 2005, p. 11)

Socialdimensions The dialectal relation between people’s activities and physical space is at the basis of sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s (1991 [1974]) “unitary theory of mental, physical and social space” (p. 21), which argues that space is always social in that it is a product perceived, conceived, and lived by people and that it “serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of production, it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power; yet that, as such, it escapes from those who would make use of it” (p. 26). This idea is echoed in architectural design and semiotic analyses of three-dimensional physical space that seek to explicate how physical spaces can be designed to influence feelings of security, power and solidarity, as well as the ways occupants of the space interact with objects within it as well as with each other. Hertzberger (2000), for example, makes a distinction between ‘collective spaces’, where people gather, and ‘social spaces’, which make people aware of each other’s presence and encourages them to interact with each other, and cautions:

The space left between built elements both inside and outside is not automatically social space. We must keep searching for space forms that make our buildings mechanisms where everyone crosses everyone else’s path, a mechanism that is more than a human storage system whose contents are condemned to solitary confinement. (p. 172)

The interconnectedness between social and physical space is also emphasised in analyses of architecture from different eras and geographical regions from the

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perspectives of history (cf. Marcussen, 2008) as well as semiotics. Taking a social semiotic approach, Hodge (1998), for instance, explains:

[B]uilt forms typically […] organiz[e] space in terms of relations of solidarity (who can eat or sleep or converse with whom and who should be excluded) and power (expressing the power of individuals and groups). They use spatial signifiers (e.g., walls, doors, passages, windows, and roofs) that are reinforced or modified by secondary systems of spatial signifiers (e.g., ornamentation, designated pathways, and gardens).

In societies where the dominant social semiotic system emphasizes differences of wealth and power, the architectural systems normally emphasize boundaries (elaborated doorways, massive walls, etc). In societies or social groups where these differences are minimized, the primary spatial signifiers are typically less prominent, and inequalities are signified and managed through secondary sign systems that are more ambiguous (e.g., well-manicured front lawns, signifying both “I am open to view” and “do not walk on me”). (p. 587)

Building on insights from architecture, Stenglin (2004, 2008a, 2008b, 2009) offers a social semiotic framework for understanding the interpersonal effects of three- dimensional space, focusing especially on in/security, interaction and learning in museum exhibitions. The framework’s key concepts are binding and bonding. Stenglin (2004, p. 115-116) theorises binding as “the dialectical relationship between affect and space”, with a particular focus on how “the way a space closes in on a person or opens up around them” makes them feel secure or insecure. She argues that spaces that are bound provide comfort and protection and spaces that are unbound offer freedom from restrictions, and that both these spaces can make people feel secure and encourage learning. By contrast, spaces that are too bound or too unbound tend to create a sense of insecurity, making people feel either too claustrophobic or too exposed. Binding is thus a scale, whose extremes evoke insecurity, while the choices in the middle of the scale create a sense of security and comfort. Installation works can make different selections from the scale depending on the effect they are intended to have; for example, making the audience feel exposed can be a desired alienating effect in a particular work.

Bonding is concerned with bringing people together and encouraging different types of interaction and learning. There are three key tools for creating bonding. The first is the construction of shared attitudes around the same field or domain of experience, be these positive or negative (e.g. migration and associate values). The second is the use of what Stenglin calls ‘bonding icons’: emblems that over time

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have become charged with certain values so that people rally around them to demonstrate their acceptance or rejection of these values (Stenglin, 2008b). A bonding icon may be a song or a poem (e.g. a national anthem), a famous individual (e.g. Lenin), a symbolic object (e.g. a flag, or the compass in Compass II), or a cultural icon (e.g. Sydney Harbour Bridge). The third tool is hybridisation. It involves drawing on a number of different domains of experience in order to engage a wider variety of people, with different experiences. Finally, bonding operates in tandem with binding so that a space that is more enclosed encourages at best very quiet interaction about the represented domain of experience and associated values, while a more open space may result in more lively exchanges between people, and a space that is too open may not draw people together at all. The same relationship is posited with respect to art works by Robert Morris: “Large works dwarf us, creating a public mode of interaction, while small works encourage privacy and intimacy.” (from his ‘Notes on Architecture’ 1966, cited in Bishop, 2005, p. 53).

Representationaldimensions In installation art, the interaction of physical with social space creates what Lefebvre (1991 [1974], p. 39) refers to as ‘representational space’, which “overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects”. The threads in Mile of String, for example, can be read as representing intertextual relationships between the art works in the exhibition. Objects acting as bonding icons, too, can represent higher- order values – for example, a portrait of Marx can evoke associations with the struggle for social justice for the working class.

Finally, alongside installation space, video installation may activate all aspects of cinematic space discussed so far. To illustrate this, Mile of String can be contrasted with Bill Viola’s four-channel video installation The Stopping Mind (1991). In Viola’s work, the screens, hanging from the ceiling, are arranged to form a square enclosure, and simultaneously show different video sequences of frantically alternating shots accompanied by loud quadraphonic sound, until suddenly, at unpredictable intervals yet in complete synchrony, the projections freeze to single images. During each ‘freeze’ a whispering voice can be heard chanting from the centre of the ceiling. (For a detailed explication of the artist’s choices, see further

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Viola, 1995.) Through the placement of the screens and variations in sound, this installation activates, like Mile of String, exhibition space. It also, unlike Mile of String but like cinema, activates screen space. Both exhibition and screen space are ‘canvasses’ for the representation of other spaces. In Viola’s work, the whisper from the ceiling represents an intimate distance between its source and the listener, regardless of the fact that the intimacy of this sound may be seen to contradict its high volume as well as the actual distance of its source/the ceiling from the viewer. The images, on the other hand, show spaces such as fields and roads. These spaces may be directly recorded from reality like some of Vertov’s ‘life facts’, as is the case in The Stopping Mind, or they may be constructed like most of Eisenstein’s frames. Viola’s and other video installation works also raise the question of how cinema and installation space interact in creating degrees of binding and stimulating bonding among audience members.

3.1.3 Spaceinnewmediaart

Like new media works, new media video installation also activates what can be referred to as ‘digital space’, the space created through the features of new media objects identified by Manovich (2001) and presented in Section 1.2.2 – numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and transcoding. These features are important for constructing the defining aspects of digital space – database space and interface space. Operating together, database and interface in new media create numerous possibilities for activating real, physical two- and three-dimensional space, creating different opportunities for social interaction, and (re)presenting spaces on the screen and in the exhibition.

Databasespace Following Manovich (1999, 2000, 2001), database form is central to all new media. A database is a collection of new media objects, which is “organised for fast search and retrieval by a computer” (Manovich, 1999, p. 81) so that “every item has the same significance as any other” (ibid., p. 80). Manovich describes the logic of the database as ‘paradigmatic’, adopting Saussure’s (1966 [1916]) distinction between language as paradigm, or a system of available choices, and language as syntagm, or a meaningful spatio-temporal organisation of selected choices, as experienced

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through speech and writing. Database, or paradigmatic, logic contrasts with the syntagmatic logic of narrative:

Many new media objects do not tell stories; they don’t have a beginning or end; in fact, they don’t have any development, thematically, formally or otherwise which would organise their elements into a sequence. (Manovich, 1999, p. 80).

Manovich describes database as a form that is “normally static and ‘objective’” (ibid., p. 98), yet also qualifies this as a utopian view, for ‘pure’ databases do not exist – a database is always a selection of objects, which are always organised according to some principle (hierarchical, object-oriented, relational, etc.). Thus, the contents and organisation of a database can reflect ideological and aesthetic values. Viewing “the database [as] a new symbolic form of the computer age, […] a new way to structure our experience of ourselves and the world” (ibid., p. 81), Manovich argues that although this form reflects the tendency of our postmodern, computerised society to see the world “as an endless and unstructured collection of images, texts, and other data records”, which makes it “appropriate that we will be moved to model it as a database”, “it is also appropriate that we would want to develop a poetics, aesthetics, and ethics of this database” (ibid.). Ross Gibson (2004, p. 283) similarly describes “database thinking [as] open-ended and restless”, while recognising that “every multimedia database – even the most expedient or functional – is infused with aesthetics and semantics”.

At the same time, Manovich emphasises that both narrative and database logic “have existed long before modern media” (1999, p.93) and illustrates that with film:

…cinema already exists precisely at the intersection between database and narrative. We can think of all the material accumulated during shooting forming a database (especially since the shooting schedule usually does not follow the narrative of the film but is determined by production logistics). During editing the editor constructs a film narrative out of this database, creating a unique trajectory through the conceptual space of all possible films which could have been constructed. From this perspective, every filmmaker engages with the database-narrative problem in every film (p.94)

New media art works similarly combine database and narrative logic, but privilege the former. As Manovich explains, in contrast to film where the audience is presented with a syntagm (often in narrative form) – that is, where they have been presented with those shots, words, sounds, etc. that have been selected by the film

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maker – and from them can imagine the implicit paradigm/database from which these selections have been made,

[n]ew media reverses this relationship. Database (the paradigm) is given material existence, while narrative (the syntagm) is de-materialised. Paradigm is privileged, syntagm is downplayed. Paradigm is real, syntagm is virtual. (ibid., p. 89)

In interactive new media art, the audience navigate through a work’s database and create their own syntagms, which may be considered narratives (in a broad sense) if they involve a sequence of logically-related events experienced by one or more characters. For example, in David Rokeby’s interactive new media sound installation Very Nervous System, which was developed between 1982 and 1991 and has been presented within galleries as well as open public spaces, body movement allows audience members to select from a database of different sound files by moving their bodies and composing music by activating sound modules at different speed and combining them in various ways (Rokeby, 2010). In this example, objects/sound files from the database are assigned to different positions of a three- dimensional physical space, and thus digital space activates exhibition space.

I propose that three interrelated features of database space considerably affect how an audience engages with new media art: size, access, and flexibility. The greater the number of database objects, that is, the larger its size, the greater the ‘digital’ space available for users to interact with. A large database can allow the audience significant freedom of navigation, depending how it is accessed and how flexible it is. This can lead to sustained engagement with a work, or cause disorientation and alienate the audience, as well as prevent them from focusing on specific issues. A small database may be better able to draw attention to specific ideas, yet may result in a feeling of limited freedom and discourage sustained audience engagement with the ideas presented in it.

Ways of accessing a database are defined in the form of an algorithm, a decision procedure which in new media art is written as a computer program, while in 1960s op(tical) and kinetic art was built into the material construction of the art works themselves (Weibel, 2007). Random access algorithms can be overwhelming in works with very large databases and can prevent the audience from making conscious selections from the database and constructing meaningful syntagms.

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Controlled access algorithms define precise relationships between audience behaviour and database elements. Such relationships, when they become apparent to the audience, increase awareness of the artist’s role in establishing and limiting the ways in which a work can be experienced. Such awareness is a prerequisite for knowingly engaging with a new media art work, making deliberate use of objects in its database and questioning the limits the artist has imposed on the audience. In Rokeby’s (2010) Very Nervous System, for instance, the audience can gradually become aware of the types and spatial distribution of sounds available within the database and experiment in combining them in particular ways; they can learn to control the dynamics and intensity of sounds and consciously create different soundscapes and thus represent different types of spaces through sound (e.g. more intimate, characterised with softer sounds, vs. more public, with louder volume) (See examples at Rokeby, 2011).

Interactive new media art works can also be categorised in terms of whether their databases are fixed or ‘evolving’ (Daniel & O’Rourke, 2004), that is, according to their type and degree of flexibility. The sound files in Rokeby’s Very Nervous System appear to be part of a rich yet fixed database, that is one that has a certain number of objects. Evolving databases are those that can be altered by the audience, which involves either changing existing elements within a database or expanding it by generating new elements. Mari Velonaki’s (2011) collaboratively developed interactive new media installation Fragile Balances works with an expanding database of intimate messages which audience members write to their loved ones on pieces of paper and feed in a slot on a rotating bass drum (Circle E: Fragile Balances). These messages are then scanned and used in segments of the installation developed earlier (Circle B & D) as lines in the dialogue between characters.

As this comparison illustrates, databases open possibilities for audience participation as well as for blurring or emphasising social boundaries such as those between public and private space, audience and characters, artist and audience, and so on. This points to the importance of following Manovich’s lead, and theorising the role that databases play in interactive new media art. This task can be significantly facilitated by artists describing and thereby drawing explicit attention to the nature of the databases they employ.

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Interfacespace In contrast to database space, interface space has received considerable attention by both artists and new media theorists. A likely reason is that it is the interface that allows an audience to select and activate objects from the database (according to the rules written in the algorithm), while the database in its entirety is rarely visible to viewers (just like the software/algorithms that enable access to it). In works whose database is altered or created by the audience, too, the interface defines the ways in which this can be done. In Velonaki’s Circle E: Fragile Balances the interface presents the audience with pieces of paper and a pencil, thus defining the format of the intimate messages they can contribute to the database as one of handwritten notes. Another example is Subtract the Sky by Sharon Daniel. This online interactive work invites the audience to become cartographers and create an evolving database by steadily adding and creating hyperlinks between various materials (e.g. photographs, maps, stories, etc.) which represent their heterogeneous experiences and histories after becoming familiar with its interface, which includes categories for grouping these materials (e.g. nature, culture, aesthetics, public, private) (Daniel & O’Rourke, 2004, pp. 288-292).

An interface may include two-dimensional and/or three-dimensional objects (e.g. touch screen, mouse, keyboard, joystick), which may be physical (e.g. the mouse button) or semiotic (e.g. icons and words on a touch screen), and may be activated through touch, movement, gaze and/or speech and sound (Kay, 2002 [1989]). Interface components may be interdependent – for instance, clickable objects on a monitor can only be accessed through a mouse or touch screen – or may operate independently of each other (e.g. keyboard shortcuts can be used instead of mouse clicks). Interface components may also be assigned different levels of priority so that one is dominant and/or has precedence over others. These possibilities for “different freedoms and fluidity” allow interface designers to inscribe into the interface the ways that a new media environment can be explored, not only physically but also conceptually: “the power of the interface to shape language and thought cannot be overestimated” (Ascott, 2002 [1990], p. 341). This is why it is important to understand the role of interfaces in new media art and establish parameters for describing them.

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According to Cramer and Fuller (2008, p. 149):

The term “interface” appears to have been borrowed from chemistry, where it means “a surface forming a common boundary of two bodies, spaces, phases.” In computing, interfaces link software and hardware to each other and to their human users or other sources of data.

Broadening this definition, the interface is both a boundary between database space and the space occupied by the audience, as well as a meeting point for these two spaces, mediating the audience’s access to and interaction with the database as well as with each other6.

Interfaces play a vital role in new media art:

Creating a work in new media can be understood as the construction of an interface to a database. In the simplest case, the interface simply provides the access to the underlying database. [...] But the interface can also translate the underlying database into a very different user experience. (Manovich, 1999, p. 86).

From this perspective, every interface can be seen as a ‘filter’ (Manovich, 2001), rarely presenting the database in its entirety and/or revealing its organisation, but rather offering and controlling access to different objects in the database, allowing these objects to be explored and/or manipulated in certain ways but not others. In Rokeby’s Very Nervous System, for instance, audience members need to become aware of the spatial distribution of the sensors that comprise the interface in order to activate certain sounds and observe this distribution of sounds in attempting to compose music by moving their bodies. Like other interactive new media works, this one illustrates how although the audience may learn to control the interface to access the database and participate in an art work, they do that on the terms of the interface, which imposes limits on and controls their engagement (Munster, 2006).

And although new media makes it possible to construct different interfaces to the same database, Manovich (2001, pp. 66-67) argues against separating ‘interface’ from ‘content’ in new media art:

6 This understanding combines also Oxford English Dictionary’s two main definitions of ‘interface’: 1. A surface lying between two portions of matter or space, and forming their common boundary. 2. A means or place of interaction between two systems, organizations, etc.; a meeting-point or common ground between two parties, systems, or disciplines; also, interaction, liaison, dialogue. (Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2011)

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… it is the work’s interface that creates its unique materiality and the unique user experience. To change the interface even slightly is to dramatically change the work. From this perspective, to think of an interface as a separate level, as something that can be arbitrarily varied is to eliminate the status of a new media art work as art.

There is another way to think about the difference between new media design and new media art in relation to the content—interface dichotomy. In contrast to design, in art the connection between content and form (or, in the case of new media, content and interface) is motivated. That is, the choice of a particular interface is motivated by work’s content to such degree that it can no longer be thought of as a separate level. Content and interface merge into one entity, and no longer can be taken apart.

Rokeby (1998, p. 27) goes even further when he states that “[i]nterfaces are content” and stresses “the profound and subtle ways that the interface itself, by defining how we perceive and navigate content, shapes our experience of that content”.

The inextricability of content and interface is particularly evident in works where the interface is symbolic, that is, where it represents particular concepts and spaces. The pencil and paper Velonaki offers the audience in Circle E: Fragile Balances, for example, symbolise the personal nature of the handwritten message. The interface of another work by Velonaki, Pin Cushion, similarly incorporates symbolic objects. In Pin Cushion the audience can manipulate the image of a woman’s face projected onto a pin cushion on a wall using acupuncture needles, thereby distorting and leaving traces on the image/face. Velonaki (2003, p. 44) explains her choice of acupuncture needles with their symbolic associations:

The acupuncture needles were chosen because of the remedial association that the actual object reflects. Unlike any other needles that would create an immediate negative statement if placed on the face in the first visual encounter between the spectator and the work (and prior to any physical interaction with the work) acupuncture needles imply a state of peacefulness.

Interface space is not only inextricable from content, but also plays a central role in establishing different opportunities for audience engagement with the art work and with each other. For this reason, Rokeby (1998) argues, “[t]he creation of interactive interfaces carries a social responsibility” (p. 28) for “[a]n interface inherently constructs a representation of the user” (p. 37). I propose four interrelated features through which an interface may impact on social engagement

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with and within new media installations, which are all relevant to this PhD project: virtuality, plurality, visibility and transparency.

Virtuality is a scale which foregrounds that interfaces in new media art not only present content and represent space, but can also maintain or blur the boundary between represented, or virtual, space (e.g. on the screen and/or through sounds) and the physical space occupied by the audience and the installation. An interface can be characterised with different degrees of virtuality: “In the arts virtuality qualifies a pictorial representation as different from its subject. In interactive art, both characteristics – not being part of real life and representing something – intermingle.” (Kwastek, 2008b, p. 159). Considering the screen as an interface element, Manovich (2001) thus argues that the possibility of updating representations on the screen continually in real time and thereby merging them with real, physical spaces (as in virtual reality environments) marks a new stage, a new viewing regime, in the genealogy of the screen – the screen of real time:

In contrast to cinema, where the mobile camera moves independently of the immobile spectator, now the spectator actually has to move in physical space in order to experience movement in virtual space. […] now she has to work, to speak, in order to see. (Manovich, 2001, p. 109)

This possibility raises an important consideration for new media art, namely, to what extent real and virtual space merge, or what degree of immersion an art work supports. Complete separation may fail to engage the audience in the interactive experience, making them feel like passive observers of represented space. Complete immersion, on the other hand, is unlikely to draw critical attention to the content and structure of the work: “in certain seemingly ‘living’ virtual environments a fragile, central element of art comes under threat: the recipient’s act of distancing, which is essential for enabling any critical reflection”(Grau, 2003a). (See also Shaw, 2002 [1992]).

Plurality is defined by two features of the interface in an interactive art work. One concerns whether the interface can be activated simultaneously by more than one interactor. The other is whether its activation by one audience member affects the experience of others, co-present or subsequent audience members. Jeffrey Shaw’s The Legible City (1989), for example, presents a stationary bicycle that allows the person riding it to ‘move through’ a 3D digital image of a city, projected on a

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large screen, where instead of buildings, the streets are occupied with words from Dirk Groeneveld’s stories that were written for this installation (Shaw, 2002 [1992], p. 135). Although the bicycle can only be ridden by a single person, this person’s movement will affect the way that other, co-present viewers will experience the work. The interface of Rokeby’s Very Nervous System, by contrast, allows several people to interact with the work at the same time. Plurality thus creates complex power relations amongst the audience: “the participants of interactive artworks are often observed by other visitors, thereby becoming exemplary participants. Being conscious of this, they will start to observe themselves.” (Kwastek, 2008b, p. 158). (On the notion of the exemplary viewer, see further Daniels, 2008.)

Visibility is the extent to which an element of a new media art work is immediately identifiable as part of its interface space. The sensors in Rokeby’s Very Nervous System are not immediately visible – their positions become apparent to the audience only gradually. In an open space, this can turn passers-by into (involuntary) participants and either engage them with the work or create a sense of insecurity, of being exposed and having one’s privacy violated. In Velonaki’s Pin Cushion the audience is made ware of the function of acupuncture needles as an interface element and can thus choose whether or not, and to an extent how, to engage with the work. Visibility can thus support intentional interface use (S. Jones, 2004).

Finally, transparency describes the extent to which the interface is intuitive or easy to learn how to operate. Both complete transparency or complete opaqueness could limit the audience’s involvement with the work: complete transparency may limit their opportunity to engage in the process of exploration and discovery, while the latter may significantly impede this process (cf. Costello, 2007; Edmonds, et al., 2006). A completely transparent interface may also be, or gradually become, invisible, limiting awareness of its presence (Ryan, 2009). This raises “serious issues of control, manipulation, and deception” (Rokeby, 1996, p. 153), for transparent interfaces are perceived as “intuitive precisely because they tap into existing stereotypes”, as Rokeby (1998, p.36) argues.

