PhD Abstract

Every time I leave the room: image, time and metadata in off-screen space

Gregory Ferris, UNSW 2012 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

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‘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.’

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Date 24/4/2013………………………………………….. Despite extensive media arts theory focusing on sound, the moving image and the relationship between the audible and the visible, there has been scant research into how the out-of-frame creates a sense of meaning in media art. The thesis argues that the out-of-frame can be conceptualised as an out-of- field that creates a novel sense of meaning, in both linear and non-linear media works. It explores the expressive possibilities of the out-of-frame to create such a notion of meaning through the still image, the moving image and meta-data, and thence via a series of media art works that employ a floating frame in their treatment and layering of media assets. It also investigates the possibilities when these notions take place over time. Focusing upon media artworks that are almost exclusively narrative-based, the thesis investigates the representation of an emergent out-of-frame, evaluating the capacity of these works to test the use of an out-of-frame to expressively address such meaningful peripheries. Whilst media arts theory and practice almost exclusively focus on events within the frame, this thesis argues that a critical part of the media experience is that of the unseen but represented, whether it be a place or character. This is an allusive reference, much as the use of motif can be an evocation of narrative elements both seen and unseen in temporal spaces. The thesis proposes that recent digital media technologies offer a revolutionary shift in the expression of the out-of-frame, realisations that will impact on users of media technologies in the future. It explores this hypothesis in a number of ways. Firstly, it investigates how mise-en-scène and montage relate to each other beyond traditional concepts as a basis for understanding the out-of-frame. Secondly, it investigates areas not historically associated with mise-en-scène and montage, but are now interrelated due to their inclusion and convergence in recent media technologies and the out-of-frame. Thirdly, it attempts to understand this concept through an examination of a number of case studies that explore the out-of-frame, in the pre- cinematic, the cinematic, and post-cinematic. Fourthly, the thesis explores two experimental media art works, entitled Eavesdrop and Conversations, undertaken collaboratively as part of the doctoral research, that focus on the out-of-frame. Finally, it will examine a number of current and future media technologies and how the out-of-frame is reflected in digital media and the post-cinema media landscape.

ii Acknowledgements i

Introduction ii

Chapter One 1

1.1 Filling in the blanks 1

1.2 What I look at is never what I wish to see 1

1.3 Concepts of offscreen space 2

1.4 Audience expectations and the offscreen space 3

1.5 Spatial illusion in cinema 4

1.6 Out-of-frame and continuity 6

1.7 Pictorial and cinematic illusion 7

1.8 Pre-cinema 10

1.9 Noël Burch and the out-of-field 11

1.10 Relative versus Absolute 12

1.11 Temporalities and out-of-frame space 12

1.12 Precedents of expectation 14

1.13 Relative space and virtualisation 15

1.14 The Open Space – Precursors of the Sandbox 16

1.15 The vividly imagined 18

1.16 An expansive approach to mise-en-scène and montage 19

1.17 Closed systems versus open systems 21

1.18 Contents of the closed system 22

1.19 Conclusion 23

Chapter 2: The Frame 26

2.1 Introduction: Mise-En-Scène 26

2.2 The empty frame 27

iii 2.3 The disturbance of locative space 28

2.4 Burch and the six segments 29

2.5 Formal versus directorial 30

2.6 Lake Tahoe 31

2.7 The theorisation of offscreen space 34

2.8 The curtain rises to reveal 38

2.9 The gaze, the frame and the offscreen 40

2.10 Metaphorical use of framing 44

2.11 Offscreen space 45

2.12 Edge of frame 47

2.13 Fragmentation of the onscreen 49

2.14 The offscreen and the breaking of conventional spatial logic 50

2.15 Conclusion 52

Chapter Three: Temporalities, offscreen space and the meaning 55

3.1 Introduction: The edit 55

3.2 Relative space and filmic space 55

3.3 Montage 56

3.4 Disruption of spatial continuity 58

3.5 Unnatural connections fragmenting space 59

3.6 The need to listen to shifting points of view 60

3.7 Complex treatments in the continuity of space 61

3.8 Linking space through sound 62

3.9 The linking of space and time through sound and montage 63

3.10 The linkage of discontinuous space and time 65

3.11 Fragments of knowledge 70

3.12 Raumsperre 73

iv 3.13 Conclusion 74

Chapter 4: The virtual and meta-data in the offscreen 78

4.1 Introduction 78

4.2 Raumsperre, as a spatial barrier 78

4.3 Corporal barriers 80

4.4 Surrogates and agents in visual space 81

4.5 Fragmenting of time 82

4.6 Time passing and the offscreen 82

4.7 Classic cinema and the fixing of the frame and time 84

4.8 Fixed frame and fixed time in video technologies 84

4.9 Meta-data and the out-of-field 85

4.10 Enhancing visual space 86

4.11 Augmented visual space 87

4.12 Mark-up languages and the creation of complex visual space 89

4.13 The moving panorama 89

4.14 Text in out-of-frame space 91

4.15 Frames and segments: the work of Omar Fast 92

4.16 The metaphorical image: the work of Luc Courchesne 95

4.17 Interaction and user input 96

4.18 Augmented reality and visual space 97

4.19 First person shooter and virtual space 98

4.20 Stealth mode and virtual space 99

4.21 Conclusion: complexity of interactions 101

Chapter Five: Eavesdrop and Conversations 105

5.1 Escaping the frame 105

v 5.2 Background to the projects 106

5.3 The problem of the frame 107

5.4 The shift in technological formats 108

5.5 Monophonic to polyphonic structures 108

5.6 New methodologies and the frame 109

5.7 The floating frame 110

5.8 proXy 111

5.9 Eavesdrop 116

5.10 The structure and narrative of Eavesdrop 116

5.11 Layers of interaction 118

5.12 The stream-play 120

5.13 The immersive frame of Eavesdrop 122

5.14 Entering and exiting panoramic space 123

5.15 Post interactive version 124

5.16 Conversations 125

5.17 History of the project 126

5.18 From viewer to viewer / user 126

5.19 The phantasmagorical 129

5.20 Historical precedents 130

5.21 Field of views 131

5.22 Conclusion 132

6 Conclusion 136

7 Appendix 139

7.1 Documentation materials 139

7.2 Eavesdrop treatment and shooting script 140

vi 7.3 Information Architecture and Dramatic Scenarios for Conversations 188

7.4 Conversations shooting script 192

Bibliography 205

vii Acknowledgements

Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor Dennis Del Favero, without whose critical insight, support and editorial advice this dissertation would not have been completed. I would also like to thank the staff of the iCinema centre at the University of New South Wales for their support during the doctorate. The help of many others during the production and research for these projects and dissertation has been invaluable. Sincere thanks go to the principal researchers of Eavesdrop and Conversations, especially the assistance given to me by Ross Gibson, David Pledger and Jeffrey Shaw, whose visions guided these two projects to completion. Thanks also for the assistance given by the Graduate Research School, especially the financial support offered via the Australian Postgraduate Award during my early research. Many others helped with on-site research. I'd like to acknowledge the assistance of Erkki Huhtamo at the Department of Design Media Arts at the University of California, Los Angeles for taking the time to meet and discuss with me my research, his insight and knowledge of the moving panorama was an invaluable contribution to the structure this dissertation. Thanks also to Peter Harrington, Curator of the Anne S K Brown Military Collection at Brown University who provided access and context to many valuable artifacts of the library's collection. Whilst in Providence I was also fortunate to catch up with Peter Morelli, City of Saco Development and director at the Saco Museum, Maine, who was kind enough to travel down and bring a replica of the Pilgrims Progress panorama for Peter and I to have a look at. Librarian Bill Goodwin was of invaluable assistance in permitting access to the William W. Larsen Memorial Library of Magical Arts at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles. Sara Velas at The Velaslavasay Panorama, Los Angeles was another who generously assisted with my research. I'd especially like to thank Debra Adelaide for her thoughtful assistance and insight in sub-editing and proofreading the dissertation. Thanks to family and friends for their feedback, support and insight during all stages of this PhD, with special thanks to Milvia Harder for her patience and assistance over the extended period that this doctorate took to complete.

i Introduction

... looking is purposeful; what we look at is guided by our assumptions and expectations about what to look for. These, in turn, are based upon our previous experiences of artworks and of the real world. In viewing a film image, we make hypotheses on the basis of many factors.1

David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, 2008, Film Art, p. 189.

Whilst a number of philosophers, film and media arts theorists such as Deleuze, Burch, Bazin and Aumont deal with offscreen space such as the out-of-frame in terms of the abstract, there has been scant research into the process, how the offscreen creates a sense of place, character and meaning through the relationships between its diverse cinematic elements. How do these elements differ in context when dealing with the concept of offscreen space? What processes are there to create such assets? Since cinema began, the ‘out-of-frame’, or that which exists in the narrative but is not seen in the frame, has been realised using concepts and techniques such as mise-en-scène and montage. These concepts and techniques have since been appropriated by other media, particularly digital media, embraced and disguised in meta-data and the layering and tagging of media assets integral to the work. Contemporary theoretical and experimental research into mise-en-scène and montage deal almost exclusively with the directorial construction and organisation of the visible frame of the traditional moving image, and those preceding and succeeding frames that form the edit. This creation of the framed space, of setting the stage, and the place created by spatial sense with the edit implies much more. It implies the creation and illusion of space outside of the frame, the setting of the place that is uncontained, not unlike sculpture, where what is taken away from the medium is as important as what remains. This is the out-of-frame, referring to the narrative space that exists outside a particular frame, and, for the most part, at one time. The out-of-frame can work as a term formally and conceptually. Formally it works as per Noël Burch, where the space outside the frame is divided into six segments. The first four segments are determined by the four edges of the frame, left right, top and bottom. The fifth segment can be defined as the area

ii behind the camera, distinct segments of space around the frame, for instance where characters are passing just to the left or right of the camera. Finally, the sixth segment includes everything that is behind the scenes, for instance behind a door, around a street corner, hiding behind a pillar or behind another character. Taken to the extreme, this segment can go beyond the horizon. Dealing with the out-of-frame conceptually, Gilles Deleuze refers to this depiction of place and space as the out-of-field, space and time that can be extended into an absolute or infinite2. The former remains tied to the screen space, whilst the latter stretches out, like threads, forever. Jacques Aumont – after Burch and Deleuze – differentiates between ideas of the concrete verses the abstract space3, where space remains concrete, even after it has left the frame, merging the formal with the conceptual. These are concepts that have also been embraced by virtual worlds, both online and offline, by gaming and social communities, including the virtual spaces of the sandbox4. But researchers, storytellers and artists have also embraced this notion of a virtual offscreen site, through distributable multi-user environments. This embrace reveals itself in the hacking of existing computer-based engines and by creating their own worlds, their own narrative spaces, from scratch. These contemporary media works are by their very structure polyphonic or multi-layered and can have what could best be described as a ‘floating frame’, or Point Of View (POV), one that exists outside of traditional theatrical or cinematic edge of frame or offscreen space. This is due in no small way to the use of interaction, through gestural movement, eye-tracking, et cetera, within these virtual spaces, to the potential limitlessness of their environs in these sandboxes, and also to agents within these spaces, whether they be actual IE multiple users / players or virtual IE intelligent agents. Such works require an alternative approach to their treatment of spatiality and temporality, an approach foreshadowed by Deleuze’s concept of the infinite ‘out-of- field’, albeit a concept originally intended for cinema theory. Whilst Deleuze’s approach to unseen space focuses on this out-of-frame, importance should be given to those process driven and authorial methods that create a spatial barrier or raumsperre5 to visibility within the frame. These in a sense act as a prelude to the ‘out-of-frame’ as they also function as a form of filmic invisibility, that is part of the unseen within the

iii filmic or media space. This can be through mise-en-scène or through meta-media and the way it can be used to reveal information, and narrative elements within the work through interaction by the audience in digital media. The thesis argues that the out-of-frame can be conceptualised as an out-of-field to create novel senses of place, character and meaning across both linear and non- linear media. It also explores the expressive possibilities of out-of-frame to create such a notion of place, character and meaning through the moving image, via two media artworks on which I collaborated, Eavesdrop and Conversations. These works employ a floating frame and polyphonic structure in their treatment and layering of media assets as a way of evoking the out-of-frame. The thesis investigates the representation of an emergent out-of-frame as developed in these works, evaluating the capacity of media art to expressively address such spatial peripheries. Whilst media arts theory and practice almost exclusively focus on events within the frame, this thesis argues that a critical part of the media experience is that of the unseen but represented, whether it be a place, character or meaning. This is a mysterious and allusive reference, much as the use of motif can be an evocation of narrative elements both seen and unseen in temporal spaces. The media artworks developed as part of the thesis, namely Eavesdrop and Conversations, reformulate traditional media art frameworks (to include the cinematic, immersion, illusion and interaction) whilst simultaneously exploring social networks and computing as a way of exploring offscreen space, across various media. Finally, the thesis will examine a number of current and future media technologies and how this concept is reflected in analogue and digital media and the post cinema media landscape, and how they may illuminate investigations of the creative projects at the centre of this thesis.

1 Bordwell, D., Thompson, K., 2008. Film Art: An Introduction, 8th ed. McGraw Hill Higher Education, New York.

2 This is not to imply that it is always in support of the framic space or specific narrative of that frame.

3 Aumont, J., 1997. The Image. British Film Institute. p. 100.

4 Where gaming and interaction is non-linear and open-ended. This includes such open-ended environs of the gaming and social networked worlds, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life.

5 Literally, ‘Space barrier’.

iv Chapter One

All framing determines an out-of-field. There are not two types of frame only one of which would refer to the out-of-field; there are rather two very different aspects of the out-of-field, each of which refers to a mode of framing.1

Gilles Deleuze, 1986, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, p.17.

1.1 Filling in the blanks

This chapter acts as primer for the way the out-of-frame space is addressed in media art theory and practice. It looks at the principal theories and theorists that have addressed these unseen spaces, and differentiates between ideas of the out-of-frame, the out-of-field and the offscreen. It gives the background to my interest in these spaces, along with an overview of a number of works across a range of media that work with out-of-frame creatively. It discusses the concept of the closed system in regards to out-of-frame space, and gives an overview of the background research into the out-of-frame for the two media artworks I collaboratively developed, Eavesdrop and Conversations. This background research covered the key concepts of mise-en- scène and montage, especially those key texts that relate these concepts to framed space.

1.2 What I look at is never what I wish to see

My research into out-of-frame space stems from my interest and study of both spatiality and mise-en-scène, especially their uses, in practice, historically as well as in a post linear media-verse. This is the basis and rationale for the following thesis, a mix of conceptual and practice-based research involving both collaborative and individual works that play with the ideas of the frame, and relates these works to both historical counterparts, structurally and philosophically, and to future possibilities based on contemporary trends in digital technologies, such as the layering of meta- data in augmented reality applications and significantly the developments of the core projects completed for this research, Eavesdrop and Conversations.

1 In fact, if one can compare the rise of the internet to the development of music, one could theoretically compare this multiplicity of images, temporalities, sounds, interactions and meta-data to the development from a monophonic to a polyphonic structure2 in music – though perhaps a better comparison would be the development of counterpoint, where musical elements are at odds with one another, during the Baroque. Given the temporal nature of much of the media discussed and presented as part of this thesis, and to which much of the focus of the theoretical writings around the out-of-frame are relevant, it seems apt to centre this thesis around the cinematic, and track backwards and forwards from those theories, philosophies and examples that are part of cinema culture. The key question here is how media theorists and philosophers deal with the out-of-frame when discussing offscreen space.

1.3 Concepts of offscreen space

To understand the out-of-frame space we need to explain its place in media theory and practice. It has a number of inter-related concepts. The out-of-field of Gilles Deleuze describes that which exists elsewhere, and elsewhere that is both linked to the framed space as like a thread, the relative, and also describes a presence that ‘cannot even be said to exist’3, an absolute, that spreads out like a fine spider’s web to ‘… a transspatial and the spiritual into the system which is never perfectly closed.’4 While out-of-frame and the out-of-field are distinct, they act as different formulations of what are unseen but imagined by the viewer. André Bazin, on the other hand, talks of a locus dramaticus as a contradiction of the screen, differentiating between concrete and imaginary spaces:

The screen is not a frame like that of a picture but the mask which allows only a part of the action to be seen. When a character moves offscreen, we accept the fact that he is out of sight, but he continues to exist in his own capacity at some other place in the décor which is hidden from us. There are no wings to the screen. There could not be without destroying its specific illusion, which is to make of a revolver or of a face the very centre of the universe. In contrast to the stage the space of the screen is centrifugal.5

2 Noël Burch offers a more practical approach in differentiating between the two kinds of space, onscreen and offscreen, and offering six segments of space outside the frame, the left and right sides, top and bottom, behind the camera, and probably the most effective, that which is hidden onscreen, say behind a door.6 As mentioned in the introduction, these concepts exist as a whole when describing theoretical approaches to the out-of-frame, particularly Deleuze and Bazin whilst Burch offers in Nana a more formalist approach, and this will be covered in more detail later in this chapter. At this point it is important to understand how these concepts work practically to engage audience expectations, as their critical function is to act as a bridge to the viewer.

1.4 Audience expectations and the offscreen space

Depictions of visual space are built on engagement and expectation, and the delivery of that expectation to an audience, first by tension, then by release. It must, according to Leon Battista Alberti, ‘hold the eye of the learned and unlearned spectator for a long while with a certain sense of pleasure and emotion’7. On the other hand, effective depictions involve the avoidance of expectations, and the delivery of something that engages and surprises the audience, often via the revelation of knowledge, sometimes verbally through a character’s dialogue, often visually when the frame or focus changes to reveal a crucial piece of information, which is followed by tension, surprise, then release. In his lecture ‘Of the gaze as objet petit a’8, Jacques Lacan describes the interplay between the artist and viewer by giving the example of Zeuxis and Parrhasios, and the competition between the two artists to see which of them could create the most realistic painting, a play of trompe l’oeil. Zeuxis, in his depiction of grapes, creates a work so descriptive that it attracts the birds out of the trees, tricking them into believing that the grapes are actual fruit.9 Zeuxis then asks his friend Parrhasios to reveal his work, which is hidden behind a curtain. Parrhasios wins the competition by explaining that the curtain is, in fact, the painting, the work having deceived Zeuxis with its realism. The ‘example of Parrhasios makes it clear that if one

3 wishes to deceive a man, what one presents to him is the painting of a veil... something that incites him to ask what is behind it’.10 And the accompanying emotions, expectations, enquiries and speculation. What is it that attracts us to the unseen in the figurative arts? How do artists, working across all medias but especially audio-visual forms, work with this idea of the unseen space to evoke response? And how has this evidenced itself historically, presenting itself in past, present and future media technologies? The out-of frame can evoke our curiosity, but it can also be used to manage our assumptions, of what we expect to see.