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In sum, new media video installation works may activate two- or three-dimensional physical space (i.e. screen and exhibition space), represented space, as well as digital database and interface space. In such works, therefore, space can be seen as the richest and most important meaning-making resource. It has the power to enable as well as constrain the interplay of all other resources in a new media video installation, be these digital files encoding still and moving images and/or sound, three-dimensional objects, or the movement of such objects or the viewers.

3.2 Montageandspace

The immense significance of space as a meaning-making resource in cinema, (video) installation and new media and the continuity between them necessitate an exploration of the potential of montage to activate different types of space in new media video installations such as Compass II. In this section, I briefly discuss the relationship between montage and space in cinema, new media and new media video installation art, and argue that Manovich’s principle of ‘spatial montage’ can be extended to include real, three-dimensional space and multimodal interaction.

3.2.1 Montageandspaceincinema

The relationship between montage and space in cinema plays an important role in Kuleshov’s, Eisenstein’s and Vertov’s theories of montage presented in Chapter 2. All three directors saw montage as a means of overcoming the constraints of spaces existing in reality, and Kuleshov and Vertov both emphasised the power of montage to construct a space that did not exist in reality by combining film footage of different spaces. While in Kuleshov’s case such constructions were achieved through alternating shots, Vertov also employed camera and postproduction effects such as abrupt changes in camera angles and superimposed shots. While bringing footage of various spaces allowed both Kuleshov and Vertov to overcome the boundaries or distances between them (be these geographic, political or social), film effects such as overlaying images enabled Vertov to transcend the limited space available on the screen and activate screen layout as well.

Furthermore, as discussed in 2.3, Vertov’s kinaesthetic approach, grounded in his theory of intervals, could also transcend the limitations of real space and time

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through sound and the relationship between sound, image and language. Three Songs of Lenin, for example, combines performances of folk songs about Lenin in different languages (Turkish, Turkmen, Uzbek, etc.) recorded in different geographic regions (Nagorny-Karabakh, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, etc.) to create an implied space through the use of regional musical styles and linguistic differences in order to present a composite audio-verbal ‘image’ of Lenin in the Soviet East and beyond (cf. Vertov, 1984 [1935]). As argued in Section 2.3, unlike Kuleshov, Vertov used such montage constructions not to bring distant places into a single scene, but to rise above the iconicity of the image, represent wider regions than the spaces depicted on the screen as well as span these regions and convey abstract ideas, for example the idea of Lenin as a uniting political figure and about the role of leadership in the socialist revolution.

Eisenstein’s work, too, reveals the power of montage to represent space and transcend the limitations of both screen space and the spaces represented on the screen. Like Kuleshov and Vertov, he used inter-shot montage to combine different spaces. Yet, rather than draw attention to the juxtaposition of shots as did Vertov, he sought to create a seamless experience, more akin to Kuleshov’s scene in which a couple walking in opposite parts of Moscow meet in a different part of the city altogether and together look at the White House in Washington (Levaco, 1974, pp. 8-9). This is exemplified in the construction of a rising lion from a sequence of images of three different statues – of a lying, a sitting and a standing lion – in The Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein, 1925).

With roots in Meyerhold’s theatre, which featured meticulously constructed scenes, stylized acting, and circus-style effects designed to keep the audience’s attention, Eisenstein’s montage also transcends the flatness of the screen space and the limitation of film’s linearity by employing as attraction elements carefully composed mise-en-scene shots with precisely directed movement within them (Khopkar, 1993).

The spatial development of the relative size of one detail in correspondence with another, and the consequent collision between the proportions designed by the artist for that purpose, result in a characterisation – a definition of the represented matter. (Eisenstein, 1949, p. 52)

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Additionally, Eisenstein combined footage of real locations with constructed film sets, setting an example for the development of the genre of docudrama (see Section 2.2).

While all three directors were primarily concerned with the representation of spaces (within and between shots), Kuleshov (1974 [1929]) also theorised the differences between the three-dimensional viewing space in cinema and theatre. Specifically, he argued that cinema enabled a more direct way of influencing viewers than did theatre. The reason is that cinema subjects all viewers to the same perspective, that of the film camera, even when they occupy different seats. In theatre, by contrast, each viewer sees the stage from a different perspective, and so viewers experience a play differently depending on their positions in relation to the stage.

…the audience in a theatre sees the actor from various points of view. […]

Cinematography, however, is constructed differently. With cinema every viewer sees the action only from one point of view – the point of view of the lens; […] Consequently, the cinema viewer sees completely differently, on a totally different base, from the theatre viewer. (pp. 58-59)

In cinematography we always have a plane with its sides in a definite relationship and for this plane, for this rectangle, it is very easy to discover its own laws. If one does bring out these laws and follow them, then no matter what takes place on the screen, it will be extremely easy for the viewer to comprehend what he watches. (pp. 61-62)

These differences between cinema and theatre are highlighted in The Wooster Group’s (2007) multi-media experimental theatre production of Hamlet, where theatre performance is combined with cinema projection (of the 1964 telecine production of Richard Burton’s Hamlet) and surveillance video technology (Hunter, 2009; on the Wooster Group in general, see also Kaye, 2007; Salter, 2010).

Vertov exploits yet another dimension to the potential of montage to transcend space boundaries by merging in The Man with the Movie Camera two types of represented space: the space of events comprising a storyline with database space. In this way, he constructs a complex argument – not only presenting Soviet reality but also the principles of kino-eye. Recognising this complexity and the film’s meta- art status, Manovich (1999, p. 96) has praised it as “the most important example of database imagination in modern media art”:

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Vertov’s film consists of at least three levels. One level is the story of a cameraman filming material for the film. The second level is the shots of an audience watching the finished film in a movie theatre. The third level is the film, which consists of footage recorded in Moscow, Kiev and Riga arranged according to the progression of one day: waking up, work, and leisure activities. If this third level is a text, the other two can be thought of as its metatexts. […] But if we focus on the film within the film (ie the level of the text) and disregard the special effects used to create many of the shots, we discover almost a linear printout, so to speak, of a database: a number of shots showing machines, followed by a number of shots showing work activities, followed by different shots of leisure, and so on. The paradigm is projected onto a syntagm. (ibid., p. 97)

In this way, Vertov not only overcomes the limitations of real space and time, but also creates meta-art by subverting the linearity of film as a medium and exposing the process adopted in the film’s construction.

3.2.2 Montageandspaceinnewmedia

Building on the potential of montage in cinema, new media presents expanded possibilities for juxtaposing different spaces. According to Manovich (2001), this can be attributed to the increased modularity of all media types and the process of digital compositing that it enables. Compositing involves layering separate modules – which may be taken directly from databases or newly created – into a single object such as a still or moving image or an audio-visual sequence. While acknowledging this potential, Manovich is concerned predominantly with the relationship between digital compositing and the genealogy of the computer screen, and thus with visual objects. Indeed, he argues, digital compositing marks a new point in the history of the screen: while the dynamic screen of cinema is typically occupied by a singular image, digital compositing makes displaying multiple images (e.g. co-existing windows or computer desktop icons) the norm for the computer screen.

Usually digital compositing is used either to seamlessly combine diverse elements by masking their boundaries (as in virtual reality environments and the screen of real time, discussed in Section 3.1.3) or to enable the co-existence of independent elements within the same space (e.g. the shortcut icons on a computer desktop). Digital compositing thus tends to support an aesthetic of either “smoothness and continuity” (Manovich, 2001, p. 142) or “peaceful coexistence of multiple information objects”, that is “simple addition […] without any attempt to

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establish contrast, complementarity, or dissonance between them” (ibid., p. 143). Manovich sees this aesthetic as “a counterpart to montage aesthetics [, which] aims to create visual, stylistic, semantic, and emotional dissonance between different elements” (ibid., p. 144).

Yet, Manovich argues, digital compositing presents expanded opportunities for montage. On the one hand, it makes intra-shot/spatial montage as easy to achieve as inter-shot/temporal montage, much easier than in Eisenstein’s frame constructions or Vertov’s overlaying of images. On the other, it adds new spatial dimensions:

Digital compositing makes the dimensions of space (3-D fake space being created by a composite and 2½-D space of all the layers composited) and frame (separate images moving in 2-D within the frame) as important as time. In addition, the possibility of embedding hyperlinks within a moving sequence introduced in QuickTime 3 and other digital formats adds yet another spatial dimension. [...] This practice “spatialises” a moving image: No longer completely filling the screen, it is now just one window among many.

In summary, if film technology, film practice, and film theory privilege the temporal development of a moving image, computer technology privileges spatial dimensions. The new spatial dimensions can be defined as follows:

1. spatial order of layers in a composite (2½-D space)

2. virtual space constructed through compositing (3-D space)

3. 2-D movement of layers in relation to the image frame (2-D space),

4. relationship between the moving image and [hyper]linked information in the adjustment windows (2-D space).

(Manovich, 2001, p. 157)

Exploiting these dimensions so as to create “juxtapositions of elements [that] play a key role in how the work establishes its meaning, and its emotional and aesthetic effects” allows artists to create what Manovich calls ‘spatial montage’ (2001, p.158).

In general, spatial montage could involve a number of images, potentially of different sizes and proportions, appearing on the screen at the same time. This juxtaposition by itself of course does not result in montage; it is up to the filmmaker to construct a logic that determines which images appear together, when they appear, and what kind of relationships they enter into with one other. (ibid., p. 322)

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This is important even in works in which artists activate not only database space, by selecting elements to represent within the same space, but also interface space, by enabling viewers to make such selections through a graphical or other type of interface. To classify as montage, these selections must be governed by a logic determined, and in meta-art made explicit, by the artist.

Manovich also distinguishes two further types of montage enabled by compositing as a conceptual, rather than a purely technological, tool. These can be considered as variants of spatial montage. The first is “ontological montage: the coexistence of ontologically incompatible elements within the same space and time” (2001, p. 159). An example is provided by Theo Angelopoulos’ (1995) film Ulysses’ Gaze, where

[t]he contemporary narrative of A and his journey across the Balkans is framed at the beginning and end of the film with lines, recitations that bear only tangential relevance to the contemporary journey, but cast it within the frame of the ancient epics, of Angelopoulos’ earlier films, of the Greek poets, of other myths and other stories…(Rutherford, 2004)

The second is “stylistic montage [and is based on] juxtapositions of stylistically diverse images [e.g. live-action and documentary footage, etchings, animation] in different media [e.g. 8 and 35mm film, video, digital formats]” (ibid.). To illustrate, the experimental documentary Here and Elsewhere by the Dziga Vertov Group (Godard, Gorin, & Miéville, 1976) combines staged actions with documentary film footage, still images showing photographs and newspaper clippings, and animations of posters superimposed on each other.

The main value of Manovich’s notion of ‘spatial montage’ for this PhD project lies in its ability to foreground the continuity between cinema and new media, and more specifically the potential to use montage as a tool to construct meta-art in both. Following Manovich, montage can be seen as a tool for overcoming some of the key problems associated with new media art. An important one is the previously mentioned aesthetics of simple addition and co-existence, which foreground database logic to the exclusion of argument or narrative logic. This is partly evidenced in new media artists that make numerous and/or random choices available to the audience but do not reveal the logic that governs what choices are

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made available and so may obscure the artist’s position on social, political and cultural issues relevant to the work.

3.2.3 Montageandspaceinnewmediavideoinstallation

The meaning potential of the relationship between montage and space in cinema and in new media is even richer in interactive new media video installations. This is due to the activation of three-dimensional space in installation art, which allows real physical objects as well as the audience to be incorporated into the work. These possibilities increase the potential for creating meaningful juxtapositions in interactive new media video installation art.

Physical objects that are part of an installation can be juxtaposed to each other (e.g. through their alignment in the gallery space) as well as to objects represented visually and/or aurally. Physical objects may be not only incorporated into an installation sculpturally but also form part of the interface by means of which users make selections (deliberately or not) from the database space. Such physical objects then play an instrumental role in activating digital space (both database and interface space), and thus cross the boundary between the activation of space in sculptural-architectural and new media installations.

New media video installations may also feature multiple screens and sound channels, which further expands the potential for applying montage in them. In such works, montage can be employed to juxtapose not only sound and image (as in film and video art), but also different sound channels as well as images displayed on different screens, regardless of whether these sounds and images are available/played sequentially or simultaneously.

Finally, incorporating the audience into a new media installation allows aspects of their interaction that are not or cannot be completely predetermined by the artist to be juxtaposed with all those aspects of their interaction that are. Those that are predetermined may include the database and its structure, physical objects and interface elements. Interface elements may set up parameters for the movement and general behaviour of the audience and trigger selections from the database. Defining the space within which the audience can interact with a new media installation involves creating different possibilities, closing some while opening

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others, for social engagement with and within the art work. Complete predictability and randomness may both render an interactive work closed – unable to stimulate a productive exchange of ideas between artist/art work and audience. A degree of predictability, on the other hand, is essential for creating an open work:

you cannot use the text as you want, but only as the text wants you to use it… an open text outlines a “closed” project for its Model Reader as a component of its structural strategy (Eco, 1979, p. 9)

The aspects of the interaction of montage and space which installation adds to those available in video/film and new media merit a redefinition of ‘spatial montage’ that is more suited to the purposes of this thesis and to theorising new media video installation art in general. While Manovich’s notion is applicable to all new media objects, due to its focus on visual realisations of montage on the computer screen, ‘montage’ as used in the rest of this thesis will also encompass all the possibilities for montage discussed in this section.

3.3 Conclusion

This chapter presented parameters for describing the role of space as an integrative meaning-making resource in new media video installation art by focussing on the continuity between space in cinema, installation and new media art, with reference to theories of film, architecture, sociology and philosophy, semiotics and new media. It also explored how these parameters can be employed to create meaning through montage in new media video installation art, by exploring the relation between space and montage in Kuleshov’s, Vertov’s and Eisenstein’s work and theories of montage as well as Manovich’s notion of ‘spatial montage’ and extending this notion to include three-dimensional, physical space.

The parameters established in this chapter will be employed in the analysis of Compass II presented in Chapter 5. The analysis will show how montage is used to create meaning in cinematic, architectural and new media space in order to create meta-art and establish different possibilities for social engagement with and within this new media video installation.

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Chapter4 CompassII

This chapter presents a description of the art work developed for this practice-based PhD project, the new media video installation Compass II (2003–2010). The description is followed in Chapter 5 by an analysis of the ways montage has been employed to create meta-art in the work. The description is divided into four main sections: Section 4.1 briefly overviews the background to and organisation of the installation as a whole, providing a context for outlining the process and motivation behind decisions made in the work’s development in the following sections; Section 4.2 focuses on the work’s thematic/audio-visual organisation and specifically on the nine stand-alone single-channel video works included in the installation; Section 4.3 describes the installation as a sculptural-architectural object; and Section 4.4 outlines its organisation as a new media installation. A documentation of Compass II can be viewed in DVD1 and DVD2.

4.1 Overview

Compass II is a four-channel new media video installation developed in the period 2003–2010. Its title is a reference to Compass (2002), a four-channel video installation by the same artist (see DVD3). While Compass II departs significantly from the overall structure, aims and subject matter of Compass, as will be explained at relevant points in this chapter, the two installations share the same sculptural centrepiece – a marine compass, the alignment of each channel with one of the four major geographic directions, and the appearance of the compass in some of the projected video sequences.

Compass II has been exhibited four times in Sydney:

ƒ 2007 Exhibition – Kudos Gallery, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Paddington, 4–9 June

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ƒ 2008 Exhibition – CarriageWorks, Redfern, Performance Space Work Development Residency, Open Studio Presentation 19 May–6 June ƒ 2009 Exhibition – COFA Space, College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales, Paddington, 20–24 April 2009 ƒ 2010 Exhibition – Studio One, University of New South Wales, Kensington, 9–19 November Observations of the audience during the first three presentations and their feedback have been instrumental in developing the version presented in 2010. The description of Compass II in this thesis focuses on the 2010 exhibition, unless specified otherwise, while DVD1 offers documentations of the last two exhibitions. This thesis presents photographs of the installation from the last three exhibitions. Audience feedback has offered rich perspectives on the installation, complementing the artist’s. These perspectives are incorporated in the analysis of the work presented in Chapter 5.

Compass II features nine single-channel videos, initially developed as stand-alone works in the period 2003–2009. The works are organised into four major themes – Transitional, Aquatic, Demographic and Terrestrial – and are presented in DVD1. Each theme also includes raw and edited footage and/or sound recorded for the stand-alone works in it. The four themes and the works they include are described in more detail in Section 4.2. The way a theme is presented on all four channels and subdivided into stages will be explained in Section 4.3.

As an installation, Compass II has a sculptural-architectural organisation (see Plate 4.1). It features a marine compass mounted on a black wooden plinth with a spotlight over it and positioned in the middle of a square area defined by four screens, each of which has a megaphone speaker on top and is aligned with one of the four major geographic directions. It also includes eight infrared switches, four loudspeakers and four video projectors. These and other components of the sculptural-architectural organisation of the installation will be described in more detail in Section 4.3.

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Plate 4.1 Compass II (Exhibition 2008)

As a new media installation, Compass II is run by five computers. Four are dedicated to each channel and one controls their interaction with each other and two interface elements – the compass and the infrared switches. The interface elements allow users to navigate through a database of 101 video sequences, changing what is projected on all four screens (by turning the compass) or on a single screen (by crossing the invisible infrared line between each screen and the compass in the middle, i.e. moving towards or away from a screen).

4.2 Thematicorganisation

Compass II includes nine single-channel stand-alone video works developed by the artist in the period 2003–2009. These are: Advance!, Arrival, Apart, Dawn, Departure, El Pueblo (The People), Pole Shiriko (Wide-Open Field), Postcard from Australia, and Walking Together. They are distributed across four themes, as shown in Table 4.1. (Each theme and stages within can be viewed in DVD2.) As stand-alone works, the videos have been presented in several screenings of Australian video art curated by the artist and international video and film festivals (see Appendix B). Additionally, Postcard from Australia is the basis for the eponymous two-channel video installation (see further Section 4.1.3 and DVD3), while Dawn and Pole Shiroko have been incorporated in video performance works involving a community a Capella choir (see Section 4.1.1, DVD3 and Appendix B).

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Transitional Theme Dawn Pole Shiroko – Wide-open Field Aquatic Theme Arrival Apart Demographic Theme Postcard from Australia El Pueblo Walking Together Terrestrial Theme Advance! Departure Table 4.1 Thematic organisation of single-channel video works included in Compass II

Each theme also includes raw footage filmed for the works included in it and in some cases video sequences showing subtle changes in that footage (e.g. the compass held in hands overlayed on the raw footage, a change in the direction in which the footage is played, or an audio track added to or replacing the original sound).

Compass II presents footage from two geographic, socio-cultural and political environments – Bulgaria and Australia – which the artist has experienced. The footage is diverse and organised into themes, largely depending on whether it presents views of gradual shifts in landscape (Transitional Theme), of the ocean (Aquatic Theme), of people (Demographic Theme), or of movement through a particular landscape (Terrestrial Theme) (see DVD2). Bringing these two environments into the same work and featuring four contrasting themes is a departure from the unified visual theme of Compass (2002), where all footage is from Sydney, Australia, and shows moving trains (from within and outside) and urban spaces. (Analyses of Compass (2002) are presented Djonov, 2002; Djonov & Djonov, in press). The soundtracks of the two installations are also different: Compass II features location sounds, composed sounds, and traditional folk and revolutionary/ propaganda songs, while Compass includes sounds of moving trains, commuter conversations, telephone and Morse code signals, and a telephone conversation between the artist in Australia and a friend of his in Bulgaria, which is almost coextensive with the installation’s duration. The lyrics of all songs included in Compass II are presented in Appendix A, in their original language and in the English translations used in the subtitles.

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4.2.1 TransitionalTheme

The Transitional Theme represents landscape traversals by showing both continuous footage and edited moving images of Bulgarian landscapes (filmed from within moving trains) as well as of trains and train tracks. All videos in it are accompanied by the sound of tracking trains, with the exception of the two stand- alone video works which feature traditional Balkan songs, Dawn and Pole Shiroko. These two works have also been presented with an a capella choir performing each song live, while the video is screened with only location sounds included (see documented choir rehearsal in DVD3). The effect of this presentation was to bring the music closer to the viewers.

As a whole, the theme symbolises the artist’s home country, Bulgaria (a former socialist country) in the period after the year of the artist’s immigration to Australia, 1996, a period of significant social, economic, political and cultural changes resulting from inertia rather than deliberate decisions and actions.

Dawn

2005–2006, 3 min 23 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

Dawn presents continuous footage shot from within a train leaving the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv early on a winter morning (Plate 4.2, Plate 4.3). As the train slowly departs, the video camera pans over abandoned factories, a cluster of derelict houses and a suburb of modern brick townhouses and concrete socialist-style blocks of flats to reach a vast empty field.

The dimmed outskirts of the city unfold to the background sound of the tracking train and the Balkan folk song More Sokol Pie (A Falcon is Drinking), which is overlayed on it and performed by The London Bulgarian Choir. The song is equally popular in Bulgaria and Macedonia, originates from the geographic region of Vardar Macedonia, and is widely believed to be dedicated to the revolutionary Yane Sandanski (1872-1915), ‘the Falcon’, who fought against the Ottoman oppression in Bulgaria and Macedonia.

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Plate 4.2 Dawn (2005–2006).

Plate 4.3 Dawn (2005–2006).

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The song’s lyrics (presented as English subtitles) tell of a white-chested falcon drinking water from the Vardar river. The narrator addresses the bird as Yane, calling it ‘a hero’s bird’ as well as ‘a meek lamb’, and asks whether it had seen a hero walk past with nine deep bullet wounds and a tenth wound inflicted with a knife.

The song was selected for its highly open-ended and ambiguous message as well as for its music, which match the dormant atmosphere of the waking city depicted in the images. Just as the train’s departure may invoke hope for change, so too the song may be interpreted as suggesting that oppression can incite a change of state from meekness to aggression and thus give rise to a revolution against the oppression and towards peace.

PoleShiroko(WideͲopenField)

2005, 3 min 17 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

The video track of Pole Shiroko presents edited footage of a journey, documented in early 2004, through open and built spaces in Bulgaria, where agricultural fields and small villages give way to footage of deserted built suburban and industrial landscapes (Plate 4.4, Plate 4.5). It is accompanied by the traditional Bulgarian folk song Pole Shiroko (Wide-open Field), performed by a Bulgarian men’s choir, Banski Starcheta. The song, presented against the background noise of the tracking train, is a tribute to Delche Vojvoda (the leader) – a revolutionary who fought against the Ottoman political, cultural and religious oppression of the Pirin region of Bulgaria and Macedonia in late 18th –early 19th century. The choir asks a wide-open field who will walk through it, then the Mountains of Pirin who will lead freedom- fighters through them, and finally beautiful women who will protect them from the enemy, now that Delche is gone. The song’s lyrics, like those in Dawn, convey a subtle and ambiguous message; read, in relation to the images, they can be interpreted as lamenting and perhaps criticising inaction and reliance on others or as a call for taking responsibility.

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Plate 4.4 Pole Shiroko (2004–2005)

Plate 4.5 Pole Shiroko (2004–2005)

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4.2.2 AquaticTheme

The Aquatic Theme of Compass II presents footage from Australia and symbolises the artist’s and other immigrants’ ambivalent first encounters with this new environment. The theme includes mainly ocean views from the land as well as from sailing vessels, but also aerial footage showing suburban areas of Sydney as seen from a flying kite. This video and some of the ocean views depict turmoil and instability, contrasting with footage of calm waters. The soundtracks include location sounds such as the noise of turbulent water and of a boat’s motor, composed sounds featuring industrial noise, and – in the work Apart – the Italian revolutionary song Bella Ciao. The theme includes two stand-alone video works – Arrival and Apart.

Apart

2009, 3 min 49 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

A yacht, fading in from the right and alone in the first shot (Plate 4.6), and a big ship, sailing from the left appears soon after. The work depicts them moving slowly towards and then passing each other (Plate 4.7) to continue their journeys along the horizon until both disappear (Plate 4.8).

The two vessels in the moving image are associated with the two versions of the Italian song Bella Ciao that constitute the soundtrack. The composite song starts with the traditional folk version, performed by the singer Giovanna Marini, which briefly overlaps with and is then replaced by the anti-fascist version, which was part of the Italian song movement Nueva Cancion, performed by the choir Singers Of The “Bella Ciao” Production In Spoleto in 1974. The transition occurs when the yacht has passed by almost two thirds of the ship and seems to momentarily disappear. This gradual shift is also realised through a brief overlapping of the translations of the lyrics in the subtitles, as shown in Plate 4.7.

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Plate 4.6 Apart (2009)

Plate 4.7 Apart (2009)

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Plate 4.8 Apart (2003)

While the folk song laments the hard life of peasant women working in the rice fields, in the anti-fascist song a partisan is asking his/her comrades to bury him/her in the mountain in the shade of a beautiful flower in order to commemorate their struggle against the enemy.

Arrival

2007, 4 min 19 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

The work opens with footage of a monumental Australian cultural icon, the Sydney Harbour Bridge (see Plate 4.9 and Plate 4.10). The image is highly unstable – the result of being shot with a hand-held camera from a ferry moving towards the bridge and further destabilised due to the attempt to zoom in on the bridge in order to capture the two Australian flags mounted on top. As the camera passes under the bridge, the turbulence is taken over by a very stable, washed-out frame. This editing together of dynamic and static footage aims to gradually build and then resolve suspense, and symbolically represent the turmoil associated with moving from an unstable to an unknown (and potentially unknowable) political and social environment.

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Plate 4.9 Arrival (2009)

Plate 4.10 Arrival (2009)

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This visual transition is accompanied by a transition in sound – from the raw sound of the ferry’s loud engine and the harsh wind to the sound of calm water gently splashing against a boat.

4.2.3 DemographicTheme

The Demographic Theme includes footage from both Australia and Bulgaria showing people, mainly commuters, in mundane settings – on the escalator or walking through pedestrian tunnels in underground train stations in Sydney and waiting at a bus stop in Sofia, Bulgaria (e.g. Plate 4.11). The Bulgarian footage includes subtitled comments by the artist made in a conversation with a friend during filming. The theme represents observations of demographic conditions in the two countries, especially focusing on the way masses of people are mobilised in similar ways to work for maintaining two rather different socio-cultural and political orders and in both contexts appear to operate in isolation from each other. These observations evoke notions of collectivism and individualism as well as public and private space.

Plate 4.11 Footage from Sofia, Bulgaria included in Demographic Theme

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The theme features the video works Postcard from Australia, El Pueblo, and Walking Together, all of which contain footage from Australia. This footage was collected a year after the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004, during a period of several days immediately before the July 7, 2005 London bombings (and would not have been possible to film after that). It is therefore likely to call to the collective memory the sense of uncertainty, loss of trust and vulnerability generated by such events, and allows each work to reflect on the feelings of paranoia and fear as well as powerlessness and inaction that have lasting repercussions for Australian society today.

PostcardfromAustralia

2005–2006, 2 min 14 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

Postcard from Australia is an observational video presenting real-time footage in which a flow of commuters walking through Sydney’s Central Station’s pedestrian tunnel in the morning peak hour is facing the camera (Plate 4.12). The footage was collected by one of four cameras positioned in a cross-like structure in the middle of the tunnel, two facing the sides and two facing the ends of the tunnel.

Plate 4.12 Postcard from Australia (2005-2006)

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Plate 4.13 Postcard from Australia (2005–2006)

The soundtrack features the Red Army Choir’s performance of the Russian version of Varshavyanka (Warszawianka), a Polish revolutionary march written at the end of the 19th century. Popular in Russia during the October Revolution in 1917, the song is well-known across the world. It was also incorporated by Shostakovich in his Symphony No.11, Op. 103 in G Minor, The Year 1905, created in 1956 and dedicated to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Comprising worker strikes, army mutinies and peasant upheavals against the government of the day, the revolution also included the Battleship Potemkin crew’s uprising against their commanders in June 1905. This uprising is the subject of Eisenstein’s (1925) silent film Battleship Potemkin, which Shostakovich’s symphony has accompanied in many screenings. The lyrics of the song summon workers to march forward and join ‘a battle bloody, holy and just’ against an increasing threat from the enemy and the unknown fates that await them (see Plate 4.13), which contrasts with the rhythmical yet casual pace of the commuters and their mostly indifferent faces, which occasionally express only mild annoyance, unease or surprise at the presence of the four cameras.

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Postcard from Australia is also the basis for an eponymous dual-channel installation, created in 2006 and captured in Plate 4.14 and 4.15 (see also DVD3). The single-channel work, showing commuters walking towards the camera, is projected on one side of a screen formed by postcards, each showing a still from the video work (including the stills in Plate 4.12 and 4.13). The video projected on the other side of the screen shows the same commuters viewed from behind and walking away from the camera (see Plate 4.15). The soundtrack is the same as in the single-channel work, and, like this work, the installation reflects on a state that still haunts Australian society, complacent inaction in the face of mounting fear and paranoia. Members of the audience are invited to take cards from the screen and send them overseas or keep them if they wish, in this way metaphorically contributing to the dismounting of this state of fear, paranoia and complacent inaction, a process culminating in the disappearance of the projection. Those who send the cards will also help spread a call for a more progressive stance towards social change.

Plate 4.14 Postcard from Australia – installation (frontal view)

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Plate 4.15 Postcard from Australia – installation (back view)

ElPueblo(ThePeople)

2007, 3 min 43 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

El Pueblo is a video comprising three cuts. It opens with the fast, even-paced and determined movement of two hands holding a marine compass against the flow of people walking through a crowded pedestrian train station tunnel in Sydney in the afternoon peak hour (Plate 4.16).

The movement is accompanied by the popular political rally song ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! (The people united will never be defeated), performed by Quilapayun, and halts during the song’s bridge section, to resume again immediately after its crescendo lead-in to the chorus.

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Plate 4.16 El Pueblo (2007)

WalkingTogether

2007, 2 min 30 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

Walking Together combines footage taken with the marine compass held in hands in front of the camera in locations where commuters ride up and down escalators and walk through the pedestrian tunnels of Sydney underground train stations (see Plates 4.17 and 4.18).

The people’s movement is synched to the upbeat sound of the 1978 Russian children’s song Vmeste Veselo Shagat (ȼɦɟɫɬɟ ɜɟɫɟɥɨ ɲɚɝɚɬɶ; It is fun to walk together), composed by Vladimir Shainskii with lyrics by Mikhail Matusovskij and performed by The Russian Radio Children’s Choir, with soloist Dima Golov. In contrast to the song’s cheerful tune and the ideology of collectivism promoted by its lyrics (e.g. ‘Singing sure sounds better in a choir’, ‘one birch, another birch, and there’ll be a forest’), the video shows people engaged in mundane activities, occupying and moving through the same space but not in unity.

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Plate 4.17 Walking Together (2007)

Plate 4.18 Walking Together (2007)

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4.2.4 TerrestrialTheme

The Terrestrial Theme presents Australian in-land landscapes, including Lake George and cracked-earth areas around Broken Hill, all well-known Australian locations. The theme represents a more active and thorough exploration of the land, as the artist marches over it with the compass in hands and turns round to take long-distance, 360º panoramic views. The theme features two stand-alone works – Advance! (2005) and Departure (2009).

Advance!

2005–2006, 2 min 14 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

The visual track of Advance! depicts the continuous, determined march of two hands holding a compass along a sheep trail in a dry Lake George. The lake is a sacred Aboriginal site, called Weereewa (‘bad waters’) in the local Aboriginal language, and the subject of many myths. It dries out in periods of drought and requires long periods of heavy rain to fill, and is known for its treacherous and very salty waters.

The soundtrack plays the famous Russian revolutionary song Sacred War (Cɜɟɳɟɧɧɚɹ ɜɨɣɧɚ, music by A. Alexandrov, lyrics by V. Lebedev-Koumach), performed by the Russian Red Army Choir. Written in 1941, the song summons people to unleash their rage in a people’s war against the Nazi invasion of Russia. At the end of the song, the marching of the compass halts at the sight of a cross- road (shown in Plate 4.19), to stimulate reflection on the effects of choice and democracy on the strength of past and current socio-cultural movements.

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Plate 4.19 Advance! (2005)

Departure

2009, 2 min 25 sec, single channel video, colour, stereo sound

The video track of Departure was shot on the way from Dubbo, a town in regional New South Wales, to Sydney. It opens with a static view showing a new-looking colour-bond corrugated iron shed (Plate 4.20). While the new look references modern suburban aesthetics, (rusted) corrugated iron symbolises the Australian outback. Location sounds accompany this image until a train whistle is heard and the image starts moving to reveal a small country town from which the train is departing (Plate 4.21), followed by open fields (Plate 4.22).

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Plate 4.20 Depature (2009)

Plate 4.21 Depature (2009)

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Plate 4.22 Depature (2009)

The soundtrack plays the melody of Greensleeves – a well-known 16th century English folk song. The recording is from a drawn-out sample included in a children’s keyboard. In Australia, the music is played by ice-cream vans as they drive along suburban streets. Greensleeves’ lyrics, on the other hand, have received contentious interpretations – some seeing Lady Greensleeves (one of the two protagonists) as promiscuous, others as upholding moral standards. These lyrics, however, are not included in Departure, instead presented in the work’s subtitles are the original lyrics of the song that is now Australia’s official national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. These lyrics and the song’s music were written by Peter Dodds McCormick in 1879. The song was adopted as Australia’s national anthem in 1984, with its lyrics changed to reflect Australia’s greater independence from England and more modern, multi-cultural values. Where the current lyrics focus on Australians being ‘young and free’ and thus contribute to establishing a new identity for the nation, Departure shows the original lyrics, where the focus is on England’s greatness, the bravery of Captain Cook and Australia’s loyalty to Britain, as the following two verses testify. By bringing these contrasting symbols, through

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images and sounds, Departure is a satirical work about Australia’s struggle to redefine its identity.

4.3 SculpturalͲarchitecturalorganisation

As an installation art work, Compass II employs three-dimensional objects, or sculptural elements, which are arranged so that they enclose and occupy a space within the exhibition area. This endows the work with both sculptural and architectural characteristics, as discussed in Section 3.1.2. These interact with its organisation as a new media work, which is further described in Section 4.4.

The objects included in the installation are: a marine compass, a black plinth, a spotlight, four screens standing on black metal stands, four megaphones, four amplifiers, eight loudspeakers, four video projectors, eight infrared switches and five computers. Positioned on top of the plinth, the compass occupies the centre of the installation and is spot-lit from above. It also serves as the main navigation apparatus of the work – a function emphasised by adding two red handles to it, as shown in Plate 4.23; turning it produces a change in what is played in all four channels of the installation (see Section 4.4).

Plate 4.23 Compass II, Main Navigation Apparatus

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Each screen is made of white linen stretched on a wooden frame which has two wooden legs (Plate 4.24). In line with the aim of Compass II to encourage a more active engagement with its subject matter as well as with (the process of) its construction, they have been designed to resemble protest posters (agit-plakats) such as those carried in political rallies (using as a model the poster in Plate 4.25).7

Each screen has a megaphone speaker on top, symbolising propaganda (Plate 4.24). A megaphone allows the direction of the human voice to be channelled towards a specific target (rather than spread in all directions). In Compass II, the mid-range frequencies, which carry singing voices, are extracted through a three- way cross-over filter and sent to the megaphones. This enables the singing voices from songs included in the installation to be brought closer to the audience’s attention.

7 Like Compass II, Compass features the same marine compass spot-lit on a plinth in the middle of four screens aligned with the four major geographic directions. These screens, however, are made of freely hanging linen sheets and do not have megaphones on top. Compass also features no interactive interface elements; it is a video, not a new media, installation and is run by four DVD players.

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Plate 4.24 Compass II – screen on black metal stands with infrared switches on its legs (each switch forms an infrared line with a switch from the opposite screen) and with megaphone on top, projector (in the top corner of the exhibition room) and two loudspeakers (on the ground behind the screen, next to the wall)

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Plate 4.25 A protest poster model for the screens in Compass II. May Day March, Wollongong, Australia, 1959. (Image: courtesy of the National Archives of Australia)

Each screen is positioned at least at a 3-metre distance from the compass and aligned with one of the major geographic directions – East, West, North and South (see Figure 4.1). The single-channel works described in the previous section are distributed across channels as shown in Table 4.2. Works shot in Bulgaria are played on the East channel to evoke an association with Eastern Europe, as is Advance! due to the compass showing east in that video. Those with footage of people in Australia are played on the West channel, to evoke an association with Western culture, while works using footage of Australian aquatic and terrestrial landscapes that do not include people are played on the South channel as a reference to the continent’s geographic position, except Apart, which although shot in Australia uses an Italian folk/revolutionary song and is screened on the North channel as a reference to Italy’s geographic position being north of Australia.

In addition to a screen with a megaphone speaker, each channel of the installation – East, West, North or South – is also assigned a computer that runs the media for that channel, an amplifier and two loudspeakers, and a video projector. The computers and amplifiers are hidden from the audience, while the loudspeakers are positioned on the floor next to the wall behind each screen. Each projector is

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positioned high on the wall above the corresponding screen (Plate 4.24), so that the projection from it is clearly visible from either side of the screen and cannot be blocked by viewers inside the area surrounded by the screens. In contrast, viewers on the outside when in front of the projection beam cast shadows on the screens.

Figure 4.1 Layout of sculptural elements in Compass II

Channel Work East Dawn Pole Shiroko Advance! West Postcard from Australia El Pueblo Walking Together North Apart South Arrival Departure Table 4.2 Distribution of single-channel works across audio-visual channels

The alignment of the four screens in relation to the compass creates a square area around it – an enclosure that allows the work to be seen as architectural, rather than

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just sculptural, in nature. This area is semi-enclosed as the screens do not extend from the floor to the ceiling and at least a 1.5-metre distance separates each pair of adjacent screens. This positioning of the screens creates a boundary within the exhibition space: dividing it into outside/periphery and inside/core. Within the core area, four infrared lines (shown with dotted lines in Figure 4.1), each created by a pair of infrared switches, establish another division – between a central and a marginal zone, as indicated in Figure 4.1. To elaborate, each of the screens has a switch mounted on either leg (see Plate 4.24), so that each switch creates an invisible infrared line with a corresponding switch mounted on the leg of the opposite screen. Each line is positioned halfway between the compass and a screen, and crossing it results in changing the audiovisual sequence played on the corresponding channel, except when that sequence is one of the nine stand-alone works; or, as explained in Section 4.4, crossing an infrared line results in a change of layers. The square formed by the infrared lines is physically marked with a red carpet on the floor of the exhibition space, in order to alert viewers to the existence of the infrared lines and invite them to discover their function.

In sum, Compass II comprises three spatial regions: a central zone (from the compass to the infrared lines), a marginal zone (from the infrared lines to the screens), and a periphery (from the screens outwards to the rest of the exhibition space). Each of these regions is constructed to interact differently with aspects of the new media organisation of the installation in order to allow a different degree and type of engagement with it. Viewers can be passive observers, paying attention to a single screen, while standing in the peripheral zone. They can also move around on the outside and actively select which screens to observe and in what sequence. Entering the inside area and crossing an infrared line turns a viewer into an involuntary participant, while entering the central zone and turning the compass is the most active form of engagement.

4.4 Newmediaorganisation

As a new media installation, Compass II features an interface and a database. The database consists of 101 video sequences, arranged into the four themes of the installation described in Section 4.2. Each theme has four stages, which can be

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viewed in DVD2. A stage consists of four video sequences which are played simultaneously, one on each channel of the installation, and may or may not include a stand-alone single-channel video work. Most stages have two layers per channel (i.e. two audio-visual sequences). No second layer is available for any channel while it is playing one of the nine stand-alone video works. (In DVD2, layers within a stage are presented sequentially, in the second half of each video.)

The compass and the infrared switches act as an interface and, together with an algorithm created using the graphic programming environment Isadora, allow viewers to access and navigate through the database, moving between themes, stages within them, and layers within stages. Turning the compass results in shifting from one theme or stage within a theme to another, and in this way simultaneously changing what is presented on all four channels. To elaborate, the themes are arranged sequentially, as presented in Figure 4.2, as are the stages (1-2-3-4) within each theme.

Transitional Aquatic Demographic Terrestrial ͳÙʹÙ͵ÙͶ ͳÙʹÙ͵ÙͶ ͳÙʹÙ͵ÙͶ ͳÙʹÙ͵ÙͶ

Figure 4.2 Sequential arrangement of themes and stages in Compass II

This allows viewers to move both forward and backward along a sequence of 16 stages, and in this process either move stage by stage and theme by theme, or skip stages and themes. After realising that stages and themes are sequentially arranged, viewers can make conscious decisions about revisiting a particular stage or theme as well as decide to explore all stages and themes in the installation. Notably, moving stage by stage is only possible by turning the compass only several degrees at a time, a movement that is almost imperceptible and therefore requires intentional concentration. If a stage is revisited by the same or a different viewer, it resumes playing from the position at which it was left, leaving a trace from one viewer to the next.

Within a particular stage, crossing the infrared line between a screen and the compass results in a change of layers, except if one of the nine stand-alone video works is currently projected on that screen. Moving between each channel’s two

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layers involves a subtle visual, audio or audio-visual shift – for example, raw footage showing the ocean on one of the screens being replaced by a layer where the same footage has a shot of the compass held in hands overlayed on it, or almost inaudible static noise giving way to slightly louder Morse code signals. In this way, viewers can experience different phases and possibilities considered by the artist in the process of developing the stand-alone works.

4.5 Summary

This chapter has described Compass II in terms of its structure and the motivation behind decisions made in its development as a new media video installation. The focus has been specifically on outlining the organisation of the installation in terms of the thematic grouping of the video sequences comprising the work, its sculptural- architectural dimensions, and new media organisation. The following chapter will present an analysis of how montage has been employed to construct meta-art in Compass II at each of these levels and to steer viewers’ navigation of the work.

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Chapter5 NavigatingviewersinCompassII

This chapter offers an analysis of the way that montage principles have been employed to organise and represent space and create meta-art in Compass II as a new media video installation. It focuses on three levels in the organisation of the final version of Compass II, which was exhibited in November 9–19, 2010 at Studio One, University of New South Wales, Kensington: cinematic (concerning relationships within audio-visual sequences), video installation (including relationships between channels as well as within the exhibition space), and new media (database and interface). Specifically, the chapter presents a discussion of the ways that each of these levels constructs different possibilities for engagement of the audience with and within/around the installation – from passive or active observation through involuntary participation to intentional navigation. The analysis draws on concepts introduced in previous chapters, especially meta-art (Chapter 1), the 1920s montage theories of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov (Chapter 2), and cinematic, architectural and new media space in relation to montage (Chapter 3). It also incorporates available comments by audience members (in italics) and the artist’s observations of the audience’s interaction with the work. These are drawn from the four presentations of Compass II, and have all contributed to its development from its inception in 2003 to its last exhibition in 2010.