1.5 Spatial illusion in cinema

Frame of reference is one of the many stage and screen illusions performed by the American avant-garde performance artists, Penn & Teller that deal conceptually with the out-of-frame. It, like a great deal of Penn & Teller’s output, is inspired by the work of British psychologist Richard Wiseman (which followed the pioneering work of McConkie and Grimes) into the concept of Change Blindness11, the phenomenon where an audience fails to notice significant changes in a scene, either due to misdirection, re-framing, or editing12. Out of all of their illusions, those tricks that revel in finishing by revealing the mechanics of the con, it is also one of the hardest to describe textually, partly from the sheer visual nature of the piece, and partly, because the breakneck speed it is performed means it is difficult to recount all of its twists and turns. It is a work to be experienced, not recounted. The illusion starts with Penn – the larger and more talkative of the pair – walking out on stage to present a disclaimer, that the staging involved in the presentation of the illusion we are about to see is not of the type that they would normally present, as it involves the use of a home video camera and video projection onto a large screen (set up on stage), in order for the audience to actually see the illusion. Penn explains that they do not really like the sort of tricks that require this kind of setup, as the mechanism of the camera and projection in effect distances or removes the audience from the immediacy of the trick. The reason that they are using it in this instance is that the trick involves close-up magic that would be completely

4 lost on the audience in such a large theatre (in this instance, The Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada). On stage at this point are some simple props: a small card table with some children’s toys and a video camera attached to a long cable, and a small painted tableaux of a farm scene at the back of the table. Penn then asks for an audience volunteer, preferably someone with experience in using a video camera. After some deliberation an audience member is finally chosen and brought up on stage. On this particular night the volunteer is a middle- aged male from the mid-west, who claims experience in the shooting of friends’ wedding videos. The volunteer is instructed to closely follow Penn’s hand movements as he performs the trick, in order that the rest of the audience can follow. As the volunteer cameraman is setting up the equipment, the audience sees Teller – the smaller, and quieter of the pair of illusionists – via the video projection hidden behind the farm scene tableaux, – holding up a small handwritten sign telling us that the trick the participant is about to see is not the actual trick that the rest of the audience will experience. It is at this point that the illusion begins. Penn then proceeds to present a variation on a classic misdirection routine – a routine whose genesis goes back thousands of years to imperial Rome and the cups and ball trick (a trick itself likely inspired by the four-thousand-year-old Egyptian game of up and under) – where the various props on the stage (that is, the part of the stage that is being projected to the audience) are switched for others, mostly delivered via a false wall hidden in the painted backdrop, by a hand that the audience assumes is Teller’s. I should point out at this stage that all of these machinations are in full view of the theatre audience, just not the on-stage participant. We – the audience – are completely in on the trick. Or so we think. The routine becomes more and more farcical and frenetic, despite its minutiae, until it is impossible for the volunteer camera operator to keep up with Penn’s performance, and the performance of the unseen assistant whose arms and hands enter the frame within the stage frame. Or should I say, the assistant we are led to believe is Teller. It is at this stage the true illusion is revealed to the audience – Teller has been on stage the whole time, disguised as the volunteer plucked from the audience earlier.

5 ‘The idea for this trick came straight from science,’ Teller says. ‘We thought it would be fun to show people how bad they are at noticing stuff.’13 Penn & Teller use distraction and the out-of-frame as a way to misdirect whilst establishing continuity. This use of the out-of-frame is also a common technique in cinema.

1.6 Out-of-frame and continuity

This noticing of ‘stuff’ in regards to change blindness is not just the province of research into cognitive sciences and in the deception of the general public. It is something that affects even those of us whose job it is to pay attention to discontinuity to the point that material can be visible within a frame without the audience noticing it. In filmmaking, for example, basic continuity editing techniques are usually enough to cover mistakes in areas like coverage during shooting and production design. The simple process of cutting from a frame on a piece of movement to the next frame that continues that movement is enough to initiate the effect of change blindness in the viewing audience so that issues of continuity – a glass that goes from half full to full, a prop that disappears, a change in costume detail – is negated. The author is also able to leave visual clues within the frame that aid narrative, and guide the viewer to an emotional response, using a number of in-shot techniques that reward repeated viewings. Profondo Rosso (Dir. Dario Argento, 1975)14 uses fast camera movement to hide a key plot reveal, the identity of the killer – it is only towards the end of the film that the movement is replayed, and the identity revealed. Psycho (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)15 on the other hand uses fast cut montage and sound effects in its notorious shower scene to disguise the fact that the knife does not impact physically on the character in peril, Marion Crane. (Both of these films are discussed in more detail in Chapter Three.) These are works that rely on either fast movements or quick edits to imply ‘stuff’ (to quote Teller earlier) that is unseen. What methodologies do static media such as painting use to imply such ‘stuff’? For answers one can turn either to André Bazin or Jean Mitry.

6 1.7 Pictorial and cinematic illusion

In other words the frame of a painting encloses a space that is oriented so to speak in a different direction. In contrast to natural space, the space in which our active experience occurs and bordering its outer limits, it offers a space the orientation of which is inwards, a contemplative area opening solely onto the interior of the painting. The outer edges of the screen are not, as the technical jargon would seem to imply, the frame of the film image. They are the edges of a piece of masking that shows only a portion of reality. The picture frame polarises space inwards.16

In his essay Painting and Cinema (1950) André Bazin attempts to distinguish the differences between the cinematic frame and western painting. He does this by citing and referencing films whose theme and narratives deal with painters and painting, claiming that painting (and the frame surrounding it) ‘polarises space inwards’ whilst the cinema screen ‘seems to be part of something prolonged indefinitely into the universe. A frame is centripetal, the screen centrifugal’17. Bazin returns to this theme, in a later essay on Renoir, where he claims that meaning enclosed within a cinema frame – and expanded mise-en-scène – is always dependent on elements that the director chooses to leave out: ‘what the camera discloses is relative to what it leaves hidden’18. This description of the filmmaker at work is for me more akin to the way a sculptor might work with stone, marble or wood, creating a negative space that is as important to the final work as what is left behind – perhaps this is the reason why Richard Serra’s Verb list (1967-1968)19 has been embraced by contemporary media practitioners, classical and experimental alike.

7 Richard Serra. (1967-68). Verb List. (extract).

8 Bazin’s proposals have some detractors, notably Jean Mitry in a series of essays in The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema (1963-65)20, where he suggests that painting, under the right viewing conditions or in series, can in fact represent the out- of-frame.

We shall not make too much of the fact that in painting there must always be a frame. Without it, the picture is inconceivable, regardless of the compositional coordinate. The landscape painter who sets his easel down before a particular view must also ‘objectify’ that view in order to represented it realistically. Let us suppose that in an effort to create the ultimate in realism, our painter tries to reproduce everything included within his field of vision. He must realise that in the foreground in front of him, his canvas is standing on an easel. Logically he is forced to include them in his painting: also his arm holding the brush and the brush applying the paint. However, in the scene represented within the canvas, he must reproduce again the canvas which he represents himself as painting and, naturally, the hand of the painter holding the brush… It is axiomatic that be it in painting or film, the specific effect of the frame is due to the fact that constitutes a ‘formal unity’ of the objects it contains. It reduces to a common denominator objects which, in reality, have no direct connection with it.21

Jean Mitry, 1963, The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema, pp. 76-78.

Bazin and Mitry deal with static works, specifically that of painting, focussing on the portrait and elements like the gaze. But what if these paintings, and their fields of view, are in motion? A quick review of media archaeology provides important clues as to how the onscreen and the offscreen are interrelated.

9 1.8 Pre-cinema

One example of this is found in the eighteenth-century canvas panorama Pilgrim’s Progress – one of the few surviving examples of the art form – which depicts the text as a series of interconnected paintings to be experienced sequentially. Others, like Noël Burch in Nana, or the two kinds of Space (1967)22, expand on Bazin, again by looking at the films of Renoir, in this case Nana. Burch takes a much more formalist approach to his analysis of the espace-hors-champ (offscreen space), by breaking it down into six precise segments, then categorising those segments as being either imaginary or concrete, and finally looking at how these are affected by time. Jacques Aumont later contextualised these divergent approaches in The Image (1994), which cites other theorists, including Pascal Bonitzer, Eric Rohmer and Gilles Deleuze, for example, who take anti-classical approaches to non-filmic space which includes both the actual and the virtual, and which serve as entry points in an examination of the post-cinematic. These theorists come the closest to the thematic core of my research. For example, Deleuze, who in both Movement-image (1983) and the Time- image (1985) offers an exhaustive, alternative reading of the out-of-field – firstly as a spatialised open system, a more radical elsewhere, and secondly in relation to issues of temporality, virtuality, and multiplicity.

The out-of-field refers to what is never seen nor understood, but is nevertheless perfectly present. This presence is indeed a problem and itself refers to two new conceptions of framing. If we return to Bazin’s alternative of mask or frame, we see that sometimes the frame works like a mobile mask according to which every set is extended into a larger homogenous set with which he communicates, and sometimes it works as a pictorial frame which isolates the system and neutralises its environment… the divisibility of content means that the parts belong to various sets, was constantly subdivide in the subsets or are themselves a subset of a larger set on to infinity. This is why content is defined both by the tendency to constitute closed systems and by the fact that this tendency never reaches completion. Every closed system also communicates. There is always a thread to link the glass of sugared water to the solar system, and any set whatever to a larger set. This is the first sense of what we call the out-of-field: when a set is framed, therefore seen, there is always a larger set, or another set with which the first forms a larger one, and which can in turn be seen, on condition that it gives rise to a new out-of-field, et cetera. The set of all these sets forms a homogenous continuity, a universe

10 or a plane (plan) of genuinely unlimited content… The whole is therefore like thread which traverses sets and give each one the possibility, which is necessarily realised, of communicating with another, to infinity…23

Gilles Deleuze, 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, p. 16.

Deleuze here is underlining the importance of an out-of-field that conceptually links the absolute, offscreen space relative to the framed space, but extends out like a thread, or a web, to the infinite. Burch’s definition of the out-of-field is relevant here, as it provides a systematic definition of its characteristics.

1.9 Noël Burch and the out-of-field

One starting point for dealing with the out-of-field would be Noël Burch’s ‘six spatial axes in the out-of-field’24. These include the out-of-frame of the up, down, left, right, away and hidden from the camera (say behind a door, or via film techniques such as a shallow depth of field), and behind the camera, a 180° spherical field. The genre that best exploits these devices is that of the horror film, and one that underscores these six axes in all their forms is the original Alien (1979 Dir Ridley Scott), particularly the scene where Dallas, the captain of the mining ship Nostromo, enters the ship’s air- shafts to confront the monster, shafts that correspond to Burch’s axes, leading off into darkness, in all six directions. This will be discussed in detail in Chapter Two. Of course it is used across all forms and genres of cinema, from drama to documentary, and the methods have developed along with changes in cinema technologies. One example of this change is the development of faster lenses, which have the effect of introducing a shallower depth of field. This technology meant that filmmakers were no longer limited to physical axes, but the medium itself instigated a raumsperre – a spatial barrier – the filmmaker’s choice of that focal plane which is viewable by the viewer. This technological development has continued into the post- cinema media landscape, as new forms of media, such as computer gaming and multi- planer works, have developed (see Chapter Four).

11 Burch’s spatial axes are useful when dealing with notions of relative space – the offscreen spaces directly connected to the onscreen space – but are less useful when discussing notions of the absolute.

1.10 Relative versus Absolute

In itself, or as such, the out-of-field already has two qualitatively different aspects: a relative aspect by means of which a closed system refers in space to set which is not seen, and which can in turn be seen, even if this gives rise to a new unseen set, on to infinity; and a absolute aspect one which the closest and opens onto our duration which is imminent to the whole universe, which is no longer a set and does not belong to the order of the visible.25

Gilles Deleuze, 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, p. 17.

Deleuze describes this as a relative out-of-field, and distinguishes it from an absolute out-of-field, where framed sets of elements – mise-en-scène – sit within larger framed elements, which continue upwards and onwards towards totality, like an infinite, temporal photosynth (as in Microsoft’s Photosynth technology)26, where photographs are represented in a three-dimensional interactive and navigable virtual space.27 Whilst these framed sets of elements sit within a contained space, they are not frozen in this space like a painting. They can move between these two fields. They can also move through time.

1.11 Temporalities and out-of-frame space

A temporal example of this three-dimensional set of elements can be found in the spatial recreation of Abu Ghraib prison, using the original controversial photographs of prisoner abuse, in Errol Morris’s documentary film Standard Operating Procedure (2008),28 which superficially is evocative of Microsoft’s technology. ‘Creating a synth allows you to share the places and things you love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world’,29 but this specific virtuality also allows for potential uses in areas where re-enactment is the goal in areas as diverse as forensics, museum exhibits and historical recreations, or something as banal as the virtual tour. These are emerging areas for presentation,

12 research and knowledge. In, say, a crime scene, where the author is limited in their field of view, their knowledge of events, or in the immersive narrative, where the author’s desire that the audience is not privy to certain fictional or factorial elements. This could be through the author’s choice of frames – the author desiring that the viewer / user creates those in-between spaces.

Microsoft. (2012) Photosynth interface (screen capture).

It is the power of the audience’s imagination that fills in these gaps in the audio-visual information, these blanks into what is generally perceived (pun intended) traditionally as a closed system. With Photosynth these blanks are in the spaces between the photographs which are represented as sprites, dots that connect and define an almost sculptural space. This is a system that is now challenged by virtuality, non-linearity, contingency, choice, spatialisation, interaction and the layering of alternatives and randomisations – via user generated content, the simulation of the natural elements, and information in the form of meta-data. The artist no longer – if they choose – sets in place the scène, but rather establishes sets in a open space, a flexibility of framing, time and motion, based around those challenges listed above, leaving the viewer to fill in the blanks through expectation. These visual expectations have precedents in pre-cinema.

13 1.12 Precedents of expectation

Gombrich reasons that artists who deal with creating illusions, specifically conjurers, are the most skilled to create these phantom perceptions of open space or out-of-field:

They set up a train of expectations, a semblance of familiar situations, which make our imagination run ahead and complete it obligingly without knowing where we have been tricked.30

In classic misdirection, the magician mimes the movement of a coin being passed from one hand to the other; the audience plays their part in believing in the ‘magic’ even if they know it is a trick31. The audience in this case is tricked by hand movement, but they can also be tricked by larger scale visual illusions, by a representation of environment, representation historically through physicality of false place. These illusions are now achieved through contemporary virtual environs, but these kinds of virtual representations of place have historical precedents. Not only can they represent false place, they can also provide links between interior place and exterior place, or between relative place and virtual place.

14 1.13 Relative space and virtualisation

Gaetano and Paolo Brunetti. (1748). Peintures Murales, provenant de l’ancien hôtel de Luynes (3D models by Gregory Ferris). Front view, left view, right view.

Walking up the stairs of Paris’s Musėe Carnavalet, you come across an eighteenth- century mural by the father and son team of Gaetano and Paolo Brunetti, spread across the three walls at the top of the stairs32. It is a fine example of the post renaissance trompe l’oeil form that integrates the painted (virtual) representation of space with physical (actual) architectural place. The balcony and surrounding columns at the top of the stairs are mimicked in the virtual space of the mural, which depicts a garden party. Thus the interior space of the Carnavalet becomes a representation of an outside space, one that seems inspired by, but not literally, the

15 actual space of the building. Standing on the balcony, the viewer is placed in the middle of the virtual space, or perhaps the viewer / participant is bi-locative, as St Antony of Padua claimed to be, in the two places / spaces at once, interior and exterior, actual and virtual. The viewer fills in the gaps in the reality of the unseen portion of the space, to the sides and behind, echoing the mode of operation of contemporary virtual reality simulations that only render what is directly in front of the user, but which can represent what can best be described as an open space. Media objects that represent these open spaces (such as trompe l’oeil) are not limited to representations of object or place. They can also serve as conduits to narrative spaces as well.

1.14 The Open Space – Precursors of the Sandbox

HP Lovecraft – in The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind – is quoted as saying:

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.33

There are other historical precedents for dealing with virtuality, the open space and the out-of-field, which I will deal with later in the thesis, such as the moving panoramas of the mid 19th century. But there were other illusions that revolved around the raumsperre, or the spatial barrier. Numerous magic plays of the latter half of that century were built around stage illusions such as those of Proteus and Pepper’s Ghost.

16 Albert Allis Hopkins. (1897). Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions including Trick Photography. Courtesy of The Magic Castle, Los Angeles (photograph by Greg Ferris).

Take, for instance, the illusion known as ‘Black art’, or ‘The Midnight Mysteries of the Yogi’, made famous in this country by those masterminds of magic, Harry Keller and a late Alexander Hermann. The weird illusion is founded on an idea advanced by the Yogi of India. In this illusion the entire stage from the first group to the rear is hung with black velvet, the floor covered with black belt, and the top is covered with black velvet, that’s forming a large room line entirely with black. The regular footlights are turned out, and a special set are used, that consist of a row of open gas jets placed on a line with the boxes, and carried up the outside of the black room, as shown in the large engraving. The lights throughout the entire house are turned very low or put out, with the exception of the special lights mentioned above. The curtain rises, disclosing the black chamber. In a moment the magician appears, dressed in a white suit; a wave of this hand, and white wine appears floating in the air, which the magician secures.34

Then there were the staged escapes of Houdini. Houdini’s illusions depended on the suspense built around an unseen danger, ‘an act which took place in public spaces and in suspense-laden real time’35, one anticipated and for the most part created for the audience by a mix of performance and the unseen, whether that be hidden behind a curtain or underneath waves. This suspense is later mirrored with the ability of a

17 cinema audience to fill in the blanks created by the edit, the choice of frame, the movement of the camera and the choices made by the director in the mise-en-scène. It could be argued that it is the director’s intent in creating what is seen and what is unseen that establishes such vividly imagined spaces.