5.1 Cinematicorganisation

This section focuses on montage within single audio-visual sequences comprising Compass II, and explores its role in creating meta-art, that is, revealing how these sequences were constructed and how the artist’s decisions constrain some and enable other possibilities for experiencing and interpreting these sequences. It begins by providing examples of visual montage within the screen, including montage within and between adjacent and non-adjacent shots (Section 5.1.1). It

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then considers montage as a multimodal principle that operates both within and beyond the screen, and organises cinematic space by relating images to written words/subtitles and sound (Section 5.1.2). This section, like the rest of this chapter, does not aim to provide an exhaustive interpretation of Compass II. Rather, selected elements and relationships from the installation are discussed in order to demonstrate the richness of montage as a meaning-making principle that can be used to create meta-art and thereby encourage different types and degrees of engagement between a new media video installation work and its audience.

5.1.1 Visualmontagewithinthescreen

Compass II employs both inter-shot and intra-shot montage as well as juxtapositions of image with written text/subtitles in order to reveal the artist’s decisions in making some choices and avoiding others in constructing individual video sequences. By making such choices conspicuous through the combined use of principles from the montage theories of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov, the installation encourages viewers to question the artist’s decisions, rather than merely immerse themselves in the individual works.

InterͲshotrelations

Compass II employs various types of conflict (illustrated in Table 5.1.) to establish relations between both contiguous and non-contiguous shots. Montage of contiguous shots is used in Walking Together, a single-channel work in the Demographic Theme of Compass II, to juxtapose images of commuters from two railway locations. The opening shot shows a high-angle view of people riding up and down escalators in an underground station, most on their way to work in the early hours of the morning. The people facing the camera appear serious and focused on their destinations, and merely stand next to or move past but do not interact with each other. This lack of engagement implies emotional distance that is matched by the cool colour tones of the fluorescent lighting. The following shot presents an eye-level view of commuters walking through a pedestrian railway tunnel in the afternoon; many are smiling, walking in pairs and talking, and their relaxed mood accords with the location’s warm tungsten lighting. The channelled

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movement of the hurried morning crowd shown in the first shot also contrasts with the looser, scattered pattern of the people’s movement in the second shot.

Colour Cool versus warm colour spectrum in Walking Together

Static and Dynamic Static vs. moving camera in Walking Together

Directions People moving towards or away from the camera in Walking Together

Light Intensities Dimmed light in the initial and brighter light in closing shots of Dawn

Table 5.1 Examples of inter-shot montage in Compass II

Focussing on relations between adjacent shots, as did Kuleshov in his experimental approach to montage, the first two shots of the video can be analysed as presenting two contrasting examples of people ‘walking together’ – shot from different vertical angles, representing the people on the escalators as having less power than the artist

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holding the camera, and by extension than the viewers who are positioned as looking down on them, and those in the tunnel as standing on an equal footing with both artist and viewers. The lighting adds to this contrast to reveal the artist’s own endorsement of an engaged togetherness, and criticism towards a togetherness that does not extend beyond mere co-presence of individuals in the same physical space.

Walking Together also includes static shots, taken with the camera positioned behind the marine compass, which is held in hands by the artist, alternating with dynamic ones, in which the artist – again with the camera behind the compass held in hands – follows one or more commuters and/or walks against the majority of the crowd while marching through the tunnel or riding the escalator. This alternation, which occurs in both commuter environments, opens questions about the value of different types of togetherness and presents several choices faced by the artist in adjusting to life as a migrant and artist in Australia: actively observing the new social environment and analysing the norms that operate within it, and either accepting these norms in order to align himself with dominant values or going against the norms and risking social and cultural isolation.

Montage in Walking Together builds parallels between non-adjacent shots, too, through the use of various camera techniques as well as through elements of attraction. Such parallels present the same space, the escalators, and the people within it from two perspectives, from below and above. Alongside the movement within shots of the same space, this variation in perspective allows viewers to experience the space more fully and engage with it kinaesthetically. This effect is comparable to that of the sequence of quickly alternating images of trains moving in different directions and taken from different angles which interrupts the representation of a sleeping girl in The Man with the Movie Camera (Vertov, 1929). In Walking Together, however, images showing different views of the escalators are often interrupted by images of the pedestrian tunnel, in order to prevent viewers from immersing themselves into either of those represented spaces and encourage them instead to consider the broader issue of social engagement raised by these representations.

Non-contiguous shots also present conflicting views in Arrival, a work within the Aquatic Theme of Compass II. Positioned on either side of a sequence showing

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Sydney’s Harbour Bridge from a ferry passing underneath are the highly unstable partial frontal view of the bridge at the beginning, during which the camera is trying to zoom in on the two Australian flags on top of the bridge and the people climbing the bridge towards the flags, and the starkly different, very stable and washed-out view of the sky at the end. The passing under the bridge that separates these two shots amplifies the contrast between them, while the frontal image of the bridge and the flags exposes the location of the depicted journey and can be described as an element of attraction, adopting Eisenstein’s term, in the expectation that viewers would draw on their knowledge of the Australian context in interpreting the work. The resulting composite image raises questions about (national) identity, migration and change, and the nationalist values built in bonding icons (i.e. important historical figures and material or semiotic objects that people rally and bond around) such as the bridge and the flags (cf. Stenglin, 2008b).

IntraͲshotrelations

Compass II also makes considerable use of intra-shot conflicts, as illustrated in Table 5.2. A defining type of conflict within the shot in several single-channel works – Advance!, El Pueblo, and Walking Together – and raw footage segments included in all four themes is that between the foreground where the compass is held in hands and the background, or the environment which is statically observed or dynamically navigated ‘through’ the compass. Employing the compass as a prop, an element ‘staged’ into an otherwise pre-existing environment, these works blend aspects of Eisenstein’s carefully arranged (contrasts within) mise-en-scenes and Vertov’s ‘life facts’. Even in those shots where commuters notice and express annoyance at the artist’s intrusion into their everyday reality and privacy, at his attempt to capture ‘life as it is’ or ‘unawares’, the compass, as an added object, decreases the naturalism of the represented spaces and constrains the artist to filming only from a long to long medium distance. This prevents the audience from taking a closer look at and thereby establishing a more intimate relationship with any of the people captured in the videos and from immersing themselves into the video-documented events and environments.

The conflict between foreground and background also makes explicit the constraints the artist has imposed on himself in filming and the limitations these

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then place on the audience in viewing his work: the inclusion of the hands holding the compass in the bottom part of the frame ‘narrativises’ even those images where there is either no or only limited movement and which present empty landscapes such as the ocean and cracked earth in raw video footage in the Aquatic and Terrestrial Theme respectively. Such ‘narrativisation’, Kress & Van Leeuwen (2006 [1996], pp. 143-144) argue, draws attention to ways in which the creators of images subject viewers to a single point of view.8 In Compass II, foregrounding the hands holding the compass makes explicit the point of view adopted by the artist during filming, and thus functions as a meta-art device, inviting the audience both to appreciate and question the artist’s decisions in directing their viewing and to vicariously place them in his position as an observer of different environments.

The compass is also simultaneously a symbol and an index, which allows it to function as an attraction element, assisting in the construction of what Eisenstein termed ‘intellectual montage’, montage that guides the viewer’s thought process by narrowing down the potential interpretations of the work. As an instrument for finding one’s position in a new environment, the compass represents the artist’s attempts to orient himself in two distinct places: in Australia, as a migrant observing new landscapes and social settings, and in Bulgaria, in 2004 and 2007, after periods of distance from his home country during which it had experienced significant economic, social and cultural changes.

8 A similar effect is achieved by Marcel Broodhaerst’s shot which shows the hand of the masked artist thrusting into view a book, as Bruyn (2008) has observed.

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Graphic directions: dynamic Compass moving against the flow of the people walking towards it in El Pueblo

Graphic directions: static Straight and curved lines intersect in Advance!

Scale The scale of the bridge and the flags is juxtaposed to that of the bridge-climbers in Arrival.

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Masses and volumes The large and heavy ship contrasts with the smaller and light yacht in Apart.

Volumes filled with various intensities of light The darkness of the carriage is juxtaposed to the light tones of landscape seen through the window in Pole Shiroko.

Depths The marine compass in the foreground contrasts with the depth of field seen from the top of the escalator in Walking Together.

Table 5.2 Examples of intra-shot montage from Compass II

The foregrounding of the compass in this type of intra-shot montage can be compared to that of the skulls in the shot from Eisenstein’s (1931) film Que Viva

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Mexico! shown in Plate 5.1. The skulls in the foreground – depicted in clear detail through the use of deep focus –symbolise ancient Mexican spirituality and the veneration of the dead, while the planes behind them represent the imposition of Christian values in Latin America through the figures of four monks in midground position, and its adoption by the young generation, represented through the four altar boys holding a cross in the background (for an extensive analysis of montage in this film, see Robertson, 2009; the film is discussed from the perspective of cultural studies and anthropology in Salazkina, 2009). Admittedly, the compass, like the skulls, can carry additional symbolic value depending, for example, on the direction it shows and viewers’ associations of geographic directions with specific locations and values related to them (e.g. East can be associated with countries in the former Eastern Block and with socialism as a philosophy and socio-economic regime, but possibly also with China and Confucianism).

Plate 5.1 Que viva Mexico! (Eisenstein, 1931)

As an index, the foregrounded compass provides information about the direction of the artist’s gaze and/or his movement through a space as well as about the actual geographic orientation of a site and the direction of the movement of other people or objects within it. In this way, the compass functions similarly to the watch in Josef Kudelka’s photograph Czechoslovakia, August 1968, taken from a roof overviewing Wenceslav Square during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague, in

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which he included the hand of a passer-by wearing a watch in the foreground to index the time the image was captured (see Plate 5.2) (cf. Koudelka, 2008). While the watch indexes time and the compass indexes spatial orientation, both function as meta-art devices, revealing and thus allowing the audience to question aspects of the work’s construction.

Plate 5.2 Czechoslovakia, August 1968 – Josef Koudelka

5.1.2 Multimodalmontagewithinandbeyondthescreen

As Vertov and Eistenstein both recognised (cf. Hicks, 2007; Prunes, 2003; Robertson, 2009), montage as a meaning-making principle can be applied beyond relations within and between images, to create relations between different modes – image, written and spoken language, and sound, i.e. multimodal relations (see discussion in Chapters 2 and 3). Multimodal montage plays a considerable role in the cinematic structure of Compass II both within the screen, where relationships are established between images and the meanings of subtitled song lyrics, and beyond the screen, where the meanings realised within the screen frame interact with those of the soundtrack in each channel.

A distinguishing characteristic of Compass II is that eight of the nine single- channel works presented in the installation include songs and subtitles. Since all these works feature observational video footage, the superimposed songs decrease

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the naturalism of the spaces represented by the video as a whole. This is the case even when they are combined with location sounds, as in the single-channel works in the Transition Theme, where the sound of the moving train can also be heard. Adding a song to such footage is a meta-art device as it draws attention to one of many possible choices the artist could have made in constructing the soundtrack.

In seven of the works with songs – Dawn, Pole Shiroko, Apart, Postcard from Australia, El Pueblo, Walking Together, and Advance! – the subtitles present an English translation of the lyrics of the song included in each soundtrack. The exception is Departure, where the subtitles present Peter Dodds McCormick’s original lyrics for Australia’s national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, which were written in 1879 and pledge Australia’s loyalty to Britain, and do not correspond to the melody of the traditional English folk song Greensleeves in the soundtrack, played with a toy keyboard.

Relationsbetweensonggenres

The songs included in Compass II can be divided broadly into folk/traditional and revolutionary/propaganda songs. As their distribution shown in Table 5.3 reveals, not only the installation as a whole, but also the individual works Apart and Departure combine two different broad types of song genre, associated with different, yet comparable, values (e.g. tradition vs. revolt; convention vs. propaganda). Such ‘stylistic montage’ of song genres, to use Manovich’s term, invites the audience to consider the common ground that these genres and the values they promote stem from, for they equally aim to influence the masses into conformity and revoke individual interests, at least ostensibly, in the name of social welfare. In this way, the songs help achieve an important aim of ‘intellectual montage’ – to give rise to ideas that are more abstract than and transcend those evoked by the individual elements that are juxtaposed through montage. The merging of different song genres within a single-channel work is also a meta-art device – revealing choices available to the artist as well as the work’s indebtedness to other works and genres (or what, following Bakhtin (1986), may be described as ‘heteroglossia’).

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Video work Folk/Traditional Songs Revolutionary/Propaganda Songs Dawn More Sokol Pie (A Falcon is Drinking) Pole Shiroko Pole Shiroko (Wide-Open Field) Postcard from Australia Varshavyanka (Warszawianka) El Pueblo The people united will never be defeated (¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!) Advance! Sacred War (Cɜɟɳɟɧɧɚɹ ɜɨɣɧɚ) Walking Together It is fun to walk together (ȼɦɟɫɬɟ ɜɟɫɟɥɨ ɲɚɝɚɬɶ) Apart Bella Ciao – original version of the Bella Ciao – the revolutionary, anti- Italian peasants’ song is played in fascist version is played in the the first half of Apart second half of Apart Departure Greensleeves – the tune of this 16th Advance Australia Fair – the original century traditional English song is lyrics of are presented in the played in the soundtrack subtitles Table 5.3 Distribution of traditional/folk and revolutionary/propaganda songs in Compass II

While the audience may arrive at interpretations based on song genres on the basis of a song’s melody alone, the works that feature songs in Compass II rely considerably on relationships between image, lyrics and melody. As illustrated below, this holds true for works that involve disjunction as well as works that are characterised by closer correspondence between the meanings created through these three modes.

Relationsbetweensongsandimages A strong disjunction between image, lyrics and melody operates, at least on surface level, in Departure, where the melody and subtitles juxtapose Greensleeves and Advance Australia Fair, two songs associated with different eras and geographic locations, thereby constructing ‘ontological montage’ (Manovich, 2001, p. 159). Combining one song’s lyrics with another’s melody may have a distancing effect on an audience familiar with both songs at the same time as it reveals different choices available to the artist in creating the work and invites one to consider alternatives to selections executed in its construction. Using the original version of Advance Australia Fair’s lyrics and an old English folk song’s melody against the contemporary Australian small-town landscape presented on the screen also juxtaposes current with distant time periods and values, and questions Australia’s claims to independence and identity.

By contrast, a very close image-song agreement features in Advance!. The video depicts the determined movement of the compass held in hands and pointing East, marching along a sheep’s track across a dry Lake George, an Australian landscape.

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This movement is synchronised with the sound of the Russian revolutionary march Sacred War, whose lyrics summon the giant Soviet country to rise and oppose the Nazi invasion of its land by joining a sacred, peoples’ war and unleashing noble rage like a wave:

Verse 1 Arise you giant country! To fight for life and death, Against a fascist dark regime, Against their doomed horde.

Chorus Let our noble wrath Rise up like a wave A people’s war is under way, A sacred war!

The determined movement of the compass echoes the determination in the lyrics to motivate and mobilise people to join the war. The vastness of the field/dry lake occupying the frame relates to the words addressing the ‘giant country’. The music, too, is in agreement, with its solid rhythmical structure, and the solemn and upward-oriented gradation of the chorus. As in Vertov’s montage of intervals, this rhythmical agreement between image and sound functions to compel the audience to imagine themselves marching behind the compass, vicariously adopting the position of the artist in shooting the video. At the end of the video, the moving compass halts at the sight of a cross-road, which coincides with the end of the song. The abrupt change that occurs simultaneously in image and soundtrack juxtaposes following a clearly defined path with the freedom and responsibility of making a choice. This correspondence between image and song, especially the song’s lyrics, also turns the representation of movement through a physical environment into a symbol of socio-cultural movements as it raises questions about the extent to which they support democracy and individual choice. It is also intended as a meta-art comment on interactivity, giving rise to the question of whether viewers are in

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control of or being forced into making choices in the installation (see further Section 5.3). In this way, multimodal montage transcends the meanings of the image alone and simultaneously narrows the audience’s interpretation as the words ‘anchor’ the image (Barthes, 1977).

Words and images are even more interdependent in the two single-channel video works in the Transitional Theme, Pole Shiroko and Dawn, as interpretations based on the relation between words and images cannot be reached considering either mode alone. Both videos present footage (continuous in Pole Shiroko and edited in Dawn) shot from within moving trains in Bulgaria and showing natural and built urban-industrial and rural landscapes, and the song in each refers to a historical Balkan figure considered a ‘leader’, ‘hero’, or ‘freedom fighter’. In Pole Shiroko, when a choir asks first an open field who will walk through it, then the Mountains of Pirin who will lead freedom-fighters through them9, and finally beautiful women who will protect them from the enemy now that Delche Voyvoda (the leader) is gone, viewers see respectively open landscapes, deserted factories, and forests. In Dawn, the lyrics address a white-chested falcon drinking water from the Vardar river, and address it as being ‘as meek as a lamb’ and ‘a hero’s bird’, asking whether it had seen a wounded hero walk past, while the video shows the dimmed outskirts of the city of Plovdiv as a train departs from it on an early winter morning. Dawn also presents an attempt to establish a subtle link between the song’s lyrics and the image, as the mention of the hero’s nine deep bullet wounds is synchronised with the appearance in the visual track of several red street lights.

The song lyrics in these two works enable the depicted Bulgarian landscapes to be read as symbolising social and cultural issues, that is, as more than representations of physical space. At the same time, the words introduce ambivalence and leave room for various interpretations. As a whole, each work could be interpreted as lamenting and criticising the inaction and exclusive reliance on others that have characterised the economic, social and cultural development of Bulgaria since it was officially pronounced a democratic republic in 1989, in an attempt for a sharp break away from the country’s socialist past. As well, each work – especially Dawn, with the images of the waking city and the departing train

9 The Mountains of Pirin are a rich source of iron ore and a site of heavy industries in Bulgaria.

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as a symbol of impending change – may be read as a call for taking responsibility and action towards positive social transformation.

As the above analysis suggests, the language used in Pole Shiroko and Dawn externalises the artist’s thoughts and feelings in relation to the visual representations. Yet, due to their ambiguity and elusive relation to the images, the lyrics do not suppress alternative interpretations of the images. Consequently, they differ from those intertitles in silent films or uses of sound that early film theorists and critics considered to be a threat to montage. As Christie explains, with the emergence of ‘the talkies’ in the 1930s there was “a genuine fear that sound would in some way destroy the ‘essence’ of film art” (1991, p. 177) by externalising ‘inner speech’ and so taking over the role of montage to guide the audience towards a specific reading of the presented film material by “reconstruct[ing] the laws of the thought process” (Eisenstein, 1949, p. 106).

In addition to the ambiguity of the lyrics and their relation to the images, another method that reveals the artist’s views while at the same time inviting alternative interpretations is the strong disjunction between visual and aural perspective in Pole Shiroko. The long-distance shots of open fields, factories and forests contrasts with the foregrounded voices of the men’s singing. The sound is close to the audience, and lacks reverberation, thereby aurally representing a much more enclosed physical space than the landscapes on the screen. The loud, tense and suppressed quality of the singing voices, too, contrasts with the wide views of the unbound spaces in the visual track. These features ‘recreate’ aurally the small train carriage space from where the images were shot, and have the potential to further emphasise the role of the song in externalising the artist’s own perspective. This discrepancy between visual and aural space – described by a viewer as “the layering of sounds and of visual perspectives” – could increase the audience’s awareness of the role of the artist in constructing the work, thereby stimulating a critical distance from the represented spaces and an intellectual engagement with authorial views and decisions.

The three single-channel video works included in the Demographic Theme – Postcard from Australia, El Pueblo and Walking Together – are also characterised by interdependence between image and song. The images in each work show people

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walking through a pedestrian tunnel and riding up and down an escalator in railway locations in Sydney. The revolutionary/propaganda song that accompanies each work refers to people as well: Varshavyanka in Postcard from Australia and The people united will never be defeated in El Pueblo summon working people to unite and oppose their oppressors, and It is fun to walk together promotes the ideas that unity is power (‘One rung, another rung, and there’ll be a ladder.’; ‘One birch, another birch, and there’ll be a forest.’) and that it is fun to do things together (‘Singing sure sounds better in a choir!’, ‘It is fun to walk together in the open, in the open, in the open!’). Yet, while the rhythm of the people’s movement is synched to that of the marching song in each work, the behaviour and expressions of people in the images starkly contrast with the mood conveyed by the song’s lyrics and melody. Most of the time the depicted people are simply moving within the same closed space, rather than engaging with each other, let alone acting in union. Their expressions are similarly disengaged and mundane, only occasionally revealing mild annoyance or curiosity towards the presence of the cameras on their path. This satirical relation between image and song conveys a subtle criticism of the complacent inaction and lack of social engagement towards achieving common and progressive goals, which the artist has observed in Australia.

Walking Together and Postcard from Australia also realise ontological montage by combining images shot in Sydney in 2005 with songs from 1980s Soviet Russia and the 1917 October Revolution. In interaction with similarities in visual depiction of Australia and Bulgaria in other videos, this juxtaposition draws attention to parallels discovered by the artist between the socialist environment he had grown up in and the socio-cultural climate of Australia, as evidenced in these three viewers’ comments:

Both places, in Sydney and those in Bulgaria, have a grey overtone, creating a sense of feeling lost, of dislocation and homelessness, feeling trapped between past and present.

I find the juxtaposition of the Russian workers’ song with the peak hour hordes of Sydney a very successful match.

I love the faded colours, the greyness of the east block – it’s just like images and memories I have from back then. As I was a child in the 80s and lived close to the Iron Fence, the absence of colours in the east block deeply affected me, scared me. This is what I remember most, and I found it in your videos. […] My favourite shot – the army of workers in the tunnel at Central; this brings together the two worlds, Bulgaria and Australia, East and West, now and then. Really awesome!

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Locationsounds Like the lyrics and melody of songs, location sounds also help create multimodal montage in Compass II. An example is provided by the use of location sounds in Apart and the raw footage sequences in the Aquatic Theme. There the sound of the ocean is combined with sounds from other locations such as the sounds of a washing machine and a fridge, of a dripping water tap and footsteps on gravel. These sounds have been cut and heavily processed to play back reversed, with altered speed and frequency, and then further rearranged to play simultaneously or sequentially with other sounds, “reedited into entirely new compositions” in a method recalling Vertov’s Laboratory of Sound experiments (Feldman, 1998, p. 43). In this way, aural montage is employed to construct a composite off-screen space, at the same time similar and different to the environments from which the various sounds originate. Combined with the heavily pixelated image, this aural space represents the great distance between the two vessels – the ship and the yacht – depicted in Apart and the artist who has zoomed in significantly when video-recording them from the beach. Juxtaposing sounds and image in this way serves to reveal an aspect of the work’s creation (following Vertov’s ‘kino-ear’ principles to create ‘film truth’), inviting viewers to vicariously position themselves behind the camera, while at the same time preventing them from immersing themselves into the visual representation.

 In conclusion, this section exemplified how montage is employed in single-channel video works and other video sequences in Compass II to create visual montage on the screen, both within and between image frames, as well as multimodal relations, between image, text/subtitles and sound. This use of montage combines and reconciles the approaches of Kuleshov, Vertov and Eisenstein. Contrasting representations in adjacent shots resembles Kuleshov’s experimental approach. Employing visual and aural life facts and the power of audio-visual technology to create ‘film truth’ and to involve the audience kinaesthetically is reminiscent of Vertov’s factological approach. Staging shots and using elements of attraction so as to reconstruct and thereby reveal a thought process and convey abstract concepts follows Eisenstein’s ‘intellectual montage’.

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Realising the potential of montage in this way and applying these montage principles beyond the visual – that is, juxtaposing images with the lyrics and melodies of popular songs and with sound in general – serves to reveal the choices executed in the construction of each single-channel work included in Compass II and invite the audience to position themselves in the artist’s role. At the same time, such montage functions to create the distance between the audience and each work necessary to encourage critical reflection (e.g. not allowing full immersion in the depicted environments or the rhythm of popular songs). This broader, multimodal, approach to montage is also essential for drawing attention to the central theme of Compass II, that of social engagement, and associated questions about conformity, nationalism, and migration.

5.2 Videoinstallationorganisation

In this section, I analyse Compass II as a video installation. I first consider relations between audio-visual channels (Section 5.2.1), to establish continuity with the discussion of the work’s cinematic organisation in Section 5.1. I then focus on juxtapositions created through the nature and arrangement of three-dimensional objects in the exhibition space and on the relation of these objects to the spaces represented in different channels (Section 5.2.2). Relations that involve audience interaction with the installation as a new media environment (e.g. changes between stages and layers within a stage) are discussed in Section 5.3.

5.2.1 InterͲchannelrelations

The relations created between different channels in Compass II evidence the value of montage as a principle for creating meaning in a multi-channel video installation.

Typesofconflictbetweenchannels From a technical perspective, representations on different screens can stand in relationships similar to those that can be established through montage between elements within and between shots in a film. These include conflicts of presence and absence, directions, static and dynamic representations, different masses and volumes, light intensities, colours and speed, frame sizes and depths as illustrated in Plates 5.3–5.10.

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Plate 5.3 Conflict of presence and absence of the compass in Demographic Theme

Plate 5.4 Conflict of directions in Transitional Theme

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Plate 5.5 Conflict of static and dynamic representations in Demographic Theme

Plate 5.6 Conflict of different masses and volumes in Aquatic Theme

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Plate 5.7 Conflict of light intensities in Transitional Theme

Plate 5.8 Conflict of colours and speed in Transitional Theme

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Plate 5.9 Conflict of frame sizes in Transitional Theme

Plate 5.10 Conflict of depths in Transitional Theme

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RevealingstagesinthedevelopmentofastandͲalonework Simultaneous inter-channel relations are an important meta-art mechanism in Compass II. This is especially so in stages of the installation that feature stand-alone single-channel video works, where each such work plays side by side with either raw footage that could have been included in it but was not and/or earlier phases in the work’s development. (Note that to avoid a clash of songs, only the final version includes a song.) Inter-channel relations involving stand-alone works realise what Manovich calls ‘stylistic montage’ as they combine elements with different genre and style: while each stand-alone work resembles a music video in that it combines moving image with song, the sequences on the remaining channels resemble raw observational video. This contrast highlights the more deliberate construction of the stand-alone work.

The meta-art effect of combining the final with earlier stages of a video work through the use of different channels in Compass II differs in important ways from that achieved in The Man with the Movie Camera through the representation of the actual process of creating a film using kino-eye’s methodology and then distributing it to the public. While Vertov’s film shows the film workers engaged in different stages of the film’s production (e.g. a film editor selecting from different film strips, a camera operator shooting everyday events), Compass II does not directly show the artist engaged in creating the work, but instead places viewers in the position of the artist gradually developing a single-channel video work by inviting them to consider alternatives to its final version. Whereas Vertov’s film exposes the fact that the final version of an art work is created by making various selections from a database of material linearly – or as Manovich (2001, p. 97) puts it, it presents “a linear printout […] of a database: a number of shots showing machines, followed by a number of shots showing work activities, followed by different shots of leisure, and so on” – Compass II shows such material simultaneously, distributed spatially on different screens.

Distributing database objects spatially, Manovich (1999, p. 95) argues, “can be read as the desire to create a database in its purest form: the set of elements not ordered in any way, [for if] the elements exist in one dimension (time of a film, list on a page), they will be inevitably ordered”. Manovich exemplifies this desire with

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Peter Greenway’s (1992) 100 Objects to Represent the World: A Prop Opera, reading it as an argument that “the world should be understood through a catalogue rather than a narrative” (ibid., p. 95). In Compass II, however, spatial distribution functions differently: due to the inclusion of stand-alone video works, it does not present a pure catalogue of database objects. Rather, the simultaneous presentation of a finished work alongside other phases in that work’s development invites the audience to evaluate a number of decisions made by the artist in creating each single-channel work, and to do so by considering both relationships between separate channels and the total effect of the space/s represented simultaneously in all four channels. At the same time, as previously mentioned, Compass II does present raw footage recorded by the artist, inviting the audience to select from and organise this material through montage.

Drawingattentiontoavideo’smultimodalconstruction Contrasts between the videos presented on separate screens also draw attention to specific features in the visual and multimodal construction of single-channel works. An important decision for each work was whether to include the compass in a particular sequence. For example, while Dawn – a work that does not include the compass – is playing in Stage 2 of the Transitional Theme, the footage on the South screen shows train tracks with the compass held in hands appearing and disappearing, and indicating the artist’s orientation in terms of the geographic directions while filming. While Advance!, which features the compass held in hands and moving east, is playing in Stage 2 of the Terrestrial Theme, the remaining screens present footage from the same location, Lake George, shot without the compass. Such variation highlights the role of the compass as an index and a symbol, discussed in Section 5.1.1.

Contrasts between separate audio-visual channels within a stage also underscore decisions concerning the construction of the soundtrack and its interaction with the visual track. The determined movement along a sheep track in Lake George in Advance!, presented on the East screen, for instance, contrasts with the chaotic pacing of the camera across the same terrain in the South and North channels. The forward movement of the camera in Advance! also contrasts with the footage on the West screen, which shows a rear view of the path followed in Advance!. These

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conflicts juxtapose the determination and progress symbolised by the movement of the compass in the stand-alone work with the chaos and feelings of nostalgia, fear and uncertainty evoked by the footage shown on the other screens. These conflicts increase awareness of how a work can be designed to serve as propaganda; they disrupt the effect of engaging the audience kinaesthetically – achieved by applying Vertov’s montage of intervals and synchronising the rhythm of the melody with that of the compass ‘marching’ through the field – and complement the ambivalence introduced through the abrupt stop of the marching and the song at the end of the video.

Invitingactiveobservation:panoramicandcompositespaces A significant total effect of relations between all four channels within a stage is to create a richer representation of a given space. These representations are of two main types: panoramic and composite. A panoramic 360Ü representation of the rooftops of a densely built city, recorded from one of Athens’ hills, opens Stage 4 of the Demographic Theme, as shown in Plate 5.11. In Stage 4 of the Aquatic Theme, all four screens display a view of the ocean and these views are aligned to create a continuous horizon line, represented in Plate 5.12.

These panoramic reconstructions envelop viewers positioned inside the space formed by the four screens:

… it was [striking] for a wide ocean vista to be so enclosing on all sides, and so flat. It stays in the mind.

Panoramic reconstructions also enable viewers to experience, as naturalistically as possible, the location in which the artist has shot the footage. This emphasises the documentary observation methodology borrowed from Vertov’s kino-eye and applied in the construction of Compass II. At the same time, however, the distance between the screens prevents viewers from immersing themselves in this environment (i.e. from ignoring the distinction between virtual/represented and actual physical/exhibition space) and draws attention to its constructed nature (cf. Grau, 2003b). The representations on the screens thus work together with aspects of the physical organisation of the exhibition space, which are discussed more fully in Section 5.2.2.

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Plate 5.11 Panoramic representation of a city in Demographic Theme

Plate 5.12 Panoramic representation: continuous horizon line across channels in Aquatic Theme

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Immersion in panoramic representations is prevented through the use of sound as well. To illustrate, the panoramic view of the ocean is accompanied by sounds that are not originally from the same location such as radio noise and a train whistle. These source-disconnected sounds also construct off-screen space, which in this case – due to the use of the train whistle – is a shoreline space and can be interpreted as the space occupied by the artist filming the ocean. Such an interpretation may prompt the audience to imagine themselves in the position of an observational video artist, surveying a location before and during documenting it:

I like the sense of space, seeing both familiar and alien space. It is at the same time placing me at the location, wrapping me within a space, and at the same time I am seeing the place from another person’s perspective.

The four channels also combine to create composite representations of the same or different spaces. Parts of Stage 4 of the Demographic Theme, for instance, present four different views of the same pedestrian tunnel (one facing either end of the tunnel and two facing the walls), showing people coming towards the camera and leaving it behind as well as passing it by, as shown in Plate 5.13. What distinguishes this from a panoramic view is that the four views do not build a seamless representation of the same space and time: they all have the compass held in hands in the foreground and do not show the same people coming towards, passing by or leaving the camera, making it evident that the footage they show was not collected simultaneously. They realise ontological montage, bringing together different people who have passed through the same space at different times.

Another composite representation is constructed by video sequences played simultaneously in Stage 1 of the Transitional Theme. The North screen shows a forward movement along train tracks, while the South shows a rear view of train tracks, and both sequences appear as if shot from the same train. The East and West screens at the same time present footage shot from the window of a train passing through a post-industrial town and an open field respectively, as seen in Plate 5.14. Although in this case viewers may not be aware that the footage shown on the four screens has not been collected simultaneously while moving through the same space, similar combinations of video sequences in Stage 2 of the Transitional Theme emphasise the artificiality of the constructed space and time, again through ontological montage.

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Plate 5.13 Composite representation of a pedestrian tunnel in Demographic Theme

Plate 5.14 Composite representation: Different views from a train in Transitional Theme

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An example is given in Plate 5.15, where the East and West screens show footage recorded from a moving train, whereas the North and South depict movement recorded while walking along train tracks (with the compass held in hands on the South screen); there is thus a contrast in the speed of the movement represented on the East and West vs. the North and South screens.

Temporalrelations Relationships between the four screens are also formed over time, during a viewer’s experience of the installation. This allows parallels and contrasts to be established between audio-visual representations of distinct geographic and socio-cultural spaces, presented in different stages of the installation, as the following viewer’s comment suggests: “Bulgaria and Central Station’s pedestrian tunnel turned out to compete in bleakness, and the effect of the revolutionary song in that context was striking.”

Plate 5.15 Composite representation: Conflict of speed in Transitional Theme 5.2.2 SculpturalͲarchitecturalorganisation

This section presents an analysis of the sculptural-architectural organisation of Compass II, focusing on the objects, volumes and structures that define it as a multi- channel video installation work – a work in which exhibition space is an integrative

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resource that enables the interaction of different modes (visual, verbal, aural and kinetic) and creates various representations and possibilities for different types of social engagement with and within the work.

Physicaldimensions As discussed in Section 3.1.2, the physical dimensions of an exhibition space can be described in terms of the objects, volumes, and structures that define it and the possibilities and restrictions they create for the audience to move within and around an installation and thereby experience it physically (spatially and temporally). The physical objects comprising Compass II and its layout, which are described in detail in Section 4.3, play a significant role in allowing different types of movement and interaction within the work. At the same time, Compass II is designed to encourage a critical distance between the audience and the installation through various conflicts between the physical dimensions of objects and zones marked by their placement.

One type of conflict is realised as a gradation of scale that operates among the objects central to the identity of Compass II. Positioned on a plinth in the middle of the installation, the work’s central sculptural piece, a marine compass, is an object typically handled by a single person. As well, its elevation, a meter from the ground, allows even young children to reach it. Each of the sides of the red carpet square below the plinth is a meter away from the compass and from each screen, a distance corresponding to almost twice an average human step. The screens’ dimensions are similar to those of typical house windows (160x120cm), as a member of the audience commented during the first presentation of Compass II in 2007, and are specifically designed to resemble agit-posters carried by two demonstrators. The scale increases further with the megaphone speakers on top of the screens, which rather than personal (hand-held or shoulder-supported) horn speakers, are designed for public address and concert use, to be mounted on high poles or buildings. In this way, the spatial montage of three-dimensional objects blurs the distinction between personal/individual and public space and makes only some objects accessible to the audience.

Spatial montage also creates a conflict of attention between the compass and the surrounding screens and megaphones (see Plate 5.16).

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Plate 5.16 Compass II: All four screens (2008 Exhibition)

Plate 5.17 Compass II: Compass as focal element (2010 Exhibition)

The compass is the ‘focus’ piece of the installation as it is an “element upon which concentration is brought to bear” (Unwin, 2003, p. 30), and is marked as such through its elevation on a plinth, the spotlight above it, and the red carpet underneath (Plate 5.17). Yet, the projections on the screens around it and the mid-

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range frequency and directionality of the sound coming from the megaphones (especially because this frequency emphasises the human voice) also demand the attention of people within the exhibition space. Two different possibilities for directing one’s attention within the installation are thus simultaneously highlighted for the audience, and may be described as ‘centralized’ vs. ‘polinuclear’ (cf. Hertzberger, 2000).

A conflict of attention is also evident in the relation between the four projections, and vital for defining the role of the audience in Compass II. The use of four screens (rather than a single one) and their spatial arrangement (they are not on the same surface but two by two are parallel to each other, like the walls of a room) forces audience members to make decisions about which projections to attend to at any one moment, as all four screens cannot be viewed simultaneously. A viewer is thus compelled to make selections and create a unique montage construction, that is, to become an active observer.

The objects comprising the installation, like architectural objects in general, also create frames for movement and change (Unwin, 2003). The placement of the compass in the middle, for example, presents an obstruction, preventing anyone from occupying or moving through this position, which may increase awareness of the role of the artist in navigating the audience, establishing obstacles to free movement within the installation. This placement, together with the emphasis received through the red carpet and spotlight, also interacts with the new media organisation of Compass II and is designed to encourage a conscious, active engagement with the work through the compass as an interface element (see further Section 5.3). The compass is also a meta-art instrument in that it makes explicit the alignment of the four screens with the major directions, thereby establishing a link between the exhibition space/the gallery and the outside world and revealing the intention of the artist to stimulate thoughts raised through the work to transcend the gallery context.

As described in Section 4.3, objects also divide the exhibition space in two areas: an outside/periphery and an inside/core. Within the inside area formed by the four screens, there is a further distinction between a central zone (marked by the red carpet square) and a marginal zone (between the edges of the red carpet and the

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screens). The screens form a square area, yet do not fully enclose it as there is at least a 1.5-meter distance between adjacent screens and the screens do not extend from floor to ceiling, but are positioned a meter from the ground, each standing on two wooden legs. This renders the inside area a moderately bound and permeable space (Stenglin, 2004, 2009) that viewers can enter. One, however, need not enter this space in order to view the projections: the distance between the screens and the walls of the exhibition space is sufficient for viewers to walk around in the peripheral area, and the backlit projection (which prevents viewers on the inside from casting shadows over the screens) and the screens’ transparent linen fabric make the projections viewable from either side, as shown in Plate 5.18. Importantly, viewers on the outside do cast shadows over the screens (see Plate 5.19), which makes those on the inside aware of their presence. This blurs the boundary between outside and inside space, reflecting the artist’s desire to draw attention to social engagement.

Plate 5.18 Compass II: Side view (2010 Exhibition)

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Plate 5.19 Compass II: Side view (2010 Exhibition)

Socialdimensions By creating different areas within the exhibition space and different possibilities for moving within it and interacting with the work, the physical dimensions of Compass II have the potential to promote different social relations among audience members. This potential can only be realised by the co-presence of at least two audience members and is as rich as the number of people experiencing the installation at the same time.10 It can be described in terms of its ability to create private vs. public and social vs. collective space as well as different power relations.

Characteristic of Compass II is an ambivalence between a sense of privacy and independence, on the one hand, and public exposure and interdependence, on the other. This is achieved through the conflict of scale defining the physical dimensions of objects central to the installation’s identity as well as through its organisation into three zones (peripheral, marginal and central). While the compass is designed for individual use, objects such as the agit-poster screens and the megaphones imply mass presence. The moderately unbound inside/core area

10 On ‘mass absence’ and the issues it raises for architects designing public spaces, see further Pope (2009[1997]).

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formed by the screens makes those inside feel secure, neither too exposed nor too enclosed. The effect of this arrangement, however, is countered through the positioning of the compass and the presence of the spotlight in the centre of the installation: the closer one is to the compass, the more well lit they are, and the more exposed they may feel (see Plate 5.20).

Plate 5.20 Compass II with viewers in the central zone (2010 Exhibition)

Although viewers in the peripheral zone may experience a greater sense of privacy, their shadows on the screens reveal their presence to those on the inside, which interferes with their privacy. This way of making viewers aware of each other’s presence within the space echoes Foucault’s (1975) notion of Western Society as a panopticon, where everyone is subject to constant surveillance. Ensuring awareness of the presence of other audience members is also a meta-art device as it highlights the role of viewers in influencing each other’s experience of Compass II.

The organisation of Compass II as an installation also constructs ambivalent power relations among viewers. The central zone is a position of privilege as its size limits the number of people who can occupy it together and spotlights their presence, commanding attention to them. Yet, with attention comes responsibility and public scrutiny. As well, the closer one is to the centre, the higher the likelihood that co-present audience members may obstruct one’s view of the screens and limit

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one’s choice of which projection/s to focus on. Further from the centre, freedom of movement increases, yet the distance between the compass and the screens also limits the number of people who can occupy the marginal zone, and people on the periphery may block parts of the projections for those on the inside of the installation.

The ambivalent relations of interdependence (private vs. public space) and power that operate in Compass II as an installation are designed to foster the emergence of a collective space, a space where people interact and cooperate with each other, rather than merely a social space, where they gather by arrangement or by chance. As Manuel de Sola Morales has argued: “Collective space is neither public nor private but much more and at the same time much less than public space.” (cited in Hertzberger, 2000, p. 135). Positioning the compass in the middle prevents any one viewer from taking this position of central power and attention, but rather causes people to move around it and in some cases to display solidarity (see Plate 5.21).

Plate 5.21 Compass II with viewers in central and marginal zones

Due to its symbolic function, which is discussed below, the compass is constructed as a bonding icon, an object that people rally around in expression of their shared values. Solidarity and togetherness are also stimulated through the

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conflict of attention between objects within the exhibition space and between the screens; this was observed when viewers, who had come to see exhibition together, drew each other’s attention to different parts of the space and different projections (as in Plate 5.22).

Plate 5.22 Compass II with audience members interacting with each other (2009 Exhibition)

Viewers in the inside area were also observed stepping away from a screen so that others, too, could view it unobstructed, and those on the periphery tended to stand in between the screens, rather than behind so as not to cast shadows. These interactions characterise Compass II as a work that activates spectators and reflects

a desire to address viewers in the plural and to set up specific relationships between them – not as a function of perception […], but in order to generate communication between visitors who are present in the space. This type of work conceives of its viewing subject not as an individual who experiences art in transcendent or existential isolation, but as part of a collective or community. (Bishop, 2005, p. 102)

Representationaldimensions

Three-dimensional objects in Compass II serve important representational functions, independently as well as in relation to each other and to the spaces represented in the audio-visual sequences. The pivotal point of the installation, the marine

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compass, signifies displacement through its appearance in a gallery context rather than at sea (which several viewers commented on), and is a self-reflexive metaphor for the artist’s experience as a migrant in Australia seeking to orient himself in and adapt to a new socio-cultural environment. Another meta-art function served by the compass, and mentioned above, is to encourage reflection on the interaction between the gallery and the outside world, allowing the projections on the screens to be viewed as windows to the outside world.

The compass is also a symbol of authority, of trust in scientific progress and objectivity. These values allow it to function as a ‘bonding icon’ (Stenglin, 2008b), which may draw viewers to observe it or even admire it (e.g. an audience member took a photo of the compass). As such it contrasts with symbols of protest against authority (the agit-posters) and of propaganda, or politically imposed authority (the megaphones and the red carpet). This relation can be read as an example of ontological montage, bringing together values seen as opposed. This creates hybridisation, and reinforces the effect of bringing together two divergent environments, Australia and Bulgaria, and song genres, folk/traditional and revolutionary/propaganda songs, in the cinematic organisation. As Stenglin (2009) has argued, hybridising a space creates bonding opportunities for a wider audience as it increases the likelihood that people will find values they share, creating a ‘complex communality’.