1.15 The vividly imagined

There are... two conditions that must be fulfilled if the mechanism of projection is to be set in motion. One is that the beholder must be left in no doubt about the way to close the gap; secondly, that he must be given a ‘screen’, an empty or ill-defined area onto which he can project the expected image.36

These spatio-temporal coordinates that exist out of the field of view, are, more often than not, creating an intentional space, a meaning and a reaction, one that is desired by the director of that work. These are the spaces to be filled in by the viewer, by their personal experience, or even by their physical relationship to the work, their position in the space, or their field of view. One only has to think of the early Lumiere films, particularly L’Arrivée d’un Train à La Ciotat (1896)37 and the folklore surrounding the audience’s reaction, jumping out of the way of the train as it comes into the station38, to see this relationship at play. As the cinema arts moved away from the representative view of a static frame (usually a wide shot), a single linear shot separated by fades to black as per the theatrical convention39, they constructed a series of methodologies, types of shots and montage styles, that relied on the now movie-literate viewer’s imagination and expectation of location and linkage, to create

18 the place and meaning. This was established as early as 1903 with The Great Train Robbery (Dir. Edwin Porter)40 and its use of cross cutting between two events occurring in different locales, albeit co-currently and related to the narrative, which can also be seen as a precursor to the notion of multi- planer or multi-layered narratives. One imagines the final shot in this film triggering a similar response to that of La Ciotat. It features a mid shot of a actor dressed as a cowboy, pointing a gun directly at the camera / audience. These places and meanings may not even be something that the filmmaker envisages when making the work, given, in part, the distributable format of the media. In fact this is not something a creator might necessarily control during production. In larger scale moving temporal works the principality in regards to the spatial design can change, from performer, to director, to cinematographer, to editor, to the special effects department, even if the overall intentions of space and meaning are agreed on in pre-production, production and post-production. The choice of framing and locale is now flexible, especially with the advent of digital workflows. All of these mechanisms play out when we talk of the representative out-of- field. As we shall see, there are directors who break these spatial traditions of film language, either by choice or unintentionally, for instance by ignoring the 180∘rule when situating the real or virtual camera, or intentionally breaking the representative – Noël Burch’s concrete and imaginary spaces that segue between place, without resorting to the usual transitional methods, like the edit. Is this fracturing of the representative unseen still mise-en-scène? Before we answer that, first we need to define what we mean by mise-en- scène and montage.

1.16 An expansive approach to mise-en-scène and montage

Mise-en-scène as a term has been used theatrically over two centuries, and as an art term for many centuries before that and translates literally as ‘to put on stage’. But for

19 the purposes of this thesis a more relevant definition would be ‘the contents of the frame and the way that they are organised’41 employing dramaturgical elements such as the narrative, and presenting them in the chosen medium, stage, screen installation and so on. As such, mise-en-scène is often regarded as being a directorial tool, specifically for those directors whose work is narrative driven. It is a rather perfunctory description, but traditionally it describes how the artist realises the text, how the text is to be staged, and how they transfer that text to the two or three- dimensional framic space, whether that space be of the theatrical, or of the cinematic, and increasingly of the virtual. David Pledger’s directorial approach to Eavesdrop is the most pertinent recent example of this, and will be covered in detail in Chapter Five. Focusing on the cinematic for the moment, the relationship that mise-en-scène has to the camera shares obvious philosophical similarities to that of editing and montage. The use of the camera, and its various modes of operation – movement, focus, exposure – along with the mechanics of the edit – analogue, digital, linear, non- linear – could be regarded as the act, whilst the use of mise-en-scène and montage, the variations and subsets of, are to be regarded as the art. It is the director’s use of metaphor in sound and vision, within the constraints of the chosen format including the constraints of the frame. It is what and how the director chooses the audience to experience, to view and hear, whilst referencing the media maker’s own experience, for instance by way of the homage. For the traditional audience, it can mean a work that can be viewed and engaged with more than once, where subtleties in the elements and techniques that create the work can also be appreciated on repeat experience, where the artist adds layers and expands on the meaning and the place of a script, book (in the case of say a musical), outline, et cetera, on an emotional, locative, and philosophical level. But how does this change when the frame, the field, isn’t fixed, as in contemporary digital works? For contemporary users of media technologies, these experiences and meanings can float and change depending not just on multiple viewings, but also on where and when the user comes into the work. ‘Just as a rectangular frame in painting and photography presents a part of a larger space outside it, a window in HCI presents a partial view of a larger document... Just as a kino-eye can move around a space

20 revealing its different regions, a computer user can scroll through a window’s contents.’42 The entrance for such a work can be both spatial and temporal, with the former having the added complexity and potentiality of the actual environment and the virtual environment, albeit in simulation. This framing is of a represented reality – the frame, window or mirror of traditional art practice. Whereas this ability to navigate, to traverse, can be seen in smaller panorama based works like the Emakimonos, Japanese horizontal scrolls, and those European military scrolls that were popular in Europe in the seventeenth century 43. These scrolls perhaps served as inspirations for the moving canvas panoramas that were popular in the mid-19th century. This type of entrance becomes a more elegant and mysterious concept when we consider what is shown (at that point in time and space), affects our relationship to the environment we are immersed in (space) in the narrative unfolding before us (time), or the simulation of travel (movement), and can be amplified even more so by interaction and the data-base. These sorts of scroll-based works serve as precursors to new media, such as platform scrollers, and are discussed further in Chapter Four of this thesis. These old and new media give the impression of openness, but are in fact a closed system with set limits within these scrolling environments.

1.17 Closed systems versus open systems

One could regard the frame of a screen in computing terms as a closed system, where the contents of the frame are visible but the mechanics of creation – the offscreen set – are not. The contents of the actual frame act as a closed system, the mechanics of creation, are out-of-frame. The what and where is that which the director wants the audience to see within this closed system, as per Deleuze44. The frame and the edit works with and relates to the frame before and after, and what is spatially assumed by the viewer to be outside of the frame we are seeing in front of us. For example, what we imagine to be the narrative and spatial elements that are happening outside of the frame, or those that are within the frame, but hidden, are created through magic, through selective framing, movement and selection of the succession of shots.

21 Media artists and scholars often have different approaches to working with and describing these two elements of mise-en-scène and montage depending upon background and experience – meaning is either assembled via the temporality of the edit, or is achieved within a single shot and frame. Both of these methods work within traditional media, as well as for non-traditional media’s users. Can this approach be used as a descriptor for place and meaning, not just within a frame, but also without the frame? And those film directors who come from a stage or theatre background – Méliès, Welles, Hitchcock, for example – do they have a better understanding of the use and power of mise-en-scène, compared to someone who has arrived through a pure film-making background? This is apparent particularly when it comes to Deleuze’s second level, shot and movement across time45, whether this is the change in the frame through camera movement, or the rearranging of elements with the frame, or a combination of both. Cinema has the capacity to expand this mise-en-scène beyond that which is captured by the camera during a film’s production.

1.18 Contents of the closed system

In film production the contents of the frame or the closed set can typically refer to the following elements: action and performance, actors, casting, camera movement, use of colour, costume, framing, lens, lighting, media used, other photographic decisions, production design, location, props, spatiality and depth. An expanded linear mise-en-scène might include other temporal elements, not usually associated with the term, like montage, sound, grading and special effects. To expand the non-linearity of contemporary mise-en-scène one would have to include temporal elements not usually associated with the term: location, meta-data, meteorological considerations, and multiple streams, semiotics and text. None of these elements exist in isolation, and more often than not will exist in multiples of each other. In old media one has the multiple planes of narrative action that take place, for example in Touch of Evil (1958)46,

22 Orson Welles. (1958). Touch of Evil (screen capture). or the use of the frame within the frame fracturing the traditional notions of frame as a separation or containment device for place, characters, props and events. In emerging media technologies or open sets like augmented reality, actual space – represented as the floating frame – is tagged, fractured and separated by meta-data, images, text, positional information, hyperlinks, moving image and sound, and is driven by the creator of the technology, the author of the application, and by user-generated content as clients geo-tag the place. New media forms such as Eavesdrop and Conversations work with these enhanced notions of visual space creating an expansive landscape of possible meanings47

1.19 Conclusion

As noted in this Chapter, framic elements are often difficult to discuss individually as they rarely exist as the sole element of the frame, rather they work in conjunction with the other components that make up mise-en-scène, the elements discussed above. These elements also serve the out-of-frame, whether it be the relative or absolute field of Deleuze, the concrete or imaginary spaces of Bazin, or Burchs practicalities of the six segments of space outside the frame. They also serve audience

23 engagement and expectation, and have precedents in the visual arts and pre-cinema media; they will additionally serve the viewers and users of post-cinema media. Mise-en-scène and its use, both as a descriptor of space and as the audio visual use of metaphor in media practice, is something that requires a great deal of thought as a content creator before, during, and after the production process. It is in this engagement and experience that parallels with interactive, immersive and data based work48 can be established. These post-cinema works also require new ways of thinking and methods of production, as they are part of an expanded media environment. It is these concepts that I will explore in more detail in the next chapter, The Frame.

1 Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. University of Minnesota Press. p. 17.

2 From a single voice to multiple voice.

3 Deleuze. p. 17.

4 ibid. p. 17.

5 Bazin, A., 2004. What Is Cinema? University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. p. 105.

6 Burch, N., 1969. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton Univ Pr, Princeton. p. 17.

7 Gaiger, J., 2008. Aesthetics and Painting. Continuum International Publishing Group, London. p. 24.

8 Cazeaux, C., 2000. The Continental Aesthetics Reader. Routledge. London. pp. 519-542.

9 Emotion, if not perhaps the pleasure of release.

10 Lacan, J., 1998, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, W. W. Norton & Company.

11 Simons, Daniel J, and Christopher F Chabris., 1999, Gorillas in our midst: Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events. Perception-London 28.9. pp. 1059-1074.

12 The best known example of experiments in this area involves subjects watching a video involving actors undertaking strenuous activity, often a ball game between two sides of three or more players. Participants are asked to make note of the number of ball exchanges. At some point in this action another figure enters and walks through the frame – the best known examples are of a woman holding an open umbrella and someone wearing a full gorilla suit. Participants are afterwards asked if they’d noticed anything unusual within the frame, with over fifty percent of participants failing to notice the walk through.

13 Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion. Available at: http://www.wired.com/ science/discoveries/magazine/17-05/ff_neuroscienceofmagic?currentPage=all.

14 Argento, D., 1976. Deep Red.

15 Hitchcock, A., 1960. Psycho.

16 Bazin, op cit. p. 166.

17 ibid.

18 Reader, K., 2010. La Regle du Jeu: French Film Guide. I.B. Tauris. p. 25.

24 19 Lessig, L., Yeo, R., Gordon, D., Breitz, C., Fast, O., Grey, M.J., McCoy, J., McCoy, K., Gordon, D., Marclay, C., Pfeiffer, P., 2004. Cut/Film As Found Object In Contemporary Video. Milwaukee Art Museum.

20 Mitry, J., 1990. The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

21 ibid.

22 Hillier, J., 1986. Cahiers du Cinema: Volume II: 1960-1968. New Wave, New Cinema, Re-evaluating Hollywood. Taylor & Francis.

23 Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. University of Minnesota Press. p. 17.

24 As detailed in Deleuze on Cinema, p. 43.

25 Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. op cit. pp. 16-17.

26 Photosynth - Capture your world in 3D. (WWW Document), 2010. . URL http://photosynth.net/

27 Deleuze, G. 1983, Cinéma 1, l’image-mouvement, Paris: Minuit.

28 Morris, E., 2008. Standard Operating Procedure.

29 What is Photosynth? http://photosynth.net/about.aspx

30 Gombrich, E. H., 2000, Art and Illusion. Princeton University Press.

31 To pull off change blindness, obviously a different set of skill sets are at play.

32 L’escalier de Luynes : Les Amis du Musée Carnavalet (WWW Document), 2012. . URL http:// www.amisdecarnavalet.com/recevoir-au-musee/les-espaces-proposes/l-escalier-de-luynes.htm

33 HP Lovecraft as quoted in Minsky, M.L., 2006. The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind. Simon and Schuster.

34 Hopkins, A.A., 1977. Magic: stage illusions and scientific diversions, including trick photography. Arno. pp. 64-66.

35 During, S., 2004. Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic. Harvard University Press. p. 168.

36 ibid.

37 Lumière, A., Lumière, L., (1896). Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat.

38 Gunning, T., 1989. An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator Art and Text, Fall, p. 22.

39 as established by Méliès

40 Porter, E., (1903). The Great Train Robbery.

41 Gibbs, J., 2002. Mise-en-scène: Film Style and Interpretation. Wallflower Press, p. 5.

42 Manovich, L., 2002. The Language of New Media, The MIT Press.

43 These scrolls could also regarded interactive, requiring human interaction.

44 Deleuze, G. (1983), Cinéma 1, l’image-mouvement, Paris: Minuit.

45 ibid. p. 20.

46 Welles, O., 1958. Touch of Evil.

47 Deleuze op cit. pp. 43-44

48 Computer games and virtual reality technologies, for example.

25 Chapter 2: The Frame

The girl: I hope you make it. People disappear every day. David Locke: Every time they leave the room.

Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975, The Passenger.

2.1 Introduction: Mise-En-Scène

This chapter explores how the out-of-frame relates to mise-en-scène and meaning within film and media works that use a contained framework. As noted in the previous chapter mise-en-scène is a constituent of both the onscreen and offscreen filmic space. This chapter investigates a variety of film-based works, both classical and experimental. Gilles Deleuze’s five features of the framed image – information, composition, elements, point of view, and the out-of-field – inform these investigations. They inform both the non-temporal – static, frame-based media – and those temporal works – particularly the moving image – that were influenced by, and have expanded upon, them. It discusses a number of key texts / films. The works that will be examined in detail include Lake Tahoe, Alien, Pickup on South Street, Kiss Me Deadly, Brick and The Searchers. How do these works use durée, mise-en-scène and linkage to evoke different forms of meaning? The first, montage, is the cinematic constituent that separates these works from their predecessors. With Deleuze, we have an overview of cinema that encompasses movement, time and the image, covering all elements of mise-en-scène, as well as a discourse of film where structure and the mechanics of cinema allow the imagining of a spatiality not limited to the frame alone, elements that extend beyond Burch’s view of the relative out-of-field to an absolute out-of-field.1 Burch’s essay on non-framic space – the six segments, and the imaginary and concrete – is particularly relevant to classical cinema and its creation of spatial or temporal space in regards to directorial mise-en-scène, and will be covered in more detail in Chapter Three.2

26 However to understand mise-en-scene we need to explore the notion of the empty frame.

2.2 The empty frame

In the documentary on cinematography, Visions of Light (1993), William Fraker, director of photography on Rosemary’s Baby (1968)3 describes how Roman Polanski got him to re-frame his camera to partially block a character’s telephone conversation, so that the audience would only see the back of the character’s body, framed by a doorway. This created a physical response in the audience, making them lean to one side and forward in their seats to mimic eavesdropping4 . Contemporary film and television continues to play with these forms of the off-frame. In the finale of season one of Matthew Weiner’s television show Mad Men, in the episode entitled The Wheel5, Betty, the wife of the show’s lead character Don Draper, is framed at the end of a hallway and within a doorway, entrapped within her suburban life and marriage. She stands there for a beat before walking up the hallway, towards the camera, before disappearing to the right and out-of-frame. The director of the episode – in this instance Weiner himself – holds the empty static frame for just under ten seconds, an extraordinarily long time in film language, and unheard of in television where quick cuts and lots of movement are de rigueur. Betty is, we soon find out, searching through her husband’s mail and discovers a particular incriminating letter – her psychoanalyst has been reporting their sessions to her husband, leaving her out of the loop.6

27 Matthew Weiner. (2007). Mad Men, ‘The Wheel’ (screen captures).

Burch argues that the longer a director holds a near or completely empty, static frame, the more intrigued the audience is in what is happening in the relative out-of-frame7. However Burch is less useful when dealing with non-classical cinema. In the avant-garde and in film genres like horror there is a disturbance in locative space.

2.3 The disturbance of locative space

Whilst Un Chien Andalou (1929)8 shares many classical cinematic traits up to that point in cinema’s history9 it has an overall disregard for continuity, both in temporal and spatial logic, certainly compared with other cinema movements of the time such as German Expressionism.10 The film breaks both the two-dimensional plane of screen and the three-dimensional space of action, shifting positions of characters both between locations, but also within individual locations.11 Similarly, directors like Jean-Luc Godard with La Nouvelle Vague also broke away from the conventions of the relationship between the seen space, the unseen space and spatial continuity through the use of the jump cut. This non-classical approach to the frame, one at odds with the likes of Burch, reminds me of a quote from Saint Paul to the Corinthians: ‘While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are

28 seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal’12. Saint Paul is suggesting that imagination soars not with the vividly realised, but with that which is vividly implied. With the rise of the vividly realised in cinema, where anything can be rendered realistically as a series of zeros and ones, it is these in-between spaces where one can be truly enthralled. Burch provides a useful framework for understanding this enthralment through his concept of the six segments of the offscreen space.

2.4 Burch and the six segments

It is the creation of this enthralment where Burch argues, in Nana, or the Two Kinds of Space, that the offscreen cinema space is more complex than the onscreen space, that which is ‘perceived on the screen by the eye’ via the traditional use of mise-en- scène, those elements inside the frame and the ways in which they are organised. He then goes to define this offscreen space, breaking it down into six segments, the first four defined by the borders of the film frame, left, right, top and bottom13. The fifth segment is the space behind the camera, and ‘characters in the film generally reach this space by passing just to the left or right of the camera’14. One could also use this space for characters that stay within the frame to represent an unseen space or characters, creating a continuum of the space within, the gaze into offscreen space. Or the camera view could be seen as an unseen character’s point of view, a traditional mainstay of the thriller or horror genre, and now the primary method for one’s experience of virtual environments, that of the first person. The sixth segment, according to Burch, is based on some sort of visual block within the frame itself; ‘A character reaches it by going out a door, going around a street corner, disappearing behind a pillar or behind another person, or performing some similar act.’15 Burch considers the outer limit of this segment to be just beyond the horizon, but if we consider Deleuze’s concept of the absolute out-of-field, this segment would continue – as per the other five – infinitely. Burch’s theory however is constrained by its formal approach that does not account for the directorial.