Bringing all these three-dimensional objects and through them associations with orientation and choice, protest and propaganda serves to highlight a central concern of Compass II as a meta-art work – the question of freedom and control within interactive new media video installation art.

As well, the three-dimensional objects interact with audio-visual representations in the cinematic organisation, following in the footsteps of the expanded cinema movement in the 1960–70s (cf. Van Der Beek, 2008; Weibel, 2003; Youngblood, 1970) and drawing explicit attention to the interaction between represented and physical space. To illustrate, although on their own the megaphones may be read as symbols of politically imposed authority and propaganda, they emphasise the human voices in the songs, in most cases giving voice to the lament of the oppressed (as in Dawn, Pole Shiroko, and the traditional folk version of Bella Ciao) as

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well as those seeking to subvert oppression (as in the revolutionary songs). As the sound of these voices is beamed at the audience in the inside area of the installation, a sense of closeness and solidarity is evoked, rather than a sense of oppression.

The cinematic representations of movement and the panoramic and composite spaces constructed through inter-channel relations accord with the movement encouraged through the organisation of exhibition space to represent the artist’s transition from one environment to another and reinforce the symbolic power of the compass as an orientation tool. As a viewer commented: “I like the sense of movement in the space, whether it is the moving train or walking people, they form an integrated part of the space.”

Significant too is the relation between the compass positioned statically on a plinth and the compass represented dynamically on the screens. The static compass, for example, reveals that the distribution of video sequences showing the compass is such that the direction indicated by it on the video matches (as far as possible) the geographic orientation of the screen (i.e. a video in which the compass is directed primarily East is assigned to the East screen). This alignment can be read as a meta- comment on the close integration between the cinematic and sculptural- architectural organisation of Compass II as a video installation.

Once viewers become aware of the screens’ alignment, they may interpret even those video sequences that do not feature the compass with respect to the direction of the screen on which each sequence is projected. Indeed, the geographic orientation of the screens was a guiding principle for assigning the final version of each stand-alone video work to a particular screen, as described in Section 4.3. The representational value of geographic directions is inherently ambivalent. Its complexity as a metaphor was noted by some viewers:

The person with the compass in the foreground, walking and observing the direction of travel was an interesting touch which I felt raised a number of questions and metaphors; specifically around actual scientific empirical direction versus emotional, ‘life’ direction, […] ‘choosing’ a path to walk...

As this comment reveals, each major direction can be ‘read’ literally, as a geographic fact. A direction can also be interpreted figuratively, as a symbol of social and cultural values, and may represent divergent values depending on one’s

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perspective. While West may be associated with wealth and progress from a global, Eurocentric, perspective, for example, a Sydneysider taking a local perspective may associate the same direction with different values. The likelihood of viewers adopting this local perspective may also be higher when the installation is exhibited in Sydney, which highlights the importance of where an installation work is exhibited and how this location interacts with the socio-cultural background and experiences that an audience brings to an art work.

To summarise, this section focused on how montage operates as a means of constructing meta-art in the organisation of Compass II as a multi-channel video installation. I have illustrated how simultaneous and sequential relations between the four channels realise ontological and stylistic montage that draws attention to the construction of stand-alone video works and invites the audience to take the role of the artist recording and developing these works and building the installation as a whole. One way in which this was achieved was through mobilising all four channels in representing panoramic and composite spaces. The sculptural- architectural organisation of Compass II, on the other hand, employs montage to create ambivalence in the social relations among audience members and the symbolic functions of objects in the exhibition space and their relation to spaces represented in the audio-visual channels.

5.3 Newmediaorganisation

The final section of this chapter presents an analysis of the new media organisation of Compass II. Specifically, using the parameters outlined in Section 3.1.3, I will discuss how montage has been applied in the construction of database and interface space as a principle for creating meta-art aiming to (i) make the audience aware of the artist’s role in steering their exploration of Compass II and (ii) subvert common expectations about, and thereby critique certain tendencies in, new media installation art. Woven into this discussion are also observations about the interdependency of the cinematic, installation and new media organisation of Compass II.

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5.3.1 Databasespace

A critical analysis of the database employed in an interactive new media art work must consider how the database operates as a filter through the selection and organisation of material in it and explore the ways in which its size, access and flexibility may affect the audience’s interaction with the work.

Selection

The database of Compass II was built gradually from 2003 to 2009, and involved two key stages of selection, which are both evident in the work’s cinematic organisation. The first occurred before and during recording, and was influenced by the artist’s goal to represent his experience in moving between two geographic, political and socio-cultural environments – Bulgaria and Australia – and adapting to the latter by gradually turning from a passive observer to an active participant. To fulfil this goal, footage was collected in Bulgaria and Australia in a variety of settings – urban and rural, open landscapes of the sea and the desert, crowded pedestrian areas, and so on. Footage from Athens was also included to evoke a sense of uncertainty by portraying a region that although close to Bulgaria differs from it in significant ways – for instance, through its more densely populated urban spaces and more developed capitalist, market-driven economy and politics.

During this phase, similarly to Vertov’s factological approach, the aim was to capture ‘life as it is’. This led to selecting environments that either had no people or where people were engaged in everyday activities and unprepared for the presence of the camera/s. This desire for a naturalistic representation is also reflected in leaving many long-take shots in the video sequences included in Compass II, which in Kuleshov’s experimental and Eisenstein’s iconographic approach would not qualify as montage, as discussed in Chapter 2.

Another aim of the artist in recording was to incorporate himself and metaphorically represent the process of orientation in the depicted environments, of turning from a passive to an active observer and then participant, moving through and intruding in them. This was achieved through including the compass held in hands in front of the camera, thereby ‘narrativising’ (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2006 [1996]) the moving image, creating a conflict of foreground and background within

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the frame (as did Eisenstein through mise-en-scene constructions) and at the same time establishing a link between the cinematic, sculptural-architectural and new media organisation of Compass II (see Section 5.1, 5.2.2, and 5.3.2). As previously mentioned, this choice serves to make the audience aware of the artist’s role in constructing the videos and to encourage critical distance by preventing the audience from immersing themselves in the depicted environments.

The second selection phase occurred after shooting. It involved selecting some stand-alone video works that the artist created in the period from 2003 to 2009 while excluding others, as well as designing video sequences specifically for the installation. For example, works that did not represent ‘life as it is’ but were too abstract or minimalist, like Wave, were not included, and neither were works, such as Block!, for which there was no sufficient video material to accompany them in Compass II, i.e. to be displayed on the remaining three screens (see DVD3).

As well, after the first three exhibitions of Compass II, for a two-channel presentation of the installation, called Cross-Section and presented in 2009 (see DVD 3), video sequences that referred to all stand-alone video works included in the installation were created. These represent metaphorically the artist’s arrival and gradual integration in Australia and can be found in Stage 1 of Aquatic Theme and Stage 4 of Terrestrial Theme (see DVD2). In both these stages all the songs that appear in the stand-alone video works included in Compass II are played with subdued volume and appear one by one for a short time, fading in and out. In the Aquatic Theme, each song appears as if brought on a wave, signifying coming to Australia. In the Terrestrial Theme, each song is accompanied by the noise of searching for a radio station and the four screens show the compass held in hands and spinning over the Australian desert’s cracked earth, a combination serving as a metaphor for being in a place yet searching for outside perspectives. These two stages also function as references to other stages in Compass II, and depending on when a viewer encounters them in navigating through Compass II, they can function as either a prologue or an epilogue to the installation as a whole, introducing an element of syntagmatic orientation in the predominantly paradigmatic logic of the database (see further Section 3.1.3). Also, although the organisation of the database into stages is such that footage from Australia is never presented simultaneously

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with footage from Bulgaria, combining the songs in this way acts as an intertextual reference to stand-alone works that use footage from Australia or Bulgaria, and thus brings the two environments together, realising a form of intellectual, abstract montage. Again, creating these video sequences for Compass II’s database integrates the cinematic with the new media organisation of the work.

Organisation

As described in Section 4.4, the 101 video sequences that comprise Compass II’s database are arranged into Themes (Transitional, Aquatic, Demographic, Terrestrial), each of which is divided into four stages (where a stage consists of the video sequences played simultaneously on the four channels of the installation). Within a stage, there are several layers, with two layers usually available for each channel that does not play a stand-alone video work.

If viewers spend enough time moving between different stages and themes, the thematic organisation of the database can reveal itself as the themes are based on the nature of the environments represented in the videos (e.g. those that feature people are assigned to the Demographic Theme). Additionally, the Demographic Theme brings together videos from both environments and in conjunction with parallels in the representations of people from Australia and Bulgaria is intended to stimulate the audience to compare them. A viewer, for example, noticed the “grey overtone” in the depiction of the two environments.

That the database is organised into stages will only become apparent to viewers who notice that turning the compass in the middle of the installation changes the sequences projected on all four screens. Viewers who experience stages that include stand-alone works may also realise that these are hierarchically organised. This realisation is dependent on considering stages in relation to the organisation of Compass II as a multi-channel video installation and other aspects of new media space, rather than just as a database organisation principle.

Finally, the layers are easy for anyone who enters the inside area of the installation to discern, even though a new layer typically introduces only a subtle change (e.g. such as a change in direction of movement). The reason is that shifting between them is effected involuntarily, by moving closer to or further away from a

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screen (see DVD1). In this way, layers function to make viewers aware of their presence and participation being integral to the work.

Socialinteraction:size,accessandflexibility Decisions regarding the size, access and flexibility of the database were aimed at stimulating the audience to focus on the themes presented in the installation and relate them to the outside world and to influence each other’s experience of the installation. Including a relatively small number of videos is hoped to stimulate sustained engagement with the installation, that is, to encourage viewers to explore the database, rather than overwhelm them with its richness.

As explained in Section 4.4., access to the database is controlled (not random) through a simple algorithm that allows stages to be explored linearly, moving from stage to stage within a theme and from theme to theme. For reasons outlined below, such exploration is deliberately impeded by the compass as an interface element. Importantly, access is also controlled so that viewers leave traces for subsequent viewers: if a stage is revisited, the videos in it resume playing from the position at which the stage was left by the last viewer. This is particularly noticeable in those stages that involve a stand-alone work including a song, through the song’s melody and subtitled lyrics, and points to the interdependence between the cinematic, installation and new media organisation of Compass II. By integrating three different types of database organisation – thematic, hierarchical and sequential – the work also extends montage to the construction of database space.

While this may influence the audience’s perception of the database as flexible, the number of objects in it is fixed and they cannot be altered by the audience. The purpose is twofold: (i) to promote a conceptual engagement with the issues raised by the installation and (ii) to encourage viewers to engage with each other and to relate issues raised by the art work to those prevalent in their own socio-cultural and political environment, to actively observe and perhaps even positively intervene in the world outside the gallery.

5.3.2 Interfacespace

This section presents a discussion of the interface space of Compass II, focusing on how the principle of montage has been extended to the design of interface space in

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order to construct meta-art and control viewers’ navigation of the database. Relevant aspects of the interaction between interface space and the work’s cinematic and installation organisation will also be highlighted.

Interfacerelations

Compass II employs two interface devices: (i) the marine compass in the centre and (ii) eight infrared switches, which form an infrared line midway between each screen and the compass and define the border between the central and the marginal zone of the installation’s inside area, as described in Section 4.4. Both devices are physical objects, rather than semiotic, and are directly activated through movement. When the compass is turned, viewers move from one stage to another, realising central navigation. When an infrared line is crossed, a new layer (if available) appears on the screen corresponding to that line, realising lateral navigation.

The compass is also a symbolic object with different values, as outlined in Section 5.2.2. Being assigned the role of a navigational apparatus further increases its symbolic power as a scientific instrument for orientation, as it is a tool for orienting oneself in the art work. This metaphor is supported also by the database and the videos of different environments it contains.

The two interfaces – the compass/central and the infrared switches/lateral – are independent, in that each can trigger a change on its own. Turning the compass, however, is given priority over crossing an infrared line (i.e. if the two actions are executed simultaneously, a change of stages, rather than layers, will occur). These relations construct different degrees of virtuality, plurality, visibility and transparency and thereby create different possibilities for social engagement with and within Compass II.

Virtuality Virtuality concerns the boundary between represented and physical space, which in Compass II is only minimally blurred. While relations between channels envelop the audience in a represented environment, as previously mentioned, the distance between the screens and their spatial arrangement integrate with the cinematic organisation (e.g. the songs and the inclusion of the compass on the screen) to

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prevent the audience from immersing themselves in these environments, so as to allow them to maintain a critical distance from the represented spaces.

The boundary between represented and physical space is also upheld through the interface. The infrared switches establish a correspondence between exhibition space and spaces represented in the four channels, as crossing an infrared line translates into a subtle change in the video played on the corresponding channel. Yet, the interface does not enable viewers to enter the represented spaces: by crossing the infrared lines or turning the compass one can access objects in Compass II’s fixed database, but not change them in any way. The audience is thus subjected to the artist’s perspective and recorded observations or constructions of these environments, unable to adopt a different point of view, zoom in and out of images, change the sound quality or volume, and so on. Not allowing represented and physical space to merge reflects a desire to keep the audience aware of the artist’s role in constructing the work and controlling their navigation through it. Blurring the boundary between these two spaces, as previously explained, serves to draw them closer to the represented space and imagine themselves in the position of the artist. This conflict is perceived in the following viewer’s comment:

The screen material was at times enigmatic, which was both positive and negative. While avoiding didactic video material is often poetic, there is also a need for the interacting viewer to take control of the material on screen and navigate it.

The limited virtuality of Compass II may subvert expectations raised by the compass as a metaphor for orientation and by trends towards using virtual reality environments in new media installation art. As an orientation instrument, the compass is used to guide movement through a physical space. In the installation, those using the compass do not change their position or physically explore an environment, rather they turn the housing of the compass, which offsets the compass needle only momentarily before it returns to its earlier position. The boundary between represented and physical space maintained through the interface interacts with the nature of the videos included in the database and its primarily paradigmatic logic. It also interacts with the cinematic and installation organisation of Compass II to evoke a sense of constant search, as this reaction from an audience member suggests:

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I like the horizon line together with the compass in your hand – it looks like serious navigation, but then you actually find out that the path leads to nowhere, the videos repeat itself [sic], you walk on different screens, in different landscapes, but you never reach a goal. Futile…

And although turning the compass empowers one’s exploration of the database considerably, this would not be enough for those expecting to engage with the installation as with virtual reality environments, which are encountered in many new media installations.

Plurality

Alongside the organisation of Compass II as an installation, the plurality of the interface space also creates ambivalent power and solidarity relations, in this case among audience members, more than between them and the work. The compass not only has priority over the infrared switches but can only be used by a single person at a time (central navigator), and turning it produces a much more noticeable change, across all four channels; this is even more striking when it involves a shift from a stage belonging to one theme to a stage belonging to another. The infrared switches, by contrast, can be simultaneously activated by several people (lateral navigators), yet their activation produces only subtle changes within a channel. This juxtaposition of interfaces reinforces the compass as a symbol of authority and power, and establishes the infrared lines as a means for building togetherness and solidarity between audience members.

Yet, the central navigator is at the same time under a spotlight, in the vulnerable position of “an exemplary participant” (Kwastek, 2008b), whose actions are observed and judged by others in the exhibition space and who carries considerable responsibility for their experience of the installation. This responsibility and the associated consideration for others are perhaps the reason why at the openings of Compass II’s exhibitions viewers spent less time as central navigators than they did at times when there were less or no other people present.

By changing layers within a stage, lateral navigation affects the central navigator’s experience of a stage and further reduces the power associated with central navigation. That experience is also affected by observers on the periphery casting shadows on the screens. In other words, the central navigator is far from autonomous when several audience members are present.

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Through the plurality of the work’s interface space, then, the artist exercises the power to navigate the audience by defining how they can navigate the installation and in this process interact not only with the work but also with each other.

Visibility

Compass II’s interface also has the potential to affect social engagement with and within the work through the montage of invisible and visible interface elements (cf. Rokeby, 1998; Ryan, 2009). The infrared lines are invisible, yet tend to be quickly noticed by anyone who enters the inside area and walks within it. Through them anyone who enters the installation is immediately assigned the role of an involuntary participant. Once viewers are aware of the infrared lines as an interface element, they can begin to activate them intentionally. (See DVD1)

The compass, on the other hand, enjoys considerably greater visibility due to the installation’s sculptural-architectural organisation. This, however, does not guarantee that audience members would accept the role of central navigator offered by the compass. If there are no instructions for the audience11 – since the cinematic and installation organisation of Compass II allow it to be experienced non- interactively – one’s inclination to accept that role depends on several factors. These include: one’s expectations about interacting with installation art (cf. Weibel, 2007); the co-presence of others whose actions may reveal that the compass is not only a sculptural but also a navigation element; and one’s predisposition to consciously accept the power and responsibility of this role. An example is provided in the response of a person who experienced the installation alone:

I really enjoyed it. Found it technically and conceptually sophisticated (in so far as I am in any position to judge) and especially enjoyed the layering of sounds and of visual perspectives. Fortunately the assistant came in and told me I could move the compass, otherwise I might have been looking at the water for a long time wondering what it was all about! But really, very impressive; there must be a huge amount of work behind it.

The visibility of the interface elements thus interacts with the cinematic and installation organisation to establish and make the audience aware of the three roles

11 The first three exhibitions of Compass II (in 2007, 2008 and 2009) offered viewers a program describing the work and revealing the role of the compass as central navigation mechanism. By contrast, the exhibition in 2010 did not give the audience any instructions on how to use the compass, but instead emphasised its appearance considerably more (through the inclusion of the red carpet square and a stronger spotlight over it) aiming to invite viewers to approach it spontaneously.

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available to them within Compass II – active observer, involuntary participant, conscious navigator – and the possibilities for crossing the boundaries between them.

Transparency

Compass II juxtaposes the highly transparent (i.e. easy to learn how to employ intentionally) lateral navigation mechanism of the infrared lines with the unwieldiness of the compass, which is considerably more difficult to (learn how to) control. This difficulty arises out of the interaction between the compass and the organisation, size and access of the database. Although the database is organised hierarchically into themes, stages and layers, for the purpose of interfacing with the compass all 16 stages are arranged linearly in the algorithm (using the graphic programming software Isadora), as shown in Figure 4.2. Turning the compass from 0 to 360º allows viewers to move sequentially through the stages, from the first (Stage 1 of Transitional Theme) to the last (Stage 4 of Terrestrial Theme).

The sequential organisation of the stages in the algorithm is not immediately apparent to viewers, because moving stage by stage is only possible by turning the compass several degrees at a time, a movement that is almost imperceptible and requires significant effort. Once this organisation is revealed, a viewer acquires a greater sense of orientation within the database and confidence as central navigator, and is able to intentionally transcend the linearity built into the algorithm. The transition from feeling disoriented to feeling empowered as active navigator can be a source of satisfaction, rewarding one’s effort (see, for example, the framework for evaluating the pleasure audiences derive from interactive art proposed by Costello, 2007). This satisfaction is reflected in this viewer’s comment:

At first I felt lost in here, I wasn’t sure what is happening exactly. It takes a while to discover that you are having an impact and changing the media when operating the compass or moving around the installation, but it is kind of awesome when you discover what is happening.

The limited transparency of the compass functions, alongside the boundary between physical and virtual space in Compass II, to stimulate a critical distance between the audience and the work (cf. Grau, 2003b; Rokeby, 1998). It also reflects a desire to subvert common expectations about interactivity in new media installation art by denying viewers a completely predictable response.

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At times I found the navigation baffling as the video skipped from one set of clips to the next. When I simply relaxed and enjoyed the experience this was not a problem. I suppose in the end, attitude influenced my response markedly. When in an anxious impatient mood, I was wanting video game type response to my interaction, when relaxed, I was happy to let understanding creep up on me.

The sense of unpredictability reflected in the above comment functions to subvert the compass as a symbol of authority and scientific progress, and is intended to empower viewers to take responsibility for their orientation within and experience of the art work, and hopefully to extend this approach to their orientation in the political and socio-cultural contexts outside the gallery.

The difference in transparency between the two navigation mechanisms is an allegory for the two audience roles associated with each: being an involuntary participant requires limited or no effort compared to becoming an active, conscious navigator, directing one’s own as well as others’ experience of the installation. This contrast in interface transparency could act as a meta-critical device as it has the potential to subvert expectations about the nexus between art, science and technology, about interactivity in new media art, and about Compass II itself as a new media video installation.

5.4 Conclusion

As the analysis of Compass II presented in this chapter demonstrates, the principle of montage has been extended to all three levels of the work’s organisation – cinematic, installation and new media – in order to raise the central issue of social engagement and create meta-art.

The chapter illustrated how the work’s cinematic organisation employs montage within and between adjacent and non-adjacent shots as well as multimodal montage between sound/melody, song lyrics and image, and combines and reconciles Kuleshov’s, Eisenstein’s and Vertov’s approaches to montage. Compass II’s organisation as an installation was then shown to extend montage principles to: relationships between audio-visual channels; the construction of exhibition space and the interaction between three-dimensional objects and spatial zones with different affordances for movement and participation; and connections between exhibition space and the spaces represented in the four channels of the installation.

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Montage has also been extended to the construction of new media space by combining different principles for database selection and organisation and juxtaposing different degrees of virtuality, plurality, visibility and transparency in developing the art work’s interface space.

The analysis also revealed the usefulness of stylistic and ontological montage for enabling Compass II, through the integration of cinematic, installation and new media space, to convey key ideas about social engagement, especially related to migration, integration and (dis)orientation in a new socio-cultural context, and contrasts and parallels between Bulgaria and Australia as distinct geographic, political and socio-cultural environments.

Most importantly, the chapter has argued that Compass II employs montage within and across cinematic, installation and new media space in order to create meta-art, and thereby to make the audience aware of the work’s construction and of the influence of the artist in navigating their engagement with and within the installation by assigning them different roles and subverting common expectations about new media installation art. These goals of meta-art in Compass II relate closely to the issues raised by the work: just as the artist’s experience of integrating himself in Australia was characterised by disorientation and passive observation at first and the gradual shift towards more active social engagement with and within this environment, so too Compass II seeks to encourage a critical distance between the audience and the work as well as to present three different possibilities for their engagement with and within it, as passive or active observers, as involuntary participants, and as conscious navigators of their own and others’ experience of this new media video installation.

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Chapter6 Conclusion

The chapter evaluates the extent to which this practice-based research project has addressed the challenge of developing principles for establishing meaningful relations between modes, media and genres in new media installation art and encouraging critical engagement with both social issues represented in a new media video installation art work, among audience members and between the audience and art itself. The chapter reviews the motivation, goals and methods of the project (Section 6.1), its key outcomes (Section 6.2) and their implications for new media installation art practice and theory. It concludes with suggesting avenues for future artistic practice and research (Section 6.4).

6.1 Researchsummary:motivation,aimsandmethods

A key motivation behind this project was the process of social integration I underwent as a migrant from Bulgaria to Australia, a very different geographic and socio-cultural environment in which I adopted the role of a media artist and embarked on a gradual transformation from a passive to an active, critical, observer and ultimately a conscious participant. Inspired by this experience, this project’s aim was to harness the potential of new media installation art for audience involvement with and within an art work in order to invite critical reflection on social engagement and on art itself. I pursued this goal by developing the interactive new media art installation Compass II and undertaking the academic research on new media installation art presented in this thesis. To achieve this goal, it was necessary to develop principles for establishing meaningful relations between the multitude of modes, media, genres and possibilities for interaction between audience and art work available in installation and new media environments.

Chapter 1 situated this project at the intersection of the fields of installation and new media art. It outlined research revealing three-dimensional space as the defining feature of installation and computer technology as unique to new media,

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and showed that both fields are characterised by a strong potential for interactivity and for combining multiple modes, media and genres. The research reviewed in Chapter 1 also identified the need to understand how this multiplicity and interactivity can be employed in interactive new media installations in order to encourage audience engagement with social issues, with each other and with art itself. As a step towards addressing this need, this project adopted a broad perspective on interactivity – informed by Eco’s (1979) concept of the open work – as a quality defined by the opportunities for different types of audience involvement an artist has designed into an art work. It also adopted Adrian Piper’s (1999 [1973]) notion of meta-art as art that fosters critical reflection on the concept and procedures behind its construction and the social values and assumptions built into it.

Chapter 2 argued that montage as a principle for creating meaningful relations between different modes, media and genres could be applied beyond film to stimulate a critical engagement with social issues and with art itself. Specifically, it offered a detailed review of the theories and approaches to montage of the 1920s Soviet film directors Lev Kuleshov, Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, who all saw film montage as a means of influencing viewers and effecting positive social change. Attention was drawn specifically to those aspects of their work that render montage a useful tool for creating meta-art and for establishing meaningful relations beyond those found in silent film, to relations between images, sound, movement and language and by implication to relations in new media installation art.

Chapter 3 explored the ability of montage to create meaning by activating physical and represented space in new media installation art. With reference to literature in film and media studies, architecture, semiotics and philosophy, I proposed that new media video installations can be defined in relation to three levels of organisation (cinematic, installation and new media space), offered parameters for describing each of these levels, and illustrated these parameters with examples from the work of several film, installation and new media artists. Inspired by Manovich’s (1999, 2001) work, which extends montage to relationships between images in new media, I also discussed the interaction between montage and space in cinema, new media and new media video installation.

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A description and analysis of Compass II were then presented in Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 respectively. The analysis focused on how montage has been applied to create meta-art in the cinematic, installation and new media organisation of the work. It also demonstrated how these three levels interact to provide different opportunities for audience engagement with the work – from passive to active observation, involuntary participation and active navigation – and to encourage critical reflection on the issue of social engagement and on the art work as an interactive new media video installation.

6.2 Researchoutcomes

6.2.1 Montagetheorybeyondfilm

This thesis has reviewed the work of Kuleshov, Eisenstein and Vertov, and evaluated and illustrated the extent to which the approaches to montage of all three directors can be applied beyond silent film, to multimodal relations between images, sound, movement and language. Another innovative outcome of this review is its focus on the potential of their approaches for creating meta-art. An insight that has emerged from this review is that their approaches can be combined and applied to create meaningful relations between modes, media and genres in new media installation art. For example, Kuleshov’s approach can be applied to syntagmatic relations between adjacent shots in video installations, while Eisenstein’s to syntagmatic relations between adjacent and non-adjacent shots as well as between elements within shots. Vertov’s, as Manovich (1999, 2001) has argued, can promote a better understanding of paradigmatic relations between database objects in new media as well as of relations within an art work’s spatio- temporal construction. Another insight is that Eiseinstein’s ‘intellectual montage’ and Vertov’s factological approach, due to their focus on conveying abstract ideas, are valuable for establishing relations not only between images but also between images, language and sound, between audio-visual channels, and between three- dimensional objects and video sequences in video installation art, as the analysis of Compass II in Chapter 5 illustrates.

In relation to meta-art, Eisenstein and Vertov both used real locations in their films, which could stimulate reflection on the relationship between film art and

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reality. In terms of its potential to encourage reflection upon art itself, however, Vertov’s approach considerably surpasses both Kuleshov’s experimental direction (which may, admittedly, be interpreted as artistic research and thus as related to meta-art) and Eisenstein’s authoritarian desire to agitate viewers to take action against social injustice. This potential is realised in explicitly revealing the concepts and procedures behind his work (e.g. through ‘life caught unawares’ and the use of camera effects) and the assumptions built into it about the role of the artist (e.g. by representing the activities of film workers).

6.2.2 Parametersfordescribingspaceinnewmediavideoinstallationart

I also proposed parameters for describing dimensions of space that may impact on audience involvement with and within a new media video installation art work. These have been developed by establishing continuity and difference in the activation of space as a resource for integrating different modes, media and genres in cinema, installation and new media art.

Cinema thus activates physical (screen and theatre) and represented (explicit and implied) space. Building on film theory (cf. Bordwell & Thompson, 2010), I have explored the close relationship between these two spaces by considering how sound (activating theatre space) and image (activating screen space) together define the explicitness of represented spaces. A dependency has also emerged between explicitness and the authenticity of the sounds and images employed to represent a space. In turn, the interaction between explicitness and naturalism, I have argued, opens room for multiple interpretations of a represented space, as demonstrated by the interaction between song and image in the stand-alone video works included in Compass II.

Installation activates both represented and exhibition space. The latter includes sculptural-architectural objects and structures as well as the space that surrounds them, and in video installation also screen space. Drawing on diverse disciplines, I have proposed that exhibition space has physical, social and representational qualities. I have also argued that physical space, by opening potential for movement, allows for variation in experience and may open an installation to different interpretations. Significant for attempts to encourage social engagement

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with and within an art work is the insight that physical space defines the social dimensions of exhibition space; these may evoke a sense of security, power and solidarity, construct a space as public or private, collective or social, and encourage different types of interaction and learning. Physical objects and their interaction with other objects and the occupants of an exhibition space can also represent abstract values.

Adopting Manovich’s (1999, 2001) distinction between database and interface, and drawing on research in and examples from new media art, I have also developed parameters for defining the potential of both database and interface space to encourage critical engagement with and within an interactive new media work. These include the selection and organisation principles, access, size and flexibility of database space and the virtuality, plurality, visibility and transparency of interface space. These parameters have important implications for viewers’ interaction with a new media installation and with each other, as observed in Compass II.

6.2.3 CompassII

The main outcome of this project was the development of Compass II. As a new media video installation, it responds to a key challenge for new media installation art: to create meaningful relations between modes, media and genres, and encourage critical audience engagement with social issues, with each other and with art itself. To achieve this, it employs montage as a principle for creating meta- art at all three levels of its organisation.

At the cinematic level, montage operates to establish relations within shots and between contiguous and non-contiguous shots as well as multimodal relations between image, language and sound. These relations operate to engage the audience in comparing two distinct geographic and cultural environments, Australia and Bulgaria. They seek to encourage viewers to reflect on social engagement, on the choices performed by the artist in constructing represented spaces and on the ways these choices influence one’s experience of the work. For example, using montage to establish a contrast between the foreground, which shows the compass held in hands by the artist, and the background within a shot

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serves to symbolise orientation in a new environment, prevent the audience from immersing themselves in the represented space, and make them aware of the procedures involved in a video’s construction. As an index, the compass also draws attention to the relation between art and reality. The juxtaposition of propaganda/revolutionary and traditional/folk songs with images of landscapes or people that do not engage with each other similarly underscores the constructed nature of the videos and invites critical reflection on the issue of social engagement.

At the installation level, montage creates meta-art by establishing relations between audio-visual channels, sculptural-architectural aspects, and the interaction between the two. The concept of social engagement is emphasised, for instance, by juxtaposing objects symbolising protest and propaganda (e.g. agit-posters and megaphones). At the same time, the ambivalence of the compass as a symbol, its relation to the compass represented on the screen, and the spaces between the screens serve to establish critical distance between the installation and the audience, aimed at preventing them from immersing themselves in the panoramic and composite representations that inter-channel relations construct and encouraging them to consider the relation between physical and represented space. The arrangement of objects in the exhibition space also makes viewers aware of each other’s presence and the artist’s role in creating different possibilities for their interaction with the work and with other audience members.

At the new media level, montage has been applied in the construction of database and interface space and their interaction with each other. By juxtaposing interface elements allowing different degrees of virtuality, plurality, visibility and transparency, for example, the installation simultaneously makes explicit the possibilities for social engagement with and within the work and allows it to subvert expectations about and thereby stimulate contemplation on interactivity in new media art.

Montage also relates the different levels of the installation in ways that enable the work to reconstruct the artist’s transition from passive observer to active participant in a new social environment. In conjunction with the installation’s exhibition space, its cinematic organisation allows viewers to passively observe a single channel or actively select which channel to attend to at any time. The

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exhibition space, in turn, interacts with the new media organisation to present the audience with the possibility of becoming involuntary participants or conscious navigators. This interaction between levels demonstrates the potential of montage to create meaningful relations within an interactive new media video installation and to encourage critical audience engagement with both the art work and the issue of social engagement it seeks to raise.

6.3 Contributions

This project seeks to contribute to art as a tool for stimulating critical social engagement as well as to new media installation art practice and theory.

As an interactive new media video installation, Compass II reflects a desire to stimulate its audience to engage critically with the issue of social engagement both within and outside the exhibition context. Compass II juxtaposes two different geographic and socio-cultural environments through montage in a way that encourages viewers to draw parallels and contrasts between them, and discourages immersion. This may develop in them the capacity for critical observation necessary for transforming oneself from a passive observer to an active participant in a given social context. Those familiar with either of the environments represented in the installation may also equip themselves with new perspectives, allowing them to re-examine social values they had previously taken for granted. By subverting expectations about interactivity in new media art, the installation may also enable its audience to develop a more critical approach to art appreciation and evaluation.

By extending montage as a meaning-making principle to new media installation art, this project also has implications for efforts to overcome the tendency of mere co-presence of multiple modes, media, genres and navigation options characteristic of new media. By demonstrating the suitability of montage for creating meta-art at all levels of organisation in a new media installation, this project hopes to inspire other artists working with cinematic, installation and new media space to raise awareness of social issues and encourage their audiences to critically engage with such issues, with each other and with art itself.

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Artists, curators, audience members and art educators can also employ the parameters this project has developed for describing space in new media video installation art as a framework for discussing, co-constructing and evaluating installation and/or new media art works in terms of their potential to foster social engagement.

6.4 Futuredirections

This project has demonstrated the applicability of montage to new media installation art in terms of categories of montage based predominantly on form and structure conflicts (e.g. between lines or volumes, between or within shots, between image and sound). Art practitioners and theorists would also benefit from a future exploration of montage in terms of the types of meaning it can be used to create (e.g. causal, conditional, parallel) and from systematic investigations of the effects of juxtaposing a greater variety of genres (e.g. documentary, animation, experimental) across the work of different authors. Such an investigation may open questions about the relationship between montage and complementary methods that could be employed to create meta-art, such as collage (cf. Martin, 1990).

Techniques for realising Compass II as meta-art included ‘narrativisation’ and the categories of ‘ontological’ and ‘stylistic’ montage, which Manovich (2001) proposes in order to emphasise the ease with which images that construct incompatible representations and belong to different genres can be brought together in new media. A finer differentiation and exploration of a greater number of techniques (e.g. intertextuality) for creating meta-art would be of value to artists seeking to invite their audience to critically evaluate the concepts, methods and values behind their art practice.

The development of Compass II has benefited considerably from my informal observation of and exchanges with audience members about the installation, especially during the art work development residency I undertook in 2008 (see Appendix B). This highlights the value of seeking audience feedback more actively and engaging the audience more directly in the development of my future works (cf. Edmonds, et al., 2006).

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I plan to pursue some of these avenues for future artistic practice and research in Replay, a new interactive multi-channel new media installation which employs narrative and a stop-motion animation in which a character (a human figure made out of wire) explores an art studio environment (see Escape on DVD3). In the studio, the character encounters photographic, film and video equipment as well as a multitude of props, most of which are symbolic objects and refer to specific events, figures and movements in art history (e.g. a miniature sculpture of Tatlin’s tower and a wooden model of a constructivist’s city). To use meta-art in order to reflect on my own development as an artist, I will also present the character with the opportunity to replay different media segments from my earlier work. The question of the relationship between fiction and reality will also be raised through the inclusion of archival documentary footage and animated photographic records of actual historical figures and events. Most importantly, I hope to draw the audience into co-navigating with me the development of this and other future works.

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Vertov, D. (2004 [1928]). Vertov’s attack on Eisenstein. In Y. Tsivian (Ed.), Lines of Resistance: Dziga Vertov and the Twenties (pp. 152). Gemona, Udine: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. Viola, B. (1995). Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House: Writings 1973-1994. London: Thames and Hudson. Wagner, R. (1993 [1895]). The Art Work of the Future, and other works by Richard Wagner (W. A. Ellis, Trans.). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Waugh, P. (1993). Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction. London/ New York: Routledge. Weibel, P. (2003). Expanded cinema: Video and virtual environments. In J. Shaw & P. Weibel (Eds.), Future cinema: the cinematic imaginary after film (pp. 110- 125). Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Weibel, P. (2007). It is forbidden not to touch: Some remarks on the (forgotten parts of the) history of interactivity and virtuality. In O. Grau (Ed.), MediaArtHistories (pp. 21-41). Cambridge, Massachusetts/ London, England: MIT Press. Weil, B. (2002). Art in digital times: From technology to instrument. Leonardo, 35(5), 523 – 537. Willemen, P. (2004). Reflections on Eisenstein and digital imagery: Of Mice and Men. In J. Antoine-Dunne & P. Quigley (Eds.), The Montage Principle: Eisenstein in New Cultural and Critical Contexts (pp. 171-189). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi B. V. Windhausen, F. (2008). Paul Sharits and the Active Spectator. In T. Leighton (Ed.), Art and the Moving Image: A Critical Reader (pp. 122-139). London: Tate Publishing in association with Afterall. Yampolsky, M. (1991). Kuleshov’s experiments and the new anthropology of the actor. In R. Taylor & I. Christie (Eds.), Inside the Film Factory : New Approaches to Russian and Soviet Cinema (pp. 31-50). Florence, KY, USA: Routledge. Youngblood, G. (1970). Expanded cinema. New York: Dutton. Zettl, H. (2005). Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (4th edition). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Zevi, B. (1993). Architecture as Space (M. Gendel, Trans.). (Edited by Joseph A. Barry). New York: Da Capo Press.

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Appendix A LyricsofsongsincludedinCompassII

TransitionalTheme

Dawn

ʺ̨̬̖ˁ̨̡̨̣ʿ̛̖ MoreSokolPie(AFalconisDrinking)

(TraditionalBalkanVersion) (EnglishTranslation)

Verse1 Verse1 ʺ̨̬̖,̨̡̨̛̭̣̪̖ Thefalcondrinks ̨̦̏̔̌̌ʦ̨̬̬̌̔̌.(x2) waterfromtheVardar.(x2) Chorus Chorus ˔̦̖,˔̨̨̦̖̣̖̖̣̻̬̣̍̐, OhYane,whiteͲchestedYane. ˔̦̖,˔̡̨̡̨̦̖̣̖̬̯̦̖́̐. OhYane,asmeekasalamb. Verse2 Verse2 ʺ̨̬̖,̨̜,̨̡̨̭̣̖, Ohfalcon, ̡̨̛̛̯̦̹̪̣̖̀̌, hero’sbird, ̨̥̬̖,̛̛̦̖̖̣̏̔ Haveyounotseen ̡̨̛̦̪̥̦̖̀̌̔̌. aherogopast? Verse3 Verse3 ʺ̨̬̖,̛̛̦̖̖̣̏̔ Haveyouseen ̡̨̛̦̪̥̦̖̀̌̔̌(x2) aherogopast(x2) ̨̛̛̭̖̖̯̣̱̯̬̦̔̏̌. withninedeepbulletwounds? Verse4 Verse4 ʤ̖̭̖̯̬̦̔̌̌̌ Butthetenthwound, ̨̨̨̨̭̦̙̪̬̖̦̍̔̌.(x2) stabbedwithaknife.(x2)

177

PoleShiroko(WideͲopenField)

ʿ̨̣̖ˌ̨̡̨̛̬ WideͲopenField

(TraditionalBulgarianVersion) (EnglishTranslation)

Verse1 Verse1 ʿ̨̨̡̨̛̣̖̹̬, WideͲopenfield, ̸̡̨̨̜̖̪̯̖̖̭̖̹̖̯̍̔̌̌ whowillnowwonderthroughyou, ʶ̨̨̯̦̖̥̌̐̌ʪ̸̨̨̖̣̖̜̏̏̔̌?(x2) WhenDelchetheleaderisnolongerhere? (x2) Verse2 Verse2 ʿ̨̛̛̛̬̦̪̣̦̦̌, MountainsofPirin, ̸̸̡̨̨̨̛̜̖̪̯̖̖̖̯̍̌̔̌̏̔, whowillnowleadthefreedomfighters ʶ̨̨̯̦̖̥̌̐̌ʪ̸̨̨̖̣̖̜̏̏̔̌?(x2) throughyou, WhenDelchetheleaderisnolongerhere? (x2) Verse3 Verse3 ʺ̨̛̛̥̀̍̌̏, Beautifulwomen, ̸̡̨̨̛̛̛̛̖̯̬̪̏̏̌̏̌̐̌̚̚, whowillnowprotectyoufromtheenemy, ʶ̨̨̯̦̖̥̌̐̌ʪ̸̨̨̛̖̣̖̏̏̔̌?(x2) WhenDelchetheleaderisnolongerhere? (x2) 

178

AquaticTheme

Apart

BellaCiao BellaCiao

(TraditionalItalianVersion) (EnglishTranslation)

Verse1 Verse1 Allamattinaappenaalzata InthemorningwhenIawake, obellaciaobellaciao Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bellaciaociaociao bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! allamattinaappenaalzata InthemorningwhenIawake, inrisaiamitoccaandar TothericefieldsImustgo. Verse2 Verse2 Efragliinsettielezanzare Surroundedbyinsectsandmosquitoes, obellaciaobellaciao Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bellaciaociaociao bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! efragliinsettielezanzare Surroundedbyinsectsandmosquitoes, undurlavormitoccafar Imustworkveryhard. Verse3 Verse3 Omammamia,ochetormento! Ohmydear,whatatorment, obellaciaobellaciao Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bellaciaociaociao bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! omammamiaochetormento Ohmydear,whatatorment, iot’invocoognidoman Ihavetofacethiseverymorning.

179

BellaCiao BellaCiao

(AntiͲfascistItalianVersion) (EnglishTranslation)

Verse1 Verse1 Unamattinaappenaalzato OnemorningwhenIwokeup obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! Unamattinamisonosvegliato, ThismorningIwokeup ehotrovatol’invasor. andfoundtheenemy. Verse2 Verse2 Opartigiano,portamivia, Oh,partisans,takemewithyou, obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! Opartigiano,portamivia, Oh,partisans,takemewithyou, chémisentodimorir. BecauseIfeellikeIamdying. Verse3 Verse3 Eseiomuoiodapartigiano, AndifIdieasapartisan, obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Oh!bella,ciao bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! Eseiomuoiodapartigiano, AndifIdieasapartisan, tumideviseppellir. Thenyouhavetoburyme. Verse4 Verse4 Eseppellirelassùinmontagna, Buryemeupinth mountain, obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! Eseppellirelassùinmontagna, Burymeupinthemountain, sottol’ombradiunbelfior. Undertheshadeofabeautifulflower. Verse5 Verse5 Tuttelegentichepasseranno, Andthepeoplewhoshallpass, obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! Tuttelegentichepasseranno, Andthepeoplewhoshallpass, Midiranno«Chebelfior!» Willsay:Whatabeautifulflower! Verse6 Verse6 «Èquestoilfioredelpartigiano», Thisistheflowerofthepartisan, obella,ciao!bella,ciao! Ohbella,ciao!bella,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! bella,ciao,ciao,ciao! «Èquestoilfioredelpartigiano, Thisistheflowerofthepartisan, mortoperlalibertà!» Whodiedforfreedom. 