29 2.5 Formal versus directorial

Burch’s essay is pivotal for any reflection on offscreen space, but one problem is that its approach is a formal one, and does not adequately reflect on directorial meaning. Another problem is that it does not reflect adequately on those cinematic techniques, specifically those relative to the sixth segment: the use of the iris, masking, focal effects, and the use of the black screen – not the black screen inherited from the theatrical tradition, which denotes a scene change, but black used as a visual block unto itself, as much an element for context and meaning as any framed image. Burch’s model of offscreen space is Renoir’s Nana16, but if we look carefully we can find its spiritual descendants in contemporary cinema, notably Michael Haneke’s psychological thriller Caché (The hidden)17. Libby Saxon offers an excellent reading of this work in her Secrets and Revelations: Offscreen Space in Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005)18 and its preoccupation, ‘literally and metaphorically, with troubled, distorted or blinkered vision’19. The film’s layering of meaning and narrative is realised through various methodologies of concealment, figuratively, physically and emotionally (through amnesia), and by using offscreen spaces that are relative, absolute and abstract. These are imagined through various framing devices, both physical and implied, with the theme of a hidden guilt that runs through these narratives represented via the film’s concealed spaces and histories, the latter revealed via the use of flashback. Saxon writes: a film which re-maps offscreen space in ways that disturb and implicate its viewers. Caché is preoccupied, literally and metaphorically, with troubled, distorted or blinkered vision – with the mechanisms of secrecy, amnesia and denial that prevent us from taking responsibility for the past and facing the present clear-sightedly… Haneke’s images produce meaning as much through what they conceal as through what they reveal, thereby exposing some of the blind spots that structure history, memory and spectatorship.20

Saxton here is underscoring the notion of the blind spot, which can be further investigated through the film Lake Tahoe.

30 2.6 Lake Tahoe

A more formalist descendant of Nana is to be found in Fenando Eimbcke’s Lake Tahoe (2008). The film has the central themes of escape, and hiding from the realities of everyday existence and the dramas that this existence involves. All of the characters in the film are on the run, or are about to run, away from various threats or tragedies. Sometimes this escape is physical, sometimes emotional, but always during the course of the film it is represented, visually, audibly and metaphorically. Juan, the lead character, is on the run from the reality of his father’s recent death. His mother hides herself away in the family bathroom, and his brother is stuck in the backyard, in a child’s play tent. Even Sica, the boxer dog owned by Don Heber, an old mechanic Juan meets along the way, runs away at the first opportunity, which triggers both a physical and metaphorical search. Eimbcke’s quest was to ‘... make a film in the purest state: to put together one image after another and give them all a meaning.’21 What Eimbcke does not mention here is, firstly, that a large part of the film’s screen-time consists of nothing more than a black screen, and, secondly, how much of the film’s narrative and meaning is carried by the use of sound, within these blank states. These extended states do not work in the traditional sense of the black frames that denote scene changes or – with few exceptions – to indicate a passage of time. They work much like Burch’s sixth segment, as raumsperres, as spatial barriers, creating both emotional and physical impact. This methodology is established from the very beginning of the film, with a car crash that sets Juan on his journey and triggers the rest of the narrative. The crash takes place entirely offscreen, hidden within the black frame, and our awareness of this event is through the sound design, effects and atmospherics. This technique is repeated towards the end of the film, with the pivotal finding of Sica the dog, which is shown behind a black frame, the dog’s bark acting as an audible signifier of this discovery. That the dog has happily found a home with a young family is not revealed for a few shots, and Don Heber’s decision to leave the animal where he is becomes much more poignant as a result. The scene finishes as it started, the dog’s happy bark trailing off from within and behind another segment of black.

31 The majority of the framing of Lake Tahoe consists – like just over half of Nana – of entries into and exits from the cinema frame, with the latter film (as a series of master or locked off shots similar to Stranger than Paradise22) holding these empty frames to temporal points way beyond those of traditional cinema. Like Nana, Lake Tahoe’s ‘entire rhythm... depends on these exits and entrances, their dynamic role becoming all the more important in that... the film consists almost entirely of shots during which the camera does not move’23. In both of the works, these frames are almost exclusively static frames, and Lake Tahoe takes this to an extreme – each master acting as a metaphor of the themes of the film as outlined above – with only two or three shots of one particular sequence that involve any sort of tracking or panning of the camera frame. Even in the shots where characters are driving around, the camera frame is locked off, as are those few shots where we see the characters framed as close ups. Eimbcke’s use of these master shots are consistent with the Deleuzeian notion of the relative out-of-field, and in this film’s case this is the spatiality of the place locations in and around the Mexican industrial port of Progreso. The film space has continuity thanks to the director’s logic in his mise-en-scène, with characters moving consistently and relative to the spaces both within the frame, and those framic spaces separated by the edit. That period of screen time where characters are between the frames, after they exit and before they enter, serve to reset the screen space, the film’s characters residing between and outside of framic time and space. If ‘framing is the art of choosing parts of all sorts that enter into a set’24 specifically a closed set, then equal measure should be given to the art of choosing that which to leave out of that set, as per other art forms that deal with negative space, such as painting and sculpture. Eimbcke does not always use this sixth out-of-field as per Burch’s traditional description, that of a visible block of some description. The reason is less to do with the formal structure of the cinematic frame, and more to do with the expanded mise-en-scène of Eimbcke’s fields, combined with his directorial use of audio-visual metaphor. As mentioned, Juan’s remaining family, his mother and his younger brother, spend much of the film in hiding, behind screens and doors – the mother has locked herself in the bathroom, and remains unseen, even when Juan breaks in. The shower

32 curtain obscures her and her anguish at losing her husband – she is hiding her anguish from her remaining family. Juan’s brother spends much of the film in a small tent in the backyard, again escaping from recent tragic events.

Fenando Eimbcke. (2008). Lake Tahoe (screen captures).

These doors and barriers – those that conceal and those that simply separate – act as metaphorical barriers between characters throughout the film, and work in traditional mise-en-scène to imply characters separated, physically and emotionally, from each other. This barrier metaphor can be used to extend Burch’s six axes concept to understand offscreen space.

33 2.7 The theorisation of offscreen space

Barriers and unseen spaces abound in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979). After the death of the spaceship Nostromo’s captain at the hands (claws) of the alien monster, the crew recover his weapon, a flamethrower.

PARKER: We found this laying there. No blood, no Dallas. Nothing...

Ridley Scott, 1979. Alien.

There are multiple ways to theorise offscreen space. We can, like Deleuze, differentiate it as either relative to the space within the frame, and through continuity editing this off-frame can be locative spatially, so can be said to exist as part of the mise-en-scène. Or we can regard the offscreen as an absolute, of time or durée. It also exists as that radical elsewhere, of a collective unconsciousness, of our fear of the unknown, the unseen. ‘No blood, no Dallas. Nothing...’. Deleuze writes in Movement Image,

... In one case, the out-of-field designates that which exists elsewhere, to one side or around; in the other case, the out-of-field testifies to a more disturbing presence, one which cannot even be said to exist, but rather to insist or subsist, a more radical elsewhere, outside homogeneous space and time.25

We can also consider Bazin’s unseen space, where ‘the screen is a mask whose function is no less to hide reality than it is to reveal it. The significance of what the camera discloses is relative to what it leaves hidden’26. This is no more evident than in the genres of the thriller, of horror and of film noir. In Chapter One I referenced the airshaft scene from Ridley Scott’s Alien, its use of mise-en-scène and its relationship to Burch’s six segments of offscreen space. The scene features as its main locale, a series of airshafts, separated by circular hatches, that disappear or rather fade into an infinity of blackness, in all six axes; left, right, top, bottom, away from the screen, and towards the screen, in much the same way that a 3D modeller might describe the space of an virtual environment i.e. -X (left), X (right), Y (up), -Y (down), Z (away from the camera) and -Z (behind the camera). Tom Skerritt’s character of Dallas, the

34 ship’s captain, decides that the only way to kill the creature on board is to trap it in the air-shafts of the spaceship, forcing it along the shafts and into an airlock, from whence it can be ejected into space. In a tense four to five minutes Scott uses all of these segments of Burch’s offscreen, as Dallas moves throughout this sequence-space, in all of these framic directions, through the claustrophobic pitch-black tunnels. The only light sources throughout this space are the torch he is holding in one hand and the flickering light from the jury-rigged flamethrower in his other. In some of these shots Dallas seems to literally crawl out of the screen into the -Z space behind the camera, into the darkened audience space of the cinema. We are virtually – but it feels almost physically – in these airshafts with him. The scene works as a textbook representation of the idea of the six axes, but also makes use of another subset of Burch’s out-of-frame from Nana: ‘Offscreen space may be divided into two other categories: it may be thought of as either imaginary or concrete.’27 It is this categorisation combined with the axes that makes the mise-en-scène of Scott’s sequence here work so well, especially in its ability to create tension within the audience. But is Burch’s theory adequate for this scene? I have already discussed in some detail the use of the black or blank screen in Lake Tahoe as a way to create meaning from the unseen. From the advent of celluloid as a medium, filmmakers have used a collection of methods – iris wipes, keyhole effects, et cetera – as methods to disguise and or conceal elements within the frame for narrative purposes or to privilege narrative space, time and information via the use of devices such as the matte. Alien uses the equivalent of an iris wipe, specifically in those perspective shots where the camera is looking down the shafts to blackness, as a frame within the frame, areas of black within the frames that hide the relative space. This iris also has physicality in this scene, via the hatches that lead between sections of the airshafts, which strongly resemble the interlocking metal blades of a camera’s aperture. These ‘hatches’ are used to both lock off those spaces surrounding the character of Dallas as he crawls through the shafts (telling the audience we have finished with that space) and to also act in the same way as a film camera’s iris, closing and opening light within the screen space, hiding and revealing the framed environ of the shafts to the cinema audience and to Dallas. Pascal Bonitzer writes that

35 ‘The cinema image is haunted by what is not in it’28, and Scott plays with this notion throughout much of the film, never fully revealing the monster.

Ridley Scott. (1979). Alien (screen captures).

36 Sam Fuller’s film noir Pickup on South Street (1953)29 does manage to expose its monsters, albeit those in human form. In an eerie precursor to Alien’s darkened corridors, the street peddler Moe (Thelma Ritter) arrives back late at night to her tiny bedsit, the only source of light in the room coming from a exterior streetlamp that filters through the window, hitting the door. The rest of the room – that which is at the back of the frame, is hidden in blackness. As she walks wearily across the room the camera pans and dollies, following her to the far corner, past the foot of her bed, which is also lit by window. She turns on the lamp attached to the bed and puts a record on, her back to the camera and the rest of the room. As she sits down and smooths the bed covers, she swings around and lies down – by this stage the camera has tracked in to a medium close-up. Symbolically she is becoming aware of her concrete out-of-field – she then puts on her reading glasses and starts to write in her notebook. At this point her eyes wander across – offscreen – to the other side of the bed, the camera panning down to reveal the shoes of her soon-to-be killer, resting on the edge of the bed.

Sam Fuller. (1953). Pickup on South Street (screen captures)

After a long, protracted conversation – consisting of mid shots back and forth – between her and her assailant, where he tries to glean information, we cut to a shot from behind the bed – relatively this camera point of view is impossible, as the bed is right up against the wall – as he cocks his gun. We then cut back to a close up on Moe’s face as she says wearily, ‘Look mister, I’m so tired, you’d be doing me a big favour if you blow my head off’. The camera pans slowly across, the frame resting on

37 the record player. The song Moe put on at the start of the scene finishes, and the image fades to black. Burch’s sixth axes, the offscreen within the frame – ‘... the space existing behind the set... A character reaches it by going out a door, going around a street corner, disappearing behind a pillar or behind another person, or performing some similar act’30 – should not be regarded as a thorough description of the film-maker’s options. It does not adequately cover the possibilities for the unseen within the frame. Firstly it implies that the characters are the instigators, that they are the agents of the offscreen, and secondly, it only concerns itself with departures, the exiting of characters. This type of unseen is articulated in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.

2.8 The curtain rises to reveal

The off-frame can also be the method of introduction, where the mise-en-scène acts as a reveal. The first shot in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954)31, which takes place behind the opening titles, is of the windows, is presented as three frames, much like a traditionally rendered triptych. The translucent blinds are drawn at the beginning, but over the course of the title credits each of the three blinds raise, one after the other, designed to be reminiscent of theatrical curtains. As the final curtain rises – the sixth axes – the camera tracks in quickly, as though escaping through the window frames and the triptych illusion, to reveal the locale for the rest of the film. In the opening extended shot of Robert Altman’s The Player (1992)32, we discover that an unseen stalker is harassing Griffin Mill, the movie executive played by Tim Robbins. This reveal is towards the end of the scene, as Mill receives his morning mail, on top of which is a postcard, which he turns over, revealing a threatening note. Early in the movie Griffin accidentally kills someone he presumes is the stalker. Later, during a particularly tense confrontation with the studio’s security officer, a fax arrives, appearing as though a scroll from the fax machine, revealing that Mill’s assailant is very much alive. These threats continue to be revealed, within the frame, throughout the film via a variety of technologies. These communication modes – postcard, facsimile and, in the final scene of the film, mobile phone – both physical

38 devices and metaphoric elements within the frame, act as threats, as proxies to represent the unseen threat of the stalker/blackmailer. Mary Ann Doane33 argues that ‘There is always something uncanny about a voice which emanates from a source outside the frame... as Pascal Bonitzer points out, the narrative film exploits the marginal anxiety connected with the voice-offs by incorporating its disturbing effects within the dramatic framework.’34 Doane argues the importance of this in genre works, in particular film noir, which is essentially where The Player sits traditionally as a film.

Walter Stuckel: The pictures they make these days are all MTV. Cut, cut, cut. Unnamed PA: The opening shot of Touch of Evil was six and a half minutes long. Walter Stuckel: Six and a half minutes? Unnamed PA: Three or four, anyway. He set up the whole picture with that one tracking shot...

Robert Altman, 1992. The Player.

If we look at another long opening shot in the same genre, the opening sequence of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil35, an opening that The Player both echoes and literally references, we can see the reverse effect in action. Instead of the threat being revealed, we have the film start with the threat, in this case a car bomb being planted. Over the course of a few minutes we see the car pass in and out-of-frame, coming close to, and moving away from, our hero and heroine, finally exploding offscreen, disrupting the temporality of the scene, triggering the first edit of the film and cutting to a point of view shot of the car in flames. This relationship between gaze and frame provides another staging point for thinking what is meant by the offscreen.

39

2.9 The gaze, the frame and the offscreen

Claire Colebrook in Gilles Deleuze writes on the liberation of the image:

It (cinema) takes a number of images and connects them to form a sequence, and it cuts and connects sequences using the inhuman eye of the camera, which can therefore create a number of competing viewpoints or angles. What makes cinema cinematic is this liberation of the sequencing of images from any single observer, so the effect of cinema is the presentation of ‘any point whatever’. Our everyday seeing of the world is always a seeing from our interested and embodied perspective. I organise the flow of perceptions into ‘my world’. I see this as chair or as a table, and I can do so only because I presuppose a world (my world) in which there is furniture and all the organising schemas this rests upon (a world of work, offices and so on). Cinema, however, can present images or perception liberated from this organising structure of everyday life and it does this by maximising its own internal power.36

Aumont writes that film creates the link between the concrete and the imaginary ‘… more efficiently... than in other forms of art... An actor looking out-of-frame is commonly used to invoke what lies offscreen, suggesting that someone or something is being looked at, whereas in painting such a look would invoke the viewer.’37 This filmic act of looking brings into the view the relationship between movement and the filmic gaze. These revelations almost always have a motivation, characters and objects that the director places and moves through these spaces that trigger camera movement. Kiss Me Deadly (1955)38 features a scene set in a gym in downtown Los Angeles. The complete scene, just over three minutes and shot as a single take, starts on a locked off close up frame of a boxer training with a speed bag. This locked shot is displaced by a man, perhaps a client of the gym, entering from the left off-frame, the camera latching onto him, following him through the exit and stopping on a frame looking down the stairs to the street as he leaves, a complicated combination of panning, tracking and tilting that reveals much of the relative space.

40 Robert Aldrich. (1955). Kiss Me Deadly (screen captures).

Coming up these stairs is the private investigator Mike Hammer, who the camera now latches onto, tracking along as he walks through the previously established space and past a public telephone39. He goes to visit Eddie, an acquaintance of his who works in the gym as a boxing trainer. The camera now positions itself as a two-shot of Mike and Eddie, as they talk and watch Eddie’s new protégée Kid Neno, the two placed against a shallow focused backdrop of sparring boxers. ‘OK kid, shadow box around. I’m showing you off to a friend’, Eddie exclaims. This is where the camera spends much of the rest of the scene, the two characters observing and commenting on the offscreen character of Neno. ‘Isn’t he beautiful? Isn’t he lovely? Look at the way he moves’, exclaims Eddie. To answer Eddie’s question, in this sublime example of the concrete and the imaginary, is difficult, as we never see Neno. Though the concrete space of the gym is fully established, realised and spatialised, through camera movement and the mise-en- scène, the character of Neno is not. He only exists as an extension of the imaginary, the offscreen gaze of Mike and Eddie being enough to establish the rest of the mise- en-scène, the rest of the locale. Getting some important information from Eddie, Hammer then moves back to the right of frame, pulling the camera with him, stopping at the aforementioned public telephone to make a phone call. This imaginary space can also be used for comedic effect, or to get around issues of censorship. The Thin Man (1934)40 features what appears to be a simple tracking shot along a street. The camera follows our two leads, the retired private detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora, as they discuss the film’s crime with the investigating detective, Lieutenant Guild. The couple are walking their small dog Astra, who we occasionally see via a cutaway shot, a shot away from the main thrust

41 of the scene but which is part of the relative space. We never see the dog in the master shot, the shots being connected via the tenuous thread of the dog leash that Nora holds in her hand. Throughout the course of the camera’s tracking, the three human characters are forced to stop and start, due to the unseen animal and its own investigation (for want of a better word) of the various poles, fire hydrants and post boxes, placed strategically along the footpath. The Thin Man uses offscreen space for humorous effect, connecting the onscreen and offscreen through what is a literal thread – in this case the dog’s lead that constantly tries to tear Nora Charles out-of- frame. This is contrasted with Deleuze’s metaphorical thread, a link through association.

42 W.S.V. Dyke. (1934). The Thin Man (screen captures).

These types of inference and framing connections can also be used metaphorically.

43 2.10 Metaphorical use of framing

Elements like framing can also be used metaphorically, both within the frame and out of it to suggest offscreen space. In Rian Johnson’s neo-noir Brick (2005)41 Brendan Frye, a high school student, investigates the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend, with the assistance of an acquaintance of his named ‘The Brain’. Near the end of the film, after a confrontation on a football field between the protagonist and the film’s femme fatale, Laura, the director cuts to a close-up of Brendan’s face, rendering the background of the football field out of focus. We see a figure walk out from behind our lead’s head – Burch’s sixth segment again – and the camera pulls focus to reveal that it is the character known as the Brain. The framing has so far remained unchanged. After some general discussion and debriefing on the case, the Brain steps back behind Brendan’s head and the film finally changes its framing, cutting now to a medium long shot where the character of the Brain has apparently disappeared. This scene, and the realisation that this character does not appear in any scenes with any of the other characters, suggests that the Brain may just be an extension of Brendan’s – the outsider or loner – own psyche.

Rian Johnson. (2006). Brick (screen captures).

44 This outsider as protagonist can often be seen in films that have a strong sense of offscreen space, a prime example being The Searchers.

2.11 Offscreen space

The Searchers (1956)42 is on the surface, thematically, about belonging – the idea of home. But it is also about the fear of the unseen. These themes are set up from the opening scene of the film. Peter Wollen in The Auteur Theory talks of the spaces of The Searchers as ‘pairs of opposites’, and in this scene we have ‘garden versus wilderness, settler versus nomad and ploughshare versus sabre’43. One could summarise these as ordered versus disordered, as epitomised in the film’s protagonist Ethan Edwards, played by John Wayne, the ex-confederate soldier turned mercenary, a loner estranged from his immediate family wandering through the desert. This opening scene of Ford’s film encompasses these ‘pairs of opposites’ within a master set of home and the unknown, and does it efficiently, comprising as it does no more than twelve shots in total. It is also a consummate example of the use of the offscreen and onscreen to imply meaning, using the classic mise-en-scène technique of the visible barrier or raumsperre to signify characters at odds with one another. By using vertical or horizontal lines (the camera in conjunction with blocking and production design) to split up characters within the frame, it also creates onscreen tension between characters. Let us look at the framing choices of The Searchers, based upon its mise-en-scène, specifically how the plan establishes the locale, and how the mise- en-scène is used to establish John Wayne’s character’s emotional separation from his family, through physicality. The film starts on a black screen, a title graphic setting the place, ‘Texas 1868’, three years after the civil war. This blackness is not the usual cinema black frame, but is rather the interior of the family homestead, revealed as such by the mother opening the front door, literally opening the film, revealing the hidden (sixth axes) desert-scape. The camera follows her out onto the porch to reveal her point of view of a stranger on a horse off in the distance, and she is physically and visually separated from the stranger by a vertical pole, one of the porch supports. Cutting to a reverse shot, we see the mother gazing offscreen to the left of frame. Again the wooden pole splits the screen up, separating her from the arriving stranger, and

45 establishes relative space, her gaze and previous shot combining to map the cinematic space. The next shot is her point of view from the porch. Here Ford uses a hitching post, used to tie up horses, as a horizontal barrier between the family and the stranger, an atypical example of visual metaphor. We cut back to the mother, who is joined by another character, whom we presume to be her husband, and both are now unsure of who exactly is arriving out of the literal and metaphorical desert. The frame is a two shot, the pole now adjacent to the cinema frame. The next shot is a side view of the porch, and we see two other characters, teenage girls, as the father steps off the porch to get a closer look. We are still unsure of whom the stranger is, but the father suggests that it might be his brother Edward. Here we see three poles separating the three women from the arrival, but the father is now on the far left of frame, looking out, the edge of the cinema frame acting as the barrier. We cut to a medium shot of one of the children, again with a pole as separator, thence to an over the shoulder shot of the father, watching with realisation of who the stranger is, the hitching post still splitting up the characters. We cutaway to see another child, the son, entering the frame, who realises that the stranger is in fact his uncle. From this point onward, the remaining shots of the scene show Wayne’s character within the camera frame, within the homestead, and within those vertical and horizontal barriers – including in this case the cinema frame itself – that have been acting metaphorically to separate him from home, and family.

46 John Ford. (1956). The Searchers (screen captures).

These types of framing and physical obstructions can suggest other, more complex relationships between characters, both in-frame and off-frame. The depiction of characters at odds with one another can be symbolised through the use of edge of framing techniques. This is where the edges of the cinematic frame act as spatial barriers.

2.12 Edge of frame

There are other examples of films that use the edge of frame metaphorically to show characters in conflict. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974)44 and Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006)45 both feature loners as their main protagonists, characters who are outsiders from the system, legally as well as emotionally. The former has Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul, a surveillance expert for hire whose latest job gets out-of-hand, whilst the latter has Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan, an undercover cop embedded within the Irish Mafia. Both feature key scenes that use a similar framing device to The Searchers scene above.

47

Francis Ford Coppola. (1974). The Conversation (screen captures).

Coppola’s film has the protagonist Caul visit his client’s assistant (played by a young Harrison Ford) delivering the surveillance tapes of the couple he has been employed to follow, and to collect monies owed. During this ‘conversation’ an argument ensues, causing Caul to leave with his evidence. Martin’s (Ford) office, filmed mostly as a side view, features an excess of vertical lines – windows and blinds, tables and chairs, a large tripod – that act as frames and lines separating the two characters, but the tension is also implied by shots where the characters are separated, by the extreme left and right of the frame.

48 With Scorsese the effect is much more overt. Billy goes to see his police psychiatrist to get anti-depressants, only for an argument to ensue. The whole scene is shot and edited with neither of the characters in the one frame at the same time, save for the hands and arms of the psychiatrist, as she passes documents, and eventually the pills. The screen frame acts as a physical barrier for the conflict between Billy and the psychiatrist, with the physical intrusions of the psychiatrist’s hands the only retrospective concrete46 link, or thread, between Billy’s space and the other character’s frame. The remainder of the actualisation, that both characters are part of the same continuous and homogeneous plane47, is realised – in this instance – by the montage, the gaze and the dialogue. In these instances the conflict is externalised, rendered metaphorically by the edge of frame that separates. But this type of metaphor can also be represented onscreen, through the fragmentation of the onscreen.

Martin Scorsese. (2006). The Departed (screen captures).

2.13 Fragmentation of the onscreen

In Vozvrashcheniye (2003)48, a man returns, like Edward in The Searchers, after a twelve-year absence to his family, a wife and his two boys. The boys first encounter their father whilst he is sleeping, and quickly run upstairs to their attic to check the only image they have of him. The photo is placed in the pages of a book of engravings on a page that depicts Abraham about to sacrifice his son. Thus we have the first of many clues about the father’s possible intent.

49 The family’s next encounter with the man is at the dinner table, when he comes in after everyone else has been seated. Apart from the opening master shot of the dining room, the rest of the scene plays out as mostly close-ups (beautifully and classically framed and lit) of each family member, the sides of the image acting symbolically as emotional and physical barriers or insulation, separating all of the characters. When we do have more than one figure in the frame, it is the father, framed like a painting which ‘... polarises space inwards’49 . This polarisation continues throughout the film, whether it is between a doorway, which acts to distance him from the two other characters in the shot, or it is as per Nana, an occasional hand entering the frame, pouring wine, et cetera. Bazan argues that ‘... the sequence of a film gives it a unity in time that is horizontal, and, so to speak, geographical’50, and of place, whereas in painting, such geography is related to its depths.

In other words the frame of a painting encloses a space that is oriented so to speak in a different direction. In contrast to natural space, the space in which our experience occurs and bordering its outer limits, it offers a space the orientation of which is inwards, a contemplative area opening solely onto the interior of the painting.51

Bazin is here drawing attention to the interiority of a painting as different to the exteriority of a film. This exteriority includes the offscreen, that disrupts conventional spatial logic.

2.14 The offscreen and the breaking of conventional spatial logic

This of course, does not take into consideration experimental works like the aforementioned Un Chien Andalou or Maya Deren’ and Alexander Hammid’s Meshes of the Afternoon52 and the way that these films use the offscreen to break temporality and space. It also does not take into account works from what would be considered the classical or Hollywood cinema tradition. The Charlie Kaufman scripted Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)53 and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)54 both use mise-en-scène to play with the temporal and spatial ‘mask, and the portion of reality it shows’55.

50 There are also those works that break the fourth wall of the offscreen space, say to have a film’s characters directly address the audience. The otherwise forgettable Tapeheads (1988)56 features a scene where the two main characters are driving at night when they decide to get a beer. They both reach offscreen, out of the left and right of the cinema frame, and pull in a drink from outside of what would be Deleuze’s homogeneous space, from some locale that is contrary to the screen locale, thus disrupting the continuity of the movie’s filmic space. The characters reach into an imaginary space, ‘... the imaginary becoming concrete when it in turn passes into a field, when it ceases to be out-of-field.’57 In other words, if one can imagine it, one can realise it. Bordwell and Thompson in Film Art discuss Chuck Jones’ cartoon Duck Amuck (1953)58, and its experimentation with the film form, where the character of Daffy Duck moves in and out of the painted frame of the cell into blank frames, and is also constantly interrupted during the course of the animation by the brush and eraser of his unseen (till the end of the film) animator / torturer. At one point the film even stops halfway through a frame of the virtual projector, so we see two versions of Daffy, above and below the frame, the scene split in half on the horizontal59. There are contemporary echoes of this sort of playfulness in television shows like The Simpsons, in the opening sequence of the 138th Episode Spectacular (1995)60, where the Simpson family enters into the frame to sit on the couch, only to run past the edge of the film, revealing the sprocket holes. These types of effects are not restricted to cell animation. In an effect that is part diorama, part trompe l’oeil, season three of the live action series The X-Files features an episode entitled The War of the Coprophages (1996)’61. Our protagonists Mulder and Scully are investigating a number of mysterious killings in a small town that may or may not involve cockroaches as the culprits. About halfway through the episode, during a particularly tense moment on screen, the filmmakers have superimposed an image of a cockroach over the scene.

51 Kim Manners. (1996). The X-Files, ‘War of the Coprophages’ (screen capture).

This gives the impression that a real insect has just run across the television screen, quite distinct from the interior space of the scene taking place and thus disrupting the enclosed spatiality of the small screen. It evokes a powerful and genuine sense of shock in the viewer through direct directorial manipulation.

2.15 Conclusion

Just as the directorial can depict meaning, space and character through the framed or contained image, so too can it create meaning, space and character through implication in offscreen space. This space is a powerful tool when aided and assisted by the viewer’s imagination. By directorial manipulation it can imply impossible worlds beyond the framed, and certainly beyond the budget restraints of a film. But the frame is the first directorial tool, the movement-image. The ability to link images and spatialities together through montage – the time-image – is the second directorial tool, and is what I will be covering in the next chapter, Temporalities, offscreen space and the meaning.

52 1 Information, composition, elements, point of view, and the out-of-field

2 Burch, N., 1981. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

3 Polanski, R., 1968. Rosemary’s Baby.

4 Glassman, A., McCarthy, T., 1993. Visions of Light.

5 Weiner, M., 2007. The Wheel.

6 ibid.

7 Burch, N., 1981. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton. p. 172.

8 Buñuel, L., 1929. Un Chien Andalou.

9 The film is quite classical in its approach to composition and continuity cutting.

10 Even given that latter movement’s extremes, Caligari et cetera.

11 Two of Walter Murch’s Rules of Six.

12 Alford, H., 1865. The New Testament for English readers: containing the Authorized version, with marginal corrections of readings and renderings; and a comm. by H. Alford. 2 vols. (in 4 pt.). p. 271.

13 Burch, N., 1969. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

14 ibid. p. 17.

15 ibid.

16 Renoir, J., 1926. Nana.

17 Haneke, M., 2005. Caché.

18 Saxton, L., 2007. Secrets and Revelations: Offscreen Space in Michael Haneke’s Caché (2005). Studies in French Cinema 7, pp. 5-17.

19 ibid. p. 5.

20 ibid.

21 Eimbcke, F., 2008. Lake Tahoe, from the liner notes of the DVD.

22 Jarmusch, J., 1984. Stranger Than Paradise.

23 Burch, op cit. p. 18.

24 Bogue, R., 2003. Deleuze on Cinema 1st ed., Routledge. p. 42.

25 Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. University of Minnesota Press. p. 17.

26 Bazin, A., 1973. Jean Renoir. Simon and Schuster, New York. p. 87.

27 Burch, op cit. p. 21.

28 Bonitzer, P., Hors-champ (un espace en défaut) in Cahiers du cinéma, 234-35, pp. 15-26.

29 Fuller, S., 1953. Pickup on South Street.

30 Burch, op cit. p. 17.

31 Hitchcock, A., 1955. Rear Window.

32 Altman, R., 1992. The Player.

53 33 Nichols, B., 1985. Movies and Methods. University of California Press.

34 ibid. p. 571.

35 Welles, O., 1958. Touch of Evil.

36 Colebrook, op cit.

37 Aumont, J., Pajackowska, C., 1997. The Image, illustrated ed. British Film Institute. p. 171.

38 Aldrich, R., 1955. Kiss Me Deadly.

39 Which we return to later in the scene.

40 Dyke, W.S.V., 1934. The Thin Man.

41 Johnson, R., 2006. Brick.

42 Ford, J., 1956. The Searchers.

43 Wollen, P., 1997. Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, 2nd Revised ed. BFI Publishing. p. 94.

44 Coppola, F.F., (n.d). The Conversation.

45 Scorsese, M., 2006. The Departed.

46 Burch, op cit. p. 21.

47 Bonitzer, op cit. Hors-champ (un espace en default)

48 Zvyagintsev, A., 2003. The Return.

49 Bazin, A., 2004. What Is Cinema? Vol. 1 1st ed., University of California Press. p. 166.

50 ibid.

51 ibid. pp. 166-167.

52 Deren, M., Hammid, A., 1943. Meshes of the Afternoon.

53 Clooney, G., 2003. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind.

54 Gondry, M., 2004. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

55 Bazin, op cit.

56 Fishman, B., 1988. Tapeheads.

57 Deleuze, G., 2005. Cinema. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 17.

58 Jones, C., 1953. Duck Amuck.

59 Bordwell, D., Thompson, K., 2003. Film Art: An Introduction, 7th ed. McGraw-Hill Companies. p. 167.

60 Silverman, D., 1995. The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular.

61 Manners, K., 1996. War of the Coprophages.

54 Chapter Three: Temporalities, offscreen space and the meaning

3.1 Introduction: The edit

Of all the developments in the art of the film the most significant technical innovation relative to the out-of-frame, and the one that separates it most from its predecessors – painting, photography and especially theatre – is that of the edit, the splicing of fractured time and space into a coherent whole. There are a number of ways of theorising the edit. The previous chapter discussed Burch’s ideas of the concrete, that which we know to exist within the space, and the imaginary, that which we are not yet privy to in regards to the space but which we assume to exist in the narrative space, and which is distinguished from Deleuze’s concept of the absolute1. This chapter explores the edit and montage as tools in the directorial depiction of offscreen space. The absolute privileges the edit over other methods of developing localised space, say camera movement – movement that corresponds and combines the six axes of offscreen space – and depth of field, for instance when the focus pull is used to reveal that which has previously been unseen by the viewer. Aumont does cover these in some detail in The Role of the Image and in his discussions on represented space2, but these methods of representing the offscreen are better discussed as interrelated techniques. They should be considered as subsets of camera technique, such that editing occurs within the camera and the single shot, authored by the director and cinematographer as they choose which parts of the relative space to reveal.

3.2 Relative space and filmic space

In Film Technique3 Pudovkin describes how filmic space is created by putting two moving images next or on top of one another so the viewer regards them as being in the same location spatially, and can make intellectual and emotional connections between these two, sometimes opposed frames or images. Great montage should create dynamics and emotions, not just for continuity but also for symbolic effect, as well as creating additional audio-visual connections for the audience without necessarily depicting it spatially; for instance, the joining of two potentially

55 unconnected images that together convey additional ideas, without the necessity of having to show them, and thus, advancing the plot. In Three Uses of the Knife David Mamet describes: ‘A man who’s walking down the street turns his head and reaches tentatively in his pocket: (we) CUT TO A shot of a store window with a sign that says: SALE. The viewer thinks, ‘Oh, that man would like to buy something.’4 Here the first idea joins with the second, thus creating the third. In this example the next shot could be the man walking down the street with a dog on a leash, or walking into his house holding a shopping bag: the audience makes the connection between the shop and the following events, but without ever seeing him in the shop. This is a variation of the Kuleshov effect5, which deals with the ideas around association, meaning and spatiality, both in and out of the frame. It can be seen as an editing technique in which the relative and imaginary space can be created or otherwise linked, and metaphorical associations made through the use of montage. These two spaces can be linked through a continuity or they can be deliberately disrupted. They can also be used to link split media, for instance, using montage to make connections across multiple television episodes.

3.3 Montage

We see relative space disrupted in experimental films like Un Chien Andalou (discussed in Chapter Two), with its displacement of relative space as it jumps between locations, as well as in the various examples mentioned above. How can directors combine these types of spatial and montage techniques metaphorically? An episode of the television show Weeds entitled Protection (2009)6 serves as a contemporary example of how this can be done. In this episode, the show’s main character Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) goes to visit local gang leader Guillermo (Guillermo Díaz) to arrange protection from a local bikie gang which has been threatening her own drug dealing operation. The episode features a scene that manages to seamlessly merge both the in-field and out-of-field mise-en-scène, whilst also offering an exemplar of extended temporal montage. Guillermo is occupied cooking on a barbecue in his front yard with some of his fellow gang members when Nancy drops around. She proceeds to walk into the middle of the group to discuss

56 with Guillermo the terms of her protection, the gang members serving metaphorically as a visual representation of her entrapment. When the scene cuts to shots of Nancy (framed as a mid-shot) she is placed spatially in such a way that the barbecue is directly below her relatively, not actually framed in the shot but rather out of the frame. It has been established in the wide shots so it is part of the concrete offscreen (Burch). Once a deal has been negotiated – the gang leader getting fifty per cent of Nancy’s future profits – we cut to a shot of Guillermo, who proceeds to throw some raw meat onto the grill (perhaps a sacrifice?) at which point flames rise up. We cut on the action of the flames – an established editing technique is to make an edit on movement within a image – back to the mid-shot of Nancy where we see the flames rise up to engulf the lower third of her frame, thus sealing the meat, as well as the pact she has made with the devil, as represented in the character of Guillermo. As she leaves the scene, the flames still engulfing the lower third of the frame, the image dissolves to the first shot of the next scene, an establishing shot of the town of Agrestic, the principal setting for the show.

Randall Zisk. (2009). Weeds, ‘Protection’ (screen captures).

This combination of mise-en-scène, montage and the off-frame act as a visual signifier to events that will play out in subsequent episodes, most notably in the season finale. In that episode, Guillermo raids the biker gang’s drug plantation, setting it on fire. This fire gets out of control, spreading quickly to engulf the town of

57 Agrestic. Nancy, in the ensuing panic, sets fire to her own house in an attempt to destroy evidence, escaping (or being reborn, phoenix like?) the inferno on a stolen Segway. This type of montage, expressive montage, suggests something more than just sheer skill. It goes beyond the technique of editing, and quite often breaks those edit rules surrounding continuity – including those rules of six techniques like the 180- degree rule, spatiality, and eye trace7, in order to convey expression and create an emotional impact within the viewer. Conventional montage is to editing what mise- en-scène is to cinematography, the former is the art, the latter the act8. Innovative montage is the editorial use of meaning and metaphor within the cut or edit. Whilst it describes a process where shots are assembled one after another, linked like a chain9 in a linear fashion, meaning and the linkage of space, framic or otherwise can occur between temporally disconnected cuts, across singular works like a feature film, and across episodic media, as in the example above. Linkage can also be approached the way Brunel and Dali did, to disrupt linearity and space. One example is in the contemporary music video, where linear space is disrupted.

3.4 Disruption of spatial continuity

Expressive montage has become the basis for continuity style editing, and was further developed post the Russians by the Expressionists such as Fritz Lang. Though cuts are not necessarily ‘invisible’ one ends up with a series of shots that ‘flow’ whilst still potentially having some deeper meaning or impact. This is a key element of the moving image, its influence seen in every type of filmmaking from documentary to commercials and music videos. The contemporary music video just happened to take off at the same time as video mixers and graphic effects machines were entering the mainstream edit suite, in the late 1970s. Lev Manovich, in Language of New Media talks about the genre of music videos serving as a laboratory for exploring new possibilities of manipulating the image, where montage mixes 2D, 3D, cinematography, painting and collage, existing as a ‘living and constantly expanding textbook for digital cinema’10, or a petri dish in which to experiment with new forms

58 of montage. Klaus Wyborny writes in Random Notes on the Conventional Narrative Film:

The main function of narrative grammar is to produce a natural connection between units of space and time not naturally connected. The yardstick for the naturalness of such a grammatical bond is the emergence of a space-time structure which is not internally contradictory at first sight. This is to say that implicit in every element of the emerging space-time structure is the virtual imprint of a geographical and a temporal co-ordinate, and these co-ordinates must not be contradictory... Films which permit unambiguous space-time constructions, without the synthetic element of their process of production being apparent in them at first glance, are felt to be particularly realistic.11

In music video, linkages between shots fracture notions of a continuity of space. Linkages in such genres disregard narrative grammar to produce fragments, unnatural connections that fragment space.

3.5 Unnatural connections fragmenting space

Jean Luc Godard claimed that films ‘are a world of fragments’12, and if any one process separates cinema from other forms of temporal media it is that of the edit. No other media (certainly at its inception) had the ability to present the world in fragments, to instantaneously shift the content of the frame, from one location to another or as in the early example of Méliès, to make those in-frame objects and characters disappear from with the frame.

59 Peter Harrington (Brown University) and Peter Morelli (Saco Museum) discussing a reproduction of The Pilgrims Progress Panorama (photo by Gregory Ferris).

Of course one can see precedents in pre-cinematic media. The Pilgrims Progress13 panorama (1851) discussed in Chapter One is different from most of its contemporaries in its use of frames to separate scenes, along the length of the canvas. This is different to presenting the narrative as a singularity, as a seamless environment where the narrative – whether that be historical, biographical or travel – flows (as in say the much smaller Garlibadi Panorama from 1860)14. Theatre is another temporal medium that changes scenes, either by the switching of properties, the use of curtains to re-set space, or by shifts in lighting and other environmental effects. The difference with cinema and the moving image is its immediacy, the ability to shift the audiences’ point of view in an instant, the truth at ‘twenty four frames per second’.15 This necessitates that the audience listen to the shifting points of view.

3.6 The need to listen to shifting points of view

Once cinema established this language of space-time grammar, audiences were trained to connect the spaces between frames both within the scene, between each set- up, and through cross cutting, between scenes occurring concurrently and

60 asynchronously to the original events, enabling a narrative flow that removed the guesswork, whilst assisting viewers to focus towards the narrative: ‘Where we can anticipate we need not listen’16. Cinema’s ability to link separate environments through the use of the edit was established as early as 1903, with Edwin Porter’s Great Train Robbery. Porter establishes two scenes, the first where a small girl frantically attempts to wake up a station attendant who has been knocked unconscious by a band of robbers, and the second in a dance hall that includes a group of men who later form a posse. At the end of this longish scene the now revived station attendant bursts through the door of the dance hall to alert the men of the robbery, linking the two distinct spaces locatively and temporally as a continuous space. This type of continuity was refined a decade later with Griffith, followed by Pudovkin et al, and in techniques of continuity editing, that used a mix of different framing styles, angles and linkage techniques within a space in aid of narrative flow and meaning, for example the choice of a close-up of an actor for emotional purposes17. Innovations in film technology – such as the invention of sound allowed for increasingly complex treatments in the continuity of space.

3.7 Complex treatments in the continuity of space

With the introduction of sound, filmmakers had at their disposal another set of instruments – voice, atmospheric, music, diegetic and non-diegetic – that could serve as techniques of linkage and continuities. These could be used both in spatial environments and temporalities, as well as for metaphorical purposes, what Chion refers to as

… an internal logic. The sound swells, dies, reappears, diminishes, or grows as if cued by the characters’ feelings, perceptions, or behaviours. Films such as Scott’s Alien, Lang’s M, or Godard’s Nouvelle Vague obey an external logic, with marked effects of transitions and breaks.18

The effect of discontinuity, fragmenting – the rupturing of cinematic flow – acts in opposition, acts as an external logic, ‘with marked effects of transitions and breaks’, creating disruptions in continuity and flow19.

61 It can also allow for a intentional misreading of the soundtrack, for instance where a music track appears non-diegetic but is revealed through camera movement and the edit to be within the relative space, at first imaginary, then concrete. Here space is linked via sound.

3.8 Linking space through sound

The most widespread function of film sound consists of unifying or binding the flow of images. First, in temporal terms, it unifies by bridging the visual breaks through sound overlaps. Second, it brings unity by establishing atmosphere (e.g., birdsongs or traffic sounds) as a framework that seems to contain the image, a ‘heard space’ in which the ‘seen’ bathes. And third, sound can provide unity through non-diegetic music: because this music is independent of the notion of real time and space it can cast the images into a homogenising bath or current.20

A few minutes into the dawn sequence of Jean-Pierre Melville’s Bob Le Flambeur (1956)21 the title character, Robert ‘Bob’ Montagné is introduced, surrounded by a group of men, through what appears to be a window into a small room. He picks up something off the table and shakes his hand, and we hear dice rattling – the men are playing craps. A clock, seen next to a telephone, diegetic, is ticking far too loudly for its size. Time is running out. Softly, distantly, we hear a simple melody being played on a unseen glockenspiel, seemingly part of the non-diegetic soundtrack. But things are not as they appear. The window is in fact a mirror, the camera panning to reveal that we are in the same room. Bob rolls the dice, a seven. He claps his hands, grabs his hat and mimes sleeping – it is bedtime. Unbolting the door, he exits, and the music rises, revealing that it is indeed diegetic. The frame is reset to show another room, and shadows on the door indicate a musician playing. Bob enters and walks across the room as the camera follows, revealing an empty nightclub, streamers and empty bottles everywhere, and revealing a musician playing the glockenspiel, who nods at Bob as he passes and exits. The next scene is an exterior street scene, morning. Bob enters from right and walks away from camera, down the street as the music keeps playing at the same volume as inside. Despite Melville’s play with spatiality, the window that is a mirror, the shadow of the musician, and the music that is both

62 diegetic and non-diegetic, the soundtrack is used to create a continuity of space between these interconnected locations. This type of continuity can also be used to link the human voice across multiples of space and time.

3.9 The linking of space and time through sound and montage

Can such continuity also be used to link the time-image? Burch writes of an opening scene in Fritz Lang’s M (1931):

It will be noticed… In the example of Lang as in many others, that the written (the poster, the newspaper) is there to be rendered by the voice, taken up by determinate speech-acts which make each scene go hand-in-hand with the next. To the extent that, in fact, it is one and the same indeterminate speech- act (rumour) which circulates and spreads, making visible the live interactions between independent characters and separate places. And the more autonomous the speech-act becomes as it goes beyond to determinate characters, the more the field of visual perception that it opens up is presented as problematic, positioned on a problematic point at the limit of tangled lines of interaction: as in the killer ‘leaning with his back against the wall’ whom we can barely see... Structure and situation continue to condition interactions, as they did actions and reactions, but they are regulative and no longer constitute conditions...22

Deleuze in Time-Image uses Burch’s example – one of the early scenes in M – as an example of the difference between the treatments of spatiality in the moving image in contrast with other media:

We can see from all this the extent to which talking cinema had nothing in common with the theatre and that the two could only be confused at the level of bad films. The question: what innovations did talking cinema bring to the silent film? Then loses its ambiguity and may be dealt with briefly…23

Later in Lang’s film is another example worth investigation. Fading up from black, and over a succession of shots, a group of newspaper boys is seen running frantically and heard shouting, ‘Extra! Extra! New crime! Who is the murderer?’ This dialogue carries over into the next frame, a different location, the interior of a study, where we see a man from behind, sitting and writing at a desk. This question – who is the

63 murderer? – is answered through the linkage of dissociative space. The man / the killer whistles – the shot is now a close-up of the letter – as he writes, ‘because the police have not published my first letter I am writing today directly to the newspapers. Continue your investigations everything will happen just as I have told you. But I have not yet finished...’ The whistling continues over the close-up and we hear a voice saying, ‘Ten thousand marks reward. Who is the murderer?’ The film cuts to a poster on a wall with those words, and smaller writing underneath. The camera dollies out to reveal an angry mob, trying with great difficulty to read the poster. A new voice is heard over the image of the crowd: ‘Certain evidence leads us to believe that the murderer is the same one who has already killed eight children. We must remind you again...’ The frame is reset, the image changes. Now a group of businessmen is crowded around a table in a cramped parlour, the voice revealed as one of the men reading aloud: ‘... that a mother’s first duty is to guard her children from the danger which always threatens also, the danger is often hidden in some attractive bait candy, a toy, and fruit can be the murderer’s weapons...’24

Fritz Lang. (1931). M (screen captures).

Lang uses a powerful technique here to link these four diverse spaces and timeframes, the technique of the sound and image split, where the audio or image anticipates and succeeds the relative image-space-sound. This sequence uses human generated sounds, voice and whistling, to link these distinct spaces-times, expanding the ‘visual space... seeking to reach its addresses across obstacles and detours. It hollows out space…’25

64 Exactly how far can this technique of the audio split be taken? In the hands of a director like Sergio Leone, the audio split is used to link discontinuous space and time.

3.10 The linkage of discontinuous space and time

An extended, albeit controversial,26 example of this kind of linkage can be found in the opening montage of Once Upon a Time in America (1984, Dir Sergio Leone), which uses an expressionistic style to fracture traditional cinematic temporality to tell ‘a story full of profound melancholy and regret.’27 Leone uses flashback as the device to shift between spatialities and temporalities, a technique that he uses throughout the film, to move backwards and forwards between the 1920s, the 1930s and the 1960s. Klaus Wyborny – again in Random Notes on the Conventional Narrative Film – writes that,

If we conceal part of a representational shot, its representational character is not necessarily lost. The audience’s consciousness reconstructs from the information available a large amount of the hidden part of the picture. Every narrative film trains us in this knack, since every actor conceals part of the space which contains him. If he moves, he reveals a part of it. In each film we experience a thousand times direct in-frame continuity.28

The continuity of a representational shot also takes place out-of-frame. In the first place there is a direct, comparatively integrated one, which occurs through the continuation of certain lines of perspective, of vegetation structures or through the observation of lines of movement, of carriers of motion entering or leaving the frame. But then there is a speculative out-of-frame continuity, a continuity that sees the image as part of a whole and constructs for itself a geographical and social set of surroundings out of the extract tendered.29 Once Upon a Time in America opens with that most traditional of setting of place,30 on black as the titles finish, with a woman opening a door to a darkened apartment.31 The opening ten minutes is a series of entries and exits, both of movements within the frame – actors, camera – and also of the out-of-frame. Picture, sound

65 elements, and location fracture, acting as a miniature version of the complete film, almost as an overture, foreshadowing much of what is to come. As the light switch is not working the woman moves to the bedside lamp, which also does not work, until she realises the bulb has been unscrewed. She screws it back in and notices that someone has burnt into the pillow the shape of a head. Pulling back the sheets (again, like a theatrical curtain) she reveals the outline of a body created by the tip of a burnt cigarette. A quick edit follows to an extreme close- up of a photo frame, a portrait of the chief protagonist ‘Noodles’ Aaronson (Robert De Niro), as a pistol dramatically smashes its glass. A trio of henchmen is revealed, who proceed to threaten the woman, wanting to know the whereabouts of ‘Noodles’. She does not know where he is, so they kill her. The reveal of the three men takes place over three shots – interspersed by shots of the woman looking around – with each shot using a different method of reveal, and three different methods of offscreen space: top of frame, in frame, and right of frame. The first is a job shot that moves from the close-up of the smashed photo frame up to the right and out, revealing the face of the man with the pistol. Next frame is static; the second man walks from the shadows on the left of frame, settling on another close-up. The third frame-reveal starts as a mid-length two shot, the third henchman entering from frame right, giving the impression of a triptych. After the woman’s death, Leone resets the frame by cutting abruptly to a close-up of the face of a badly beaten ‘Fat’ Moe, strapped up like a beef carcass, to a punching bag, as a fist flies across his face. The henchmen are revealed, torturing Moe for information on Noodle’s whereabouts. Moe finally relents, telling them that they will find De Niro’s character at a nearby Chinese theatre, after which they cut him down, Moe dropping to the floor. The final shot of this scene shows the main henchmen giving instructions as he exits frame right, leaving an empty frame, bar the punching bag, swinging ever so slightly toward the left of frame, which draws the viewer’s eye to that portion of the frame. The film now cuts to a view from above of the interior of the Chinese theatre; a performance of shadow puppetry is seen on the screen, in the background of the frame. Where the punching bag was positioned previously, we see an elderly Chinese woman enter the image and as she walks to right of frame, the camera follows her, out

66 of the theatre and into one of the back rooms. The camera stops as she turns to the back of frame, and we see a Chinese man of approximately the same age, who exits through what seems to be a secret panel in the wall. On the other side of the secret door, the camera follows the man, and tracks back to reveal a series of erotic Chinese artworks, before panning left to reveal that the hidden chamber is in fact an opium den, packed with customers of all races and classes. The man pours some tea into a bowl and carries it over to a man lying down in an obvious stupor. Here we see Noodles for the first time. After having the tea poured down his throat, Noodles wakes with a start, and grabs the folded up newspaper that lies beside him. He stares at the headline article, ‘Bootleggers Trapped by Feds; Three Slain’, and the photos of the three men underneath. He slumps back for a moment, but is startled, as is the audience, by the loud offscreen ring of a telephone. One of the den’s workers rushes to calm Noodles with opium, and as he settles down, the camera cuts to a side view as he stares into the flames of a oil lamp positioned next to the bed. This telephone bell serves as both a warning bell, and as a memory trigger, with the lamp serving as both a physical illumination and a metaphorical enlightenment, as memory, as melancholy, as regret... and as a transition to... The sound of fire alarms joins that of the still unseen telephone over the image of the lamp. The bokeh32 of the flame dissolves into the bulb of street lamp as the camera zooms out to reveal an overturned truck in flames, the street light knocked to an angle, and a group of firemen desperately trying to douse the flames and pull a lifeless body out of the truck. The camera continues to track back to reveal more bodies, boxes and debris scattered all over the scene. Heavy rain blankets the scene. Police and firemen pile the bodies next to one another as a photographer starts shooting the – now three – bodies. The fire alarm has stopped but the phone keeps ringing; the audience is still unaware of its spatial and temporal relationship to the sequences unfolding, whether the phone exists in the offscreen space of the opium den, or in another, as yet unseen space. The bodies start to be bagged and tagged. A shot of a gathering crowd shows De Niro’s character, a look of shock on his face. We see the bodies in close-up – two are riddled with bullets, the third is burnt beyond recognition. The phone keeps ringing and we see details of the tags as they are snapped onto the body bags – keen observers would notice that the names match

67 those of the three slain mentioned in the newspaper report33; the audience is now aware that the film is temporally in the recent past. The next ring triggers the next scene, the next time-image displacement. What appears to be a coffin34 is being carried into a darkened room. Suddenly hit by a spotlight, it’s revealed to be, in fact, a cake surrounded by candles in champagne bottles, the word ‘prohibition’ written with icing on the side. This is followed by an abrupt series of cuts of champagne bottles being popped, a quick flash of an uninjured Moe, and a quick three shot of two characters (Patsy and Cockeye) whom we recognise as the dead characters, with a third character, Max (James Woods), whom we assume to be the charred remains from the previous scene. A close-up of the woman killed at the start of the film follows. Then a quick cut to De Niro’s character kissing another woman (who flinches at his touch) followed by his walk across the crowded party and his exit through a door. Max watches as he exits. The viewer now knows that the film is in the more distant past, further into Noodles’ stupor. The camera slowly moves to close up of a telephone – finally a justification for the insistent ringing on the soundtrack. A hand comes into shot and – hesitantly – picks up the handle. But the phone is still ringing – this is not the source of the ringing. Fingers come into frame and they start to dial, slowly. Pausing after each dial of the rotary, the camera whip-pans up to reveal De Niro’s face. The film cuts quickly to another phone, a desk sign in front of it that says Sgt. P. Halloran. The bells keep ringing as the camera closes in on the telephone. A hand comes into shot, picks up the handle without hesitation, and the ringing is now replaced with a high pitched squealing. And we return to Noodles in the opium den, the sound of the squeal35 acting as a trigger snapping him out of his opium slumber, as if from an intense nightmare, as the henchmen burst through the doors of the Chinese theatre. Ronald Bogue writes

Sound expands the visual image as off-camera voices and ambient noises indicate the continuities of space beyond the frame and into the out-of-field world... the way sound fills the ‘absolute out-of-field’ through voice-overs and music. Narrative voices, the voices of reminiscence, of reflection or of commentary, inhabit no clear physical position in relation to the visual image; yet pertain to it as an added dimension. In this way the spoken word enhances

68 the visual movement-image by emphasising its continuity with the open Whole, of which each shot is an expressive unfolding.36

Sergio Leone. (1984). Once Upon a Time in America (screen captures).

69 In the example of Once Upon a Time in America, Leone uses the ringing telephone to connect a number of temporalities and spatialities into a continuity of narrative space, and then uses the high pitch squeal to fracture this whole, to take the audience out of, to disconnect us from, this dreamlike state. Directors, like magicians, also have disconnect through slight of hand, through misdirection. By presenting information onscreen quickly, disconnection through fragmentation, they can disguise elements for what in magicians’ terms would be known as the ‘big reveal’. Through the presentation of such knowledge fragments directors can slowly reveal snippets of information to the audience, as the film progresses.

3.11 Fragments of knowledge

Mise-en-scène and montage often act as the antithesis to notions of objective presentation instead of ‘completing’ our concept of the ‘thing’, changes in points of view, of radical perspectivism, can fracture our ‘knowing’37 of what is on screen, leaving a series of fragments, impressions and after images. Take camera movement as an example. I mentioned in Chapter One Profondo Rosso (also known by its English title, Deep Red) which uses point of view alongside fast camera movement to hide both the identity of the killer as well as key narrative plot points. Marcus Daly (David Hemmings) is chatting to his intoxicated friend Carlo (Gabriele Lavia) late at night outside a cafe when they hear a woman scream, but they are unable to trace the source of the sound. Carlo leaves and Marcus sees the woman – Helga Ulmann, a psychic and medium – in a second story window, as she is hatcheted to death. Running up to her apartment he encounters a hallway, full of nooks and crannies, side passages to unseen rooms, and all the walls are covered in paintings of tortured faces, reminiscent of Munch. The camera switches between Marcus’s point of view as he runs and a view to one side, until he reaches the room where he finds her blood-soaked body on the floor. This journey down the hall provides the clue that he carries through the whole film to its bloody conclusion. The police arrive on the scene, and Marcus is now

70 convinced that a painting has been removed from the crime scene, one that he saw in a side passage as a flash, as he ran down the hall. The end of the film sees Marcus Daly return to the crime scene and retrace his steps, when he realises that the painting did not exist: what he actually saw was the face of the killer reflected in a mirror, who is revealed to be Carlo’s deranged mother. ‘Cinematic is this liberation of the sequencing of images from any single observer’.38

Dario Argento. (1976). Deep Red (screen captures).

71 Often imitated, never equalled, the shower scene from Psycho (1960)39 uses a mix of physical barrier, lighting and fast cutting to disguise the identity of the film’s protagonist, Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh) killer. The killer appears firstly as figure, possibly female, hidden behind a shower curtain, starting from complete obscurity and ending as a shadowy blur through the opaque plastic of the shower curtain. Crane is completely unaware of her imminent demise. The curtain is ripped aside as the assailant is revealed, albeit in shadowy form, as the first thrash of the knife flashes by the frame, followed by a succession of quick cuts – seventy different camera setups in forty-five seconds40 – from different viewpoints of the assault, the knife flashing across screen, a close- up of Crane’s hands trying desperately to stop the assault, the blade seeming to hit flesh, the frames all fast movement and blurs.41 The assault itself takes no longer than twenty seconds of screen time. At no stage do we get a clear shot of the killer, aside from some quick flashes of what may be a woman’s dress, and it’s done. The killer quickly exits the frame and Marion Crane is left for dead, a look of horror on her face as she collapses, pulling the shower curtain down with her, which now takes the form of a pall, the cover traditionally used to cover or obscure the dead, the bathtub acting as the substitute for the coffin or tomb. Profondo Rosso takes a different approach at its start, using a mix of POV and in-frame devices, to disguise the film’s killer. In a clever riff on Hitchcock’s film, later in the film, a psychic has identified that a killer is in the audience where she is presenting as part of a panel. Argento switches to the killer’s point of view as he/she exits the row he/she are sitting in, and thence the theatre. As they exit the room, red

72 curtains close on the theatre, the panel, and the audience, signifying that the scene is over and it is curtains for the psychic. A harsh cut takes us to a white tiled room, with a sink on the left, his and hers toilets featuring at the back of frame42 – we are still framed from the killer’s perspective. He/she goes to the sink and we see water start to flow in a series of frames reminiscent of the Hitchcock film, with a close-up of the taps and the plughole as the water flows, and so on. The camera moves up to the mirror above the sink, the mirror is shown to be covered in grime so that the killer’s face is hidden in the blurred reflection, foreshadowing the mirror shot in the psychic’s apartment.43 These techniques of blurring information moved from a staging technique to a cinematographic technique with the move from a deep focus to the use of shallow depth of field, with the introduction of super speed camera lenses. Such technologies create a raumsperre, a way of hiding elements of cinematic space.

3.12 Raumsperre

Earlier I wrote of instances where the medium itself instigated a raumsperre, and cited the example of the cinematographer’s use of shallow depth of field as one technique that could be used to hide elements within the frame. One filmmaker who is heavily influenced by Hitchcock, both in narrative and style, is Brian De Palma, and one of the earliest examples of this influence is Dressed to Kill (1980)44. Made exactly twenty years after Hitchcock’s film, and released a few months after his death, it shares many of the same tropes as the earlier work, to the point where the film has been described as everything in between a ‘virtual remake’ to a ‘shamefully straight steal’45 – indeed it features a couple of virtualised shower scene murders, inspired by the original film, both of which are later revealed to be either fantasy or dream sequences. This is no more evident than in the actual murder of the film’s protagonist, Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson), which takes place in yet another confined space, from the shower to, in this instance, the elevator. De Palma does keep many of the elements of the first film – the fast cuts editing style and choices in music – but swaps the implication of blade hitting flesh for the visceral depiction of onscreen violence in extreme close-up. Instead of the shower curtain acting as the initial barrier of our view of the assailant46, we have the

73 elevator doors that also act as a visual reveal, replacing the optical effect of a horizontal wipe, as theatrical curtains revealing the scene. Instead of the obliqueness of the curtain in the former film, De Palma uses shallow depth of field as an axis of the out-of-frame, with the camera focussing on the blade of the cutthroat razor, the killer in the background of the frame, out of focus, out of our field of view. The filmmakers have thus reduced the viewer’s sightedness, our focus plane, intending to disorientate and displace subjectively and to hide narrative information from the viewer. Cinema might be the truth at twenty four frames a second47, but through directorial technique and montage, this truth might take its time to be revealed.

Brian De Palma. (1980). Dressed to Kill (screen capture).

3.13 Conclusion

Through the development and use of techniques of montage and linkage, directorial meaning moved from what is represented and made meaningful in the frame over time, to temporalities of space and linkage that connect the unseen space, character and object, creating new ways of implying meaning through the time-image, through the unrepresentative, the unseen, or the hidden. These spaces are no longer distinct from each other: rather they exist and work in tandem. The meaningful is created as a whole, these interior and exteriors fragments of space manipulating both the cinematic space and the viewer’s emotions. As we move quickly away from the traditional linear and two-dimensional approach to the cinematic frame, movement, edit and temporality – one that has

74 sustained us over the last century – new and more innovative approaches to how meaning is created with montage will eventuate, approaches that will involve the use of the data-base, spatiality, interaction, the physical environment and non-traditional cinematic time-frames. These will describe, detail and immerse us in a montage that is also represented outside of the frame. These convergences, approaches, devices and strategies inform and comprise media environments now and in the near future, and are what I’ll be addressing and exploring in more detail in the succeeding chapter, The Virtual and meta-data in the offscreen.

1 Burch, N., 1969. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

2 Aumont, J., 1997. The Image. British Film Institute. p. 100.

3 Pudovkin, V.I., 2008. Film Technique and Film Acting – The Cinema Writings of V.I. Pudovkin. Sims Press.

4 Mamet, D., 2000. Three Uses of the Knife: On the Nature and Purpose of Drama 1st Vintage Books Ed., Vintage. p. 61.

5 “One of the basic theoretical principles of editing is that the meaning produced by joining two shots together transcends the visual information contained in each individual shot. In other words, the meaning of a sequence of shots is more than a sum of its parts”. Pramaggiore, M. & Wallis, T., 2005. Film: A Critical Introduction, Laurence King Publishing. p. 162.

6 Zisk, R., 2009. Protection.

7 Murch, W.; C., Francis Ford (Foreword by), 2001. In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing, Los Angeles: Silman-James Press.

8 In other words, the craft.

9 Hence this type of montage is called linkage.

10 Manovich, L., 2002. The Language of New Media, The MIT Press. p. 311.

11 Klaus Wyborny, ‘Random Notes on the Conventional Narrative Film’ Afterimage 8/9, Spring 1981. p. 114.

12 Talk:Jean-Luc Godard – Wikiquote (WWW Document), 2011. URL http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/ Talk:Jean-Luc_Godard.

13 The panorama was conceived by members of the National Academy of Design in New York, with designs contributed by Hudson River School masters Frederic Edwin Church, Jasper Cropsey, Daniel Huntington, amongst others. Over eight hundred feet in length, it has been recently restored and is now on view at the Saco Museum in Maine.

14 Garibaldi and the Risorgimento (WWW Document), 2008. URL http://library.brown.edu/cds/garibaldi/ panorama.php

15 Jean-Luc Godard, Le Petit Soldat (film).

16 Gombrich, E. H., Art and Illusion, Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 205.

17 Porter,. E. The Great Train Robbery, 1903.

18 Gombrich. op cit. p. 46.

75 19 Chion, M., Gorbman, C. & Murch, W., 1994. Audio-Vision, Columbia University Press, New York. p. 46.

20 ibid. p. 47.

21 Melville, J.P., 1954. Bob le Flambeur.

22 N. Burch, ‘De Mabuse a M : Le travail de Fritz Lang’ in Cinema: Theorie, Lectures, nume’ro special de la Revue d’Esthetique (Paris: Klincksieck, 1973). p. 235.

23 Deleuze, G., 1989. Cinema 2: The Time-Image. University of Minnesota Press. p. 219.

24 Lang, F., 2010. M (The Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray), Criterion.

25 Deleuze, op cit. p. 233.

26 Controversial because the film was re-cut, against the director’s wishes, by the producers for certain markets to make the narrative chronological.

27 Martin, A. & Institute, B.F., 1998. Once Upon a Time in America, British Film Institute.

28 Random notes (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://wyborny.cinegraph.de/Wymac/ATYPEE/Vita/ Aufsatz/narrat.htm.

29 Wyborny, op cit. p. 115.

30 In fact this opening features a number of narrative and visual parallels with Fuller’s Pickup on South Street - from the door opening up the scene, to the reveal of the antagonist/s, and finally Moe's murder on the bed.

31 Literally a reverse of the opening of Ford’s The Searchers, this time from exterior to interior.

32 From Wikipedia, ‘In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image. Bokeh has been defined as ‘the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light’. However, differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting— ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bokeh, respectively. Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out- of-focus regions.’

33 ‘Cockeye’ Stein, ‘Patsy’ Goldberg and ‘Max’ Bercovicz.

34 Linkage to the bodies of the previous scene.

35 Again, like the ringing telephone, this sound has no traceable onscreen source.

36 Bogue, R., 2003. Deleuze on Cinema 1st ed., Routledge. p. 185.

37 Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis (2006) Conversations: The Parallax Effect. UNSW Press, Sydney. p. 13.

38 Colebrook, C., 2001. Gilles Deleuze, 1st ed. Routledge. p. 31.

39 A lot of the credit for this montage sequence should go to Saul Bass. His storyboards were used almost shot by shot to construct this sequence.

40 Truffaut, F., 1967. Hitchcock by Truffaut. The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock By Francois Truffaut. Revised Edition. Simon and Schuster - Touchstone Books. p. 427.

41 Interestingly, at no stage does the blade actually hit the victim. It’s also in the sound design - the sound of the blade as it hits flesh - and Bernard Hermann’s staccato strings in the soundtrack that aid in the selling of this scene.

42 Having the shared sink outside the toilets also hides the sex of the killer.

43 Argento, D., 1976. Deep Red.

44 Palma, B.D., 1980. Dressed to Kill.

76 45 Boyd, D., Palmer, R.B., 2006. After Hitchcock : influence, imitation, and intertextuality. University of Texas Press, Austin, Tex. p. 24.

46 Like Psycho, heavily disguised.

47 Godard, op cit.

77 Chapter 4: The virtual and meta-data in the offscreen

The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the eternal realities of everything which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature.1

William Blake, 1810, A Vision of the Last Judgement.

4.1 Introduction

This chapter deals with the development of non-linear technologies as methods of immersion and interaction and how this affects the out-of-frame. The way the public reacts and interacts to and with media has undergone a radical change in the last decade. There has been a move away from the linearity of time based media, into the non-linearity of polyphonic media. There has also been a corresponding move away from the traditional screen and framing conventions of cinema, television and print. Correspondingly, new authoring technologies to create and interact with these emergent media are necessary. This chapter offers an historical overview of the development of such technologies, elements of their aesthetics, and examples of their use in the media arts. It looks at the framing of the user’s avatar in these environs – the users proxy when interacting with these spaces. It also describes how these new and emerging technologies deal with notions of the out-of-frame. It serves as a primer for the succeeding chapter that will cover the projects Eavesdrop and Conversations.

4.2 Raumsperre, as a spatial barrier

As mentioned previously, the use of pictorial barriers for meaning is of course not restricted to the temporal-based arts of performance, moving image and the digital arts. Nor is it restricted to physical barriers: optical effects, the use of qualities inherent in optics, lenses and light itself, can also serve as raumsperre, or partitions, as barriers. The painter Casper David Friedrich (1774 – 1840) is an example of an artist who uses various barriers, both natural (fallen trees, fallen rocks) and man-made

78 (walls, fences, a shipwreck), as well as painterly (his evocation of light) as a formal structure – albeit one that is a ‘formal fantasy’2– to evoke meaning. This does not just describe pictorial space but also renders an emotional spatiality that deals with ‘concepts of alienation, withdrawal and man’s accord with nature’.3 Friedrich treated these elements as assets, reusable across many works. Hoffman suggests Friedrich’s reuse of such assets was reminiscent of ‘playing cards’,4 which does not appear a particularly apt comparison. In a contemporary context, Friedrich would appear to reuse these elements as an animator would use a walk cycle to repeat action, or as the digital media artist or technician would treat assets in their work as sprites, elements that can be reworked and re-purposed across multiplicities of scenes and works. Thus Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819-20) is reworked a decade later into Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon, with the foreground and sky elements compositionally staying the same but for the sex of one of the characters, and with other changes occurring in the realisation of ambient lighting and in the landscape of the middle distance.

Casper David Friedrich. (1819-29). Men Contemplating the Moon and Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon.

The former work in its distribution of light uses the landscape to restrict our view, whilst in the latter the foreground is muted, leaving any fine details to the little that is viewable in the background, as well as the overly bright night sky. The use of the ephemeral as a visual block occurs throughout Friedrich’s body of work, but he also made use of spatial barriers that could perhaps best be described as corporal.

79 4.3 Corporal barriers

Landscape with Crumbling Wall (1837-40), painted during the last three years of Friedrich’s life, uses a crumbling wall made of stone to separate the viewer from a pastoral scene. This is not to separate the viewer from the unknown, as per John Ford’s use of mise-en-scène at the beginning of The Searchers (1956) but to imply that this side is what we have tamed, while the other side of the wall remains untamed. One could read it as this side being the material world, and the other side the immaterial. Friedrich takes this barrier further in his brushwork and colour palette – the pastoral is faded, or washed out in light, compared to the small patch of field depicted on the near side of the fence. It is certainly rendered in a way that would be much more extreme than the actuality, even when one allows for distance and atmospheric disturbance. It is photographic in terms of the limitations of its dynamic range, luminance, and focus. In Friedrich’s worldview – or rather his lack of presence in his depiction of the world – the use of passageways, doors and windows anticipate Burch’s sixth segment, that of the visual block. Doorway in the Fürstenschule, Meissen (after 1835) uses a similar technique to Landscape with Crumbling Wall, whereby the internalisation of the room is rendered realistically, whilst the small patch of the exterior outside the door is overexposed, and even otherworldly, with little or no detail. In Window and Garden (1806-11) the window itself is disrupted by pot plants on the sill, blocking the spectator’s view of thick trees, and yet another doorway in the distance. In Woman at the Window (1822) the solitary figure blocks much of the already restricted view and the glass panes above her head offer us little in the way of further information. Distant trees and what appear to be sail masts suggest that there may be a river view, but the ships could just as easily be in ‘dry dock’ undergoing repairs. This notion of raumsperre extends to the representation of Friedrich’s figures, particularly those most commonly in use and reuse: these are viewed from behind, usually full-figured but devoid of facial detail and expression. We are left to fill in those facial details and expressions, the subject’s emotional state. We do this in part

80 through our imagination, in part through the projection of ourselves on these figures. They become our surrogates, our agents.

4.4 Surrogates and agents in visual space

These figures become our representatives, our surrogates in these environs, as much as the third-person view is used as the avatar for the majority of contemporary digital media. Computer gaming environments are the most obvious example. Here we are presented with a fixed third-person view as an out of body experience, behind our virtual representative, and looking down or upon the scene. We control, decide the look of, and direct the actions and movements within these digital spaces. It is rare for the user to desire to see the front of these puppets when it has been enabled as an option by the programmer in the form of camera point of view, apart from the optioning at the beginning of such games where one customises one’s agent. There seems to be an intentional connection between contemporary computer games and Friedrich’s figures in these landscapes. This is also the default view in socialised virtual environments, such as Linden Lab’s Second Life. Many of the environs within that particular virtualised space are also reminiscent of Friedrich’s style.5 The effect of this detachment is that one’s avatar is free to engage in activities that we would otherwise not consider realistic or perhaps appropriate in the actual world. This is especially true for those virtual social environments where users intentionally provoke others for the simple sake of the provocation, most commonly referred to as trolling, an expression that – whilst referencing the mythical beast – seems to be partly derived from trollen, the middle English term which means to wander about, but also partly derived from the term for fishing. One wanders about the internet, baits a hook and fishes for a reaction or response. This type of provocation is at its most overt in the TPS, the Third Person Shooter. This can take the form of both virtual and verbal abuse. This abuse can take place textually via in-line chat and verbally via Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) during gameplay. The First Person Shooter removes most of the avatar’s body from framic view, excepting those remaining parts of the – often abstracted or physically enhanced – body required for gameplay, interaction and occasionally abuse.

81 This framed out of body / body out-of-frame experience can also be used to disturb the user or audience in ways and media undreamt of by Friedrich, especially when the medium involves temporality. The displacement and fragmenting of time is a powerful technique that can unsettle the viewer.

4.5 Fragmenting of time

One of the most striking, memorable but deceptively simple examples of fragmenting of time in the temporal arts happened whilst I was studying at the City Art Institute in the late 1980s. Sydney-based video artist George Urban – at that time a fellow student at the City Art Institute in Sydney – presented an installation work in 1987 that has echoes of the ‘Every time they leave the room’ quote from The Passenger mentioned in the previous chapter. Spectators become characters or ghosts, afterimages in this work via a mix of onscreen and offscreen framing, temporalities and metaphor and as such, Urban reflects the central ideas of this thesis. In it, he used two half-inch reel-to-reel video recorders linked together, via a single tape loop of approximately 20 seconds, with one deck set to record and the other deck set to play. The record deck was hooked up to a surveillance camera situated in the corner of a room, which was empty apart from a television monitor playing the output of the play deck. Audience members would enter the room and be attracted towards the television monitor showing the empty room. After about ten seconds of viewing they would see onscreen the delayed image of themselves, as they entered the room and became attracted to the television monitor, and so on. And, bar for the limitations of the recording and playing metal oxide – what is essentially rust on tape and prone to degradation – the process evokes a concrete sense of time passing.

4.6 Time passing and the offscreen

This type of echoing, repeating in offscreen space has precedents in artists working with film loops. Instead of the degrading of the videotaped image over time, film is damaged through transport through the mechanics of projection.

82 In 1995 I was asked to curate an exhibition at Casula Powerhouse in Sydney, Australia, celebrating and reflecting on the centenary of cinema. I was looking at artists that work cinematically, using a range of old and new media. One of the new works was by the filmmaker Jackie Farkas and her long-time production designer Milvia Harder. Farkas’s background in architecture, meant I could commission the pair to come up with a work reflecting the theme of the show, as well as a piece that would work within the raw industrial space of the Powerhouse. They created the work Ode to the one who knows how to touch me, which ended up not just being site specific, but also season specific, this particular season being winter.

Jackie Farkas and Milvia Harder. (1995). Ode to the one who knows how to touch me. (Video stills by Gregory Ferris).

Ode is a mix of sixteen-millimetre film projection, ice, aluminium and time which features a film projection, looped, of an ice skater doing figure eights, infinitely and temporally, eternal. This is projected onto (and through) a clear, three-hundred kilogram heart-shaped block of ice, the skater captured within the ice, but also projected, and slightly distorted, onto the wall behind. The ice is harnessed and encased by an aluminium and brass frame, suspended from the ceiling. The ice slowly melted over the course of the exhibition into a tray below – constructed in the shape of a figure eight, but also obviously in the shape of the symbol for infinity. This skater here is encased within – and out of – a number of frames. She is frozen within time on the celluloid itself, doomed to repeat her movements, as well as her mistakes, repeatedly, with time – dust, scratches and age – affecting the medium of the film itself. But her moments are also frozen, and further distorted, within the ice itself, as the ice slowly melts, within the wintry confines of the old Powerhouse.

83 It contained echoes of British artist and filmmaker Steve Hawley’s A Proposition is a Picture (1992) with its sequence featuring an ice skater doing figure eights entrapped within a television screen, the film’s narrator surmising that ‘...there must also be a – virtual – heart beating’ within the screen.6 Conceptually one could easily trace – just as the figures trace lines on these projected and reflected ice rinks – back to Jean Cocteau’s comment in the February 1961 edition of Esquire that ‘a film is a petrified fountain of thought’.7 These places, characters and meaning are fixed in the frame, and fixed in time.8 Such fixing of the frame and time is characteristic of classic cinema.

4.7 Classic cinema and the fixing of the frame and time

Films – and here I am referring to traditional, classical film works – can also be fixed in a number of etymological definitions of the word. Whilst Cocteau was considering film’s formal, mechanical structure of delivery, he was also contemplating the structure of the form as a way of delivery of the message, that of the narrative. Once photographed, printed, edited and printed again (for distribution), film becomes locked or frozen as a document, as a piece of art, apart from those flaws introduced to the individual copies by way of scratches, dust and other materials. Directorial and editorial decisions of framing, performance, duration and movement are fixed from that point on, or more precisely those choices of what not to include are fixed. Film is also a useful differentiation of the form from that of other media discussed in this thesis, both of the pre-cinematic and post-cinematic, and of those types of works discussed in this chapter. The development of re-recordable media like videotape resulted in media artists and theorists rethinking notions of the fixed frame and fixed time.

4.8 Fixed frame and fixed time in video technologies

With the introduction of videotape and technologies like the Sony Portapak,9 directorial decisions were still locked (for the most part) but other aspects of the medium, like portability, permeability, distributability and ease of use, evolved. Other

84 elements like extended duration of shots also changed, albeit at the expense of the much finer image resolution inherent in celluloid. Film also had a profound affect on the use of the moving image in the visual arts; this started with Nam June Paik but was quickly appropriated by others working in the conceptual and performance movements. Whilst the delivery medium itself resulted in the development of new processes for artists10 – itself an early example of out-of-frame control of the in- frame – the temporality and the linearity remained. That is not to say that this fixed medium could not be affected. Warhol’s film Chelsea Girls (1966) has, as part of its structure, the ideas of randomisation and performance. The former is in the mechanics of filmic projection and the variation in projection speeds; the latter is in allowing the projectionist (as conductor / user) to decide on the mix in terms of which screen’s audio the audience gets to experience as the two film streams progress. Here two individual framic streams are linked through mechanism and the improvisation of the conductor. Similarly, a multi-screen video installation can introduce randomisation simply by having variations in loop lengths between each screen, so that the audience experience is never repeated. These multiple frames spread over the gallery space create linkages through randomisation, and through connections the viewer makes, threads that link and transfer via the gallery space. This type of user interaction was to foreshadow much of the new forms of media that were to develop from the 1960s onwards, especially with the developments of digital media, starting in the 1970s.

4.9 Meta-data and the out-of-field

Notions of the out-of-frame in relationship to media changed dramatically with the move from the photochemical, the analogue, the linear and the mechanical, to the digital. This was hastened by the rise and relative accessibility of new media devices like the personal computer in the mid to late 1970s, notably amongst the home brew computing community, followed by the rise of the personal computer in the decade that followed. Of course other methods of manipulating the moving image arose around the same time, and continued throughout the 1980s, with the developments in

85 broadcasting technologies like the vision switcher, and visual effects units like the locally developed (in Australia) Fairlight CVI.11 But it was this rise of the personal computer and – to a lesser extent – gaming consoles during this period that resulted in an explosion of activity from artistic communities, especially across the fine arts and the gaming arts. These were artists wanting to either explore these new media as a form unto itself, or to utilise these technologies as methods of controlling existing technologies such as laser-discs, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface)12 or Serial (RS-232)13 controlled devices, using software such as Apple’s Hypercard14, or its equivalent Scala15 on the now defunct Amiga operating system. The broadening and expansion of hypertext to hypermedia in the early 1990s enabled new media to be investigated by existing practitioners, as well as a new generation of artists entering the scene. This was partly due to the move from code based processing to graphical user interfaces for programming. This information – the programming that enables the action on screen/s, along with rules of interaction – is hidden away from the viewer / user, just as the mechanics of illusion – theatrical performance or projection – are hidden from a theatre or cinema audience; or how the clockwork mechanicals of the late 19th and early 20th century Edison peepshow were hidden from the single user. Instead of out-of-frame space being relative to the frame or time, another kind of out-of-frame was in play, as bits and bytes of code, hidden from the user. These bits and bytes offer contemporary media artists a multiplicity of new methods for creating visual space.

4.10 Enhancing visual space

Today media practitioners – in fine arts as well as the entertainment arts like television and gaming – work across a wide range of areas and media including interactive, genetics, telematics (for instance GPS and broadcast super-text), and the nano-arts. Conversely the media arts inform robotics, telepresence, data mining, design of virtual agents and mixed reality, to name but a few. Technologies like the data-base, augmented reality and spatiality, and locative elements like the environment, non-traditional cinematic time-frames and strategies are used to

86 describe, inform, cross reference and immerse us in new types of visual space. They do this in ways and forms of framing and montage that can now be presented outside of the traditional moving image paradigm of the fixed or petrified frame; ways only vividly imagined by previous generations of media practitioners. Tupac Shakur’s holographic performance alongside Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the Coachella festival16 in April of 2012 is one such example, a vividly realised representation of a long dead rap artist that would not be out of place on the holodeck of the Enterprise, as presented on the late eighties, early nineties science fiction show Star Trek, The Next Generation17. These thousands of lines of code have now replaced the phantasmagoria as the method of representing both the spirit world and reality, using an augmented visual space.

4.11 Augmented visual space

The ever-expanding methods and screen types offer new ways of experiencing these forms, even taking into account the constraints of the perception of the human eye. Broadening Jean Luc Godard’s quote that ‘movies are a world of fragments’18 beyond montage theory; it would seem that contemporary and future media technologies are more deserving as the true successors of the media that deliver on the representation of these fragments, of both these real and imagined, seen and unseen, worlds. Media is now a world of augmentations. An extension of these unseen worlds would be the use of meta-data – data about data, information about information – for creative purposing. The enhancement of media is limitless, and now exists across the whole of the media-making spectrum, from pre-production to production19, post-production and then to delivery. It can be achieved by a multiplicity of methodologies: by adding layers of additional media resources via multi-channelling; by the creation of multiple pathways and therefore non-linearities; by the adding of interactivity based on sets and subsets of information around the media asset; the introduction of the out-of-control in forms like randomisation; by the tagging of media assets, the delivering of additional information to an audience; and by the introduction of external randomised elements,

87 based on outside sources like the weather, the locative, and by user-generated content, via the re-mix. The rise of mark-up languages such HTML5 and its embracement as a standard across a range of devices offers methods of control and non-control of visual space unimagined a decade ago, albeit with similarities to those types of old media favoured by the archaeologist.

88 4.12 Mark-up languages and the creation of complex visual space

Some of these features – layering, multi-channeling, multi-pathways, the non-linear, interactivity, randomisation and tagging – have historical precedents. Media archaeologists such as Oliver Grau20, Erkki Huhtamo21 and Siegfried Zielinski22 have written extensively on the links between old and new technologies, which can be traced back a number of centuries. Technologies like the camera lucida and the magic lantern or the panorama and phantasmagoria have popular equivalents today. Activities like newspaper scrap-booking in the nineteenth century can be seen as an early example of data mining. As media technologies develop, new methods are found by practitioners to work with those technologies. The penny press in the early nineteenth century that allowed the mass production of the printed work and image leading to scrap-booking, has its modern equivalent in the re-posting of media (image, text, sound, moving image) via RSS, blogs, twitter and other social media. Pinterest extends this practice to include collections based on themes, presented visually as a virtual pin-board.23 Whilst many of these activities revolved around the hobbyist, they also have precedents in older media, particularly the moving panorama.

4.13 The moving panorama

Canvas panoramas of the nineteenth century are another example, and are of particular interest in a discussion of the use of the out-of-field. These may be seen as early examples of the techniques used in contemporary digital media, broadcast and cinema technologies. They are also fitting precursors to the centrifugal cinema screen, in the way they reconnect the relative screen space they isolate and prioritise to the unseen and absolute space extending indefinitely beyond their stages. The few surviving moving panoramas present their world and narrative spaces in one of two ways, as either a single seamless panorama or as a series of frames on the one piece of cloth. In the former – the biography of Garibaldi (1860) being an example – the narrative scrolls as a single landscape with pauses along the way for the story to be told. In the latter the panorama – such as Pilgrim’s Progress24 – is presented as a series of tableaus, the edges of each frame acting as the edit, as a single frame, presented to the viewer.

89 As mentioned earlier, John Banvard’s Mississippi Panorama25 of the 1840s could be read backwards or forwards. One could describe him in his performances as the narrator / conductor as an actual agent existing in the out-of-frame. Simply by reversing the narrative, his presentation could change to represent either a simulation of an adventurous journey up the river, on a voyage down the river with the next performance. He could also speed up or slow down the narrative based upon his audience response to the narrative. The majority of these canvases included physical tagging, either at the top or bottom of the frame. These tags were used as timing guides related to particular sections of the panorama, and to trigger events (as opposed to the virtual events of meta-tagging) and actions, both on and off the stage. These tags were usually in the form of red bits of cloth, which corresponded to red markers embedded in the narrator’s written text.

J.J. Story. (1860). Panorama lecture of the Heroic life and career of Garibaldi (screen capture)

90 These presentations developed and became more elaborate, other elements were added, including foreground diorama elements, to give a three-dimensional or parallax effect. Multiple panoramas – for instance either side of the audience – enhanced the impression of immersion. This was heightened by the placement of the audience inside props such as rowboats, and the aforementioned diorama objects, physical sprites, just as virtual sprites, were infinitely reusable. The moving panorama depicting the life and times of the Italian general and politician Garibaldi – one of the five or six remaining canvas works of this period – has one additional fascinating feature. The panorama is painted on both sides of the canvas. Side one depicts the first half of the famed Italian’s life, with the second half hidden from the audience – in other words cached, or preloaded. At the midway point of the presentation, flipping the canvas quickly to the other side, with the narrative continuing, reveals this. The added benefit of this is in the rewinding of the canvas to the first half to the beginning of the story, allow for an easier resetting for the next performance. Such panoramic techniques reveal significant issues relevant to the out-of- frame, particularly to the development of information delivery outside the frame.

4.14 Text in out-of-frame space

In these panoramas the text was presented by a narrator onstage but outside the frame, delivering information to the audience. Another example of the delivery of additional information is the development and delivery of closed captions for the hearing impaired, developed for broadcast television in the 1970s. This language developed into a set of descriptive short cuts, which also included descriptions that indicated nonscreen elements. These include characters talking offscreen; identifying particular offscreen characters and shifting from italics to roman text as these characters appear in frame. This super-text also worked in the description of sound elements, such as non-diegetic sound, or if music was playing, the type and genre of soundtrack. In the case of diegetic sound, sound that is represented as part of the concrete or imaginary space of the frame, it can describe what the source of the audio is. This was extended to ways of showing the direction of the sound source, for example of offscreen

91 diegetic sound or of music or characters, where the closed captioning would indicate the out-of-frame direction of that particular source asset, represented by arrow captions pointing towards the source. These signifiers match Burch’s six segments: left and right of frame, top and bottom of frame, behind the camera, and a visual block, say an actor talking but hidden within frame, for example hidden behind a tree or door that is in the shot. With media art representations and their multi-screen environments, these notions of frames and segments are separated.

4.15 Frames and segments: the work of Omar Fast

In the cinema the impression of reality is also the reality of impression, the real presence of motion.26

Omar Fast is an artist who works with the elements of impression, reality, motion, presence and the unseen. Fast is an Israeli-born, Berlin-based media artist who works across both single channel and multi-channel installations, focusing on works themed around representations of media and its ability to define a public or viewer’s perception of reality. He does this by remixing texts in order to discover the hidden, the unseen, and the imagined, within these fragments of the real. Fast first came to notice with his single channel work CNN Concatenated (2002)27, a remix of CNN’s reporting post September 11, 2001, using a data-base of ten thousand words to comment on America’s overconsumption of news media, as a metaphor for overconsumption in general. This had the effect of reducing or distilling the embedded text down to its essence, into what became an essay on the human body. ‘As a result, what is acknowledged is that the true master of the televisual medium is not the person in front of the camera, but the person who decides what the camera will reveal’.28 But it was with The Casting (2008)29, his multi-channel video installation – which I was lucky enough to first witness at the Whitney Biennial30 – that Fast started working with notions of fragmentation and the unseen, using self-generated content. Walking into a darkened gallery space the viewer finds a pair of images butted up against one another; a single frame made up of two smaller framed images, the fractured narrative, is told primarily in voice over, cutting between the screens. By

92 fractured I mean that there are three interlocking stories that are edited in such a way as to move seamlessly between each other. The first story tells of a romantic encounter, a date from hell which goes horribly wrong, whilst an American soldier is on furlough in Germany. This story parallel cuts between a second narrative about an incident that is horrific in the traditional sense of the word, which takes place whilst the soldier is stationed in Iraq. The third narrative takes place at a casting session for a film, with the soldier telling the first two narratives as part of the audition process. These screens are shot as tableaux vivants or living pictures31, the actors holding their positions, frozen as though they are waiting to be photographed, but still allowing for such movements as blinking eyes, the billowing of smoke, or the actor’s clothes as they rustle and flap in the desert wind. The reality of these worlds’ motion progresses in real time that is not over-cranked or under-cranked. The images also allow for traditional cinematic effects such as camera movement, tracking and panning across the frame. It is a process not dissimilar to what Barthes in Camera Lucida32 described as mortification33, where the actors freeze, posing as if they are having their photo taken. Another obvious reference would be Bazin’s idea of mummification, albeit in this respect to the temporal image, as opposed to Barthes and the embalming of the moment. Bazin extends this to the moving image, to change or variation, into a succession of frozen moments, which depict difference. Bazin is specifically describing images that are in some way true images ‘... of their duration, change mummified as it were’34 but, as in his earlier CNN Concatenated, Fast is not showing the full picture (pun intended) with these front facing frames. In this case the apparatus has less to do with Lacan’s concept of the mirror stage35 and is more about what lies beneath the surface, the caché, even if etymologically Lacan’s notions of projection, surface, site and integration