180

DemographicTheme

PostcardfromAustralia

Varshavyanka Varshavyanka

(RussianVersion) (EnglishTranslation)

Verse1 Verse1 ʦ̵̛̛̛̬̬̙̖̦̼̖̖̯̦̦̥̏̌̔̍̏̀̌̔̌, Theenemystaccatosareflyingoverour ˃̖̥̦̼̖ ̛̭̣̼ ̦̭̌ ̨̨̣̦̍̚ ̦̖̯̱̯̐. heads ʦ ̨̜̍ ̨̡̨̨̬̜̏ ̥̼ ̛̛̭̯̱̪̣̏ ̭ ̛̬̥̏̌̐̌, Darkforcesmaliciouslyoppressus ʻ̭̌ ̖̺̖ ̭̱̼̔̽̍ ̖̖̭̯̦̼̖̍̏̚ ̙̱̯̔. Inthefaithfulbattlethatweweredestined ʻ̨ ̥̼ ̨̪̼̥̖̥̔ ̨̨̬̐̔ ̛ ̨̭̥̖̣ for ʯ̦̥̌́ ̨̬̼̍̽̍ ̌̚ ̸̨̬̖̖̌̍ ̨̖̣̔, Unknownfatesareawaitingus ʯ̦̥̌́ ̡̨̛̖̣̜̏ ̨̬̼̍̽̍ ̵̭̖̏ ̨̨̦̬̌̔̏ Butwewillproudlyandboldlyraise ʯ̌ ̸̛̣̱̹̜ ̛̥̬, ̌̚ ̭̯̱̏́̀ ̨̨̭̱̏̍̔. Thebanneroftheworkers’struggle Thebannerofthegreatbattleofallthe peoples Forabetterworldandtheholyfreedom. Chorus Chorus ʻ̨̡̨̜̬̼̜̌̍̏̌̏, Toabattlebloody, ˁ̨̛̯̜̪̬̼̜̏́̌̏ Holyandjust ʺ̬̹̌,̥̬̹̪̖̬̖̌̏̔, March,marchforward ˀ̸̨̨̛̜̦̬̌̍̌̔. Workingpeople Verse2 Verse2 ʻ̨̡̨̨̛̛̥̦̖̦̭̯̦̼̯̬̦̬̦̼̌̌̏̌̏, Weloathethetyrants’crowns ˉ̨̛̖̪̦̬̌̔̌Ͳ̶̸̛̭̯̬̣̥̼̯̥̌̔̌̽̌. Wedeemthatchainsturnpeopleintomartyr ʶ̨̨̨̨̛̬̦̬̦̜̣̯̼̖̯̬̦̼̏̽̀̌̔̌̚ Thethronesnowcoveredwiththepeople’s ʶ̵̨̨̨̛̛̬̥̼̦̹̬̬̥̏̽̀̌̏̌̐̏̍̌̐! blood ˁ̨̨̥̖̬̯̖̭̪̺̦̭̖̥̭̱̪̭̯̯̥̽̍̌̔̌́̏̌̌! Willsoonbecoveredwiththeenemies’blood ʦ̵̛̛̭̖̥̪̬̯̥̯̬̱̺̭̥̭̭̌̌̌̔́́̌̚! instead ʺ̶̛̺̖̦̖̭̥̖̬̯̭̖̥̬̥̽̽̏̌́Ͳ VengeancemercilesstoallSupostatam! ̨̡̪̣̱̯̬̯̥̌̌! Toallparasitesoftheworkingmasses! ʥ̸̨̡̨̨̛̣̪̖̼̯̬̙̖̭̯̖̦̦̼̜̭̍̔̏̌̚. VengeancesanddeathtoalltsarͲplutocrats! Thehourofthesolemnvictoryisnear.

181

ElPueblo(ThePeople)

¡Elpueblounido,jamásserávencido! Thepeopleunitedwillneverbedefeated

(OriginalSpanishVersion) (EnglishTranslation) MusicandLyrics:SergioOrtega

Chorus Chorus ¡Elpueblounidojamásserávencido!(x4) Thepeopleunitedwillneverbedefeated!(x 4) Verse1 Verse1 Depie,cantar Standupandsing! quevamosatriunfar. Wearegoingtowin. Avanzanyabanderasdeunidad. Flagsofunityarenowadvancing. Ytúvendrásmarchandojuntoamí Andyouwillcomemarchingbesideme, yasíversatucantoytubanderaflorecer, Andsoyouwillseeyoursongandflag laluzdeunrojoamanecer blossom. anunciaya Thelightofareddawn, lavidaquevendrá. Alreadyannouncesthenewlifetocome. Verse2 Verse2 Depie,luchar Standupandfight! elpueblovaatriunfar. Thepeoplewillwin Serámajorlavidaquevendrá Thenewlifetocomewillbebetter. aconquistarnuestrafelicidad Towinourhappiness. yenunclamormilvocesdecombatese Andthenathousandfightingvoiceswillrise, alzarán Singingasong offreedom. diráncancióndelibertad Withdetermination. condecision Thefatherlandwillwin. lapatriavencerá. Verse3 Verse3 Yahoraelpueblo Andnowthepeople, quesealzaenlalucha Whoarerisingupinstruggle, convozdegigante Withapowerfulvoice gritando:¡adelante! calling:Forward!

182

WalkingTogether

ʦ̨̥̖̭̯̖̖̭̖̣̹̯̏̌̐̌̽ WalkingTogether

(OriginalRussianVersion) (EnglishTranslation) Music:VladimirShainskii Lyrics:MikhailMatusovskij

Chorus Chorus ʦ̨̨̨̨̥̖̭̯̖̖̭̖̣̹̯̪̪̬̭̯̬̥̏̌̐̌̽̌, Itisfuntowalktogetherintheopen, ʿ̨̨̨̪̬̭̯̬̥̌,̨̨̨̪̪̬̭̯̬̥̌! intheopen,intheopen! ʰ,̸̡̨̨̦̖̦,̸̵̨̨̛̪̬̪̖̯̣̱̹̖̬̥̏̌̽, Singingsuresoundsbetterinachoir, ʸ̸̵̨̨̱̹̖̬̥,̸̵̨̨̣̱̹̖̬̥! Singing’sbetter,singing’sbetterinachoir! Verse1 Verse1 ˁ̨̪̜Ͳ̡̛̭̦̥̌̌,̡̪̖̬̖̪̖̣̌Ͳ̸̨̡̪̖̬̖̪̖̣̌. Singwithourchoir,littlequail. ˀ̨̡̛̣̌̐̌̚,̨̡̛̣̔̏̌̐̌Ͳ̸̨̡̱̖̯̖̣̍̔̌, Onespine,anotherspine,andthere’llbea ˀ̸̨̡̺̖̌̔̌̚,̸̨̡̺̖̔̏̌̔̌Ͳ̡̱̖̯̣̖̭̖̦̍̔̌, Christmastree, ˀ̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̌̏̚,̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̔̏̌̏Ͳ̡̱̖̯̪̖̭̖̦̍̔̌. onerung,anotherrung,andthere’llbea ladder, oneword,anotherword,andthere’llbea song. Verse2 Verse2 ʦ̵̨̨̡̨̨̛̦̖̖̭̬̪̣̭̪̣̺̖̯̭̍̌̌̌̌́̚̚. Intheskiesalittlerayoflightisshowing ˀ̡̖̬̖̌̍̌̚̚,̡̖̬̖̔̏̌̍̌̚Ͳ̶̨̛̱̖̯̬̺̍̔̌, now. ˀ̸̨̡̺̖̌̔̌̚,̸̨̡̺̖̔̏̌̔̌Ͳ̡̱̖̯̣̖̭̖̦̍̔̌, Onebirch,anotherbirch,andthere’llbea ˀ̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̌̏̚,̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̔̏̌̏Ͳ̡̱̖̯̪̖̭̖̦̍̔̌. forest, onerung,anotherrung,andthere’llbea ladder, oneword,anotherword,andthere’llbea song. ʶ̱̪̣̖̯3 Verse3 ʻ̸̨̡̨̨̛̛̥̭̭̯̣̱̯̬̪̦̱̼̬̯̦̦̌̌̏̀̏̍̌̽̌̔̍. Weneedahappypathtofindandfollow. ˀ̨̡̛̙̦̌̔̔̌̚,̨̡̛̙̦̔̏̌̔̔̌Ͳ̱̖̯̬̱̍̔̌̔̐̌, Oneraindrop,thenanother,andthere’llbe ˀ̸̨̡̺̖̌̔̌̚,̸̨̡̺̖̔̏̌̔̌Ͳ̡̱̖̯̣̖̭̖̦̍̔̌, arainbow, ˀ̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̌̏̚,̸̨̡̨̭̣̖̔̏̌̏Ͳ̡̱̖̯̪̖̭̖̦̍̔̌. onerung,anotherrung,andthere’llbea ladder, oneword,anotherword,andthere’llbea song. 

183

TerrestrialTheme

Advance!

C̨̖̺̖̦̦̜̦̏̌́̏̌ SacredWar

(OriginalRussianversion) (EnglishTranslation) Music:A.Alexandrov Lyrics:V.LebedevͲKumach

Verse1 Verse1 ʦ̭̯̜̌̏̌,̨̨̭̯̬̦̬̥̦̌̌̐̌́, Ariseyougiantcountry! ʦ̭̯̜̌̏̌ ̦̌ ̭̥̖̬̯̦̼̜ ̨̜̍ Tofightforlifeanddeath. ˁ ̴̡̨̛̹̭̯̭̜̌ ̨̛̭̣̜ ̨̯̖̥̦̀, Againstafascistdarkregime, ˁ ̨̡̨̪̬̣̯́̀ ̨̨̬̜̔. Againsttheirdoomedhorde. Chorus Chorus ʿ̨̨̨̱̭̯̬̭̯̣̬̦̽́̽̍̌̐̔̌́ Letournoblewrath ʦ̡̛̭̪̖̯̌ ̡̡̌ ̨̣̦̏̌, Riseuplikeawave, ʰ̖̯̔ ̨̜̦̏̌ ̨̦̬̦̌̔̌́, Apeople’swarisunderway, ˁ̺̖̦̦̏́̌́ ̨̜̦̏̌! Asacredwar! Verse2 Verse2 ʪ̨̨̛̛̥̯̪̬̱̹̯̖̣̥̌̔̔́ Wewillresistoppressionof ʦ̵̭̖ ̵̪̣̥̖̦̦̼̌ ̛̖̜̔, Bravewandne ideas, ʻ̡̛̛̭̣̦̥̌̽̌, ̛̬̯̖̣̥̐̌̍́, Terrorists, ʺ̸̛̱̯̖̣̥́ ̣̖̜̀̔! Thepeople’senemies. Verse3 Verse3 ʿ̨̨̨̛̛̜̖̥̣̥̯̭̖̜̭̣̔̽̏̀, Let’sfightwithallourpowers, ʦ̶̭̖̥̭̖̬̖̥̔,̨̭̖̜̱̹̜̏̔ Allourheartsandsouls. ʯ̛̖̥̣̦̹̱̥̣̱̌̀̌̀̚, Forourdearland, ʯ̦̹̌̌ˁ̨̨̨̣̹̜̀̍̽̚! Forourgreatunion!

184

Departure

AdvanceAustraliaFair

Musicandlyrics:PeterDoddsMcCormick(1879)

Verse1 Australiansallletusrejoice, Forweareyoungandfree; We’vegoldensoilandwealthfortoil, Ourhomeisgirtbysea; OurlandaboundsinNature’sgifts Ofbeautyrichandrare; Inhistory’spage,leteverystage AdvanceAustraliafair! Injoyfulstrainsthenletussing, “AdvanceAustraliafair!” Verse2 WhengallantCookfromAlbionsail’d, Totracewideoceanso’er, TrueBritishcourageborehimon, Tillhelandedonourshore. ThenhereheraisedOldEngland’sflag, Thestandardofthebrave; Withallherfaultsweloveherstill, “Brittanniarulesthewave!” Injoyfulstrainsthenletussing “AdvanceAustraliafair!” Verse3 BeneathourradiantsouthernCross, We’lltoilwithheartsandhands; TomakethisCommonwealthofours Renownedofallthelands; Forthosewho’vecomeacrosstheseas We’veboundlessplainstoshare; Withcourageletusallcombine ToadvanceAustraliafair. Injoyfulstrainsthenletussing “AdvanceAustraliafair!”

185

Verse4 Whileothernationsoftheglobe Beholdusfromafar, We’llrisetohighrenownandshine Likeourglorioussouthernstar; FromEngland,Scotia,Erin’sIsle, Whocomeourlottoshare, Letallcombinewithheartandhand ToadvanceAustraliafair! Injoyfulstrainsthenletussing “AdvanceAustraliafair!”  Verse5 Shou’dforeignfoee’ersightourcoast, Ordareafoottoland, We’llrousetoarmslikesiresofyore Toguardournativestrand; Brittanniathenshallsurelyknow, Beyondwideocean’sroll, HersonsinfairAustralia’sland Stillkeep aBritishsoul. Injoyfulstrainstheletussing “AdvanceAustraliafair!”

186

Appendix B Exhibitions,curatorialexperienceandrelatedpublicationsand presentations

SoloExhibitions

2010 Compass II, performative multi-channel new media art installation, Studio One, UNSW, 9–19th of Nov. 2010 2009 Compass II, performative multi-channel new media art installation, COFA Space, UNSW, 20–24th Apr 2009 2007 Compass II, performative multi-channel new media art installation, Kudos Gallery, 4–9 June 2007, Sydney, Australia

SelectedFestivalScreenings,PerformancesandGroupExhibitions

2010 Sydney Underground Film Festival, the Factory Theatre, 11–14 Sept 2010, Sydney, Australia 2009 REAL Emergency, Ivan Doughererty Gallery, College of Fine Arts, UNSW, 27 Aug–19 Sept 2009, Sydney, Australia 2008 Animasyros 1.0 International Animation Film Festival, 9–21 Sept 2008, Syros, Greece 2008 Sydney Underground Film Festival, the Factory Theatre, 11–14 Sept 2008, Sydney, Australia 2008 Boo Hoo Films, 25 August 2008, Newtown, Sydney, Australia 2008 LOOP’08: International Festival & Fair of Videoart Barcelona, 06–18 May 2008, Barcelona, Spain 2007 Sydney Underground Film Festival, the Factory Theatre, 7–10 Sept 2007, Sydney, Australia 2007 Digital Voices, Olympia International Arts Festival, 29 July 2007, Forest Theatre of Ancient Olympia, Greece 2006 Animateka 06, International Animation Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia 2006 Platforma Video 6, International Video and Film Festival, 7–12 Dec 2006, Athens 2006 IAF3, International Animation Festival, Istanbul, Turkey

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2006 Festival of Fischer’s Ghost Art Award, 3–18 Nov 2006, Campbelltown Art Centre, Sydney, Australia 2006 Electroprojections, Electrofringe, 28 Sept – 02 Oct 2006, Newcastle, Australia 2006 d/Art/2006 Festival, 12 Apr – 7 May 2006, the Studio, Opera House, Sydney 2006 Third International Conference on Multimodality, Compass I, 2001–02, May 2006, Pavia, Italy 2006 Drift - Video works #5, SMIC screening event, Spin-Off, Site-specific performance presented at the Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, Australia 2006 Drift - Video works #5, SMIC screening event, Postcard from Australia, 2005 – 06, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, Australia 2005 Fluxus - 5th International Film Festival on the Internet www.fluxusonline.com, Official Selection 2005 Look Right – Video works #4, SMIC screening event, Compass I, 2001–02, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, Australia 2005 Look Right – Video works #4, SMIC screening event, Oi Mesechino, 2005, Atanas Djonov & Vergo, video performance, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney 2005 Look Right – Video works #4, SMIC screening event, Wave, 2005, Hangman, 2005, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney 2005 AV OUT – an Exhibition of Contemporary Screen and Sound Art, Google’s Montage, 2005, Scale, 2002, Blacktown Arts Centre, Sydney 2005 Train Ink – Video works #3, SMIC screening event, Pole Shiroko – Wide-Open Fields, 2005, video performance presented with A Capella Choir – Nothing Without Belinda, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, Australia 2005 Area – Video works #2, SMIC screening event, Advance!, 2005, Fig Tree Theatre, Kensington, Sydney, Australia 2004 High Beam Driver Lane with HALCYON DRIVE, Match, 2002, Melbourne, Australia 2004 International Forum for Media & Digital Art, Circlework, Tainan National University of the Arts Kaoshiung, Tainan, Taipei, Taiwan 2004 Regen Festival, Circlework, Broken Hill, Australia

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2002 d>ART02 International Showcase of Experimental Media Art, A Film, 2001, Dendy Opera Quays, Part of the 49th Annual Sydney Film Festival, Australia 2002 BRITSPOTTING 2002, British Independent Film Festival, Video Player, 2001 included in the official selection, Berlin, Germany 2002 Annual COFA Exhibition, Compass I, 2001–02 2002 “The Left Room”, Knot Gallery, Hourglass installation, Surry Hills, Sydney 2002 This is not House, sound exhibition with live performances, Monotonous I – V, Kudos Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2002 Speak up: Visions of Alternate Worlds, One, Second…, COFA Space, UNSW, Sydney, Australia 2002 Appliance, SOLARCH (Solar Research Centre), Second Nature, UNSW, Sydney 2001 Fragile, 2001, COFA, Loop, multi-media performance, UNSW, Sydney 2000 Never Mind the Bolex, No Entry, COFA Exhibition Space, UNSW, Sydney 1999 Australian Decorative & Fine Arts Society Scholarship Exhibition, Second Nature, COFA, UNSW, Sydney, Australia  CuratorialExperience

2009 Mind the Steps – selection of time-based art works by young and prominent Australian media artists presented at the Red House Centre for Culture and Debate as part of the Second International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival One World, 28 Nov 2009, Sofia, Bulgaria 2008 Beware Unfenced Road – Australian Animators, Animasyros 1.0 International Animation Film Festival, 19 – 21 Sept 2008, Syros, Greece Invited curator for the tribute section of the festival 2007 PLATFORMA VIDEO 7, Athens, Greece, appointed curator for the tribute section of the festival, Mind the Steps – selection of time-based art works produced in Australia 2007 Australian Video Art, selection of video art works produced in Australia, Art Alley Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria 2007 Australian Video Art, Dechko Uzunov Galley, Sofia, Bulgaria

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2006 Electrofringe Festival, appointed curator for the Electroprojections programmes, 28 Sept - 02 Oct 2006, Newcastle, Australia 2006 Revelation 9, International Film Festival/Conference July 2006, curator of the Experimental Showcase programme of recent Australian and International experimental films and video art works, Luna SX Cinema, 22nd of July 2006, Perth, Australia 2005 Look Right – Video works #4, curator of the Sydney Moving Image Coalition screening event at the Fig Tree Theatre, Nov 2005, Kensington, Sydney 2005 Train Ink – Video works #3, curator of the SMIC screening event at the Fig Tree Theatre, Oct 2005, Kensington, Sydney 2005 Area – Video works #2, curator of the SMIC screening event at the Fig Tree Theatre, Aug 2005, Kensington, Sydney

SelectedPublicationsandReviews

2007 Djonov, A., & Djonov, E. (in press). The Art of Navigating Viewers: Interactivity as the Interplay between Artist and Audience Choices in the Unfolding of an Audio-Visual Art Installation. In A. Baldry & E. Montagna (Eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Multimodality: Theory and practice. Campobasso: Palladino. 2007 Australian Video Art Programme in Sofia, Bulgaria Article review published on Cult.bg, 9 Jan 2007 2006 Magical, micro, experimental & underground, Anna Arabindan-Kesson at the 9th Revelation Film Festival, RealTime issue #75 Oct-Nov 2006 pg. 17 2006 Pole Shiroko – Wide-open Field – article review published in Emigrant, online magazine, 18 Apr 2006



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SelectedPaperPresentationsandArtistTalks

2010 Montage, multimodality and meta-art in Compass II, a performative new media art installation, 5th International Conference of Multimodality, University of Technology, Sydney, 1-3 Dec 2010 2010 Open Fields, forum of creative research, experimentation and practice, April 28-30, The University of Technology, Sydney, and Serial Space Gallery, Chippendale, Sydney 2008 Compass II, Open Studio Presentation, Performance Space Residency Program, 5 Jun 2008, Sydney, Australia 2007 Navigating Viewers: Applying montage theory to new media art and reconceptualising interactivity, Paper given for Communications and New Media (CNM) Programme Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the National University of Singapore, 24 Jan 2007 2007 Australian Video Art, programme presentation, Dechko Uzunov Gallery, 12 Jan 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria 2007 Australian Video Art, Programme Presentation, Art Alley Gallery, 17 Jan 2007, Sofia, Bulgaria 2006 Third International Conference on Multimodality, Pavia, Italy, Paper given jointly with Emilia Djonov, Title: The Art of Navigating Viewers: Interactivity as the Interplay between Artist and Audience Choices in the Unfolding of an Audio-Visual Art Installation 2005 Spatial Montage in New Media Installation Art, seminar paper given at COFA, UNSW, Apr 2005, Sydney, Australia 2003 Regen Festival, Broken Hill, Australia

 

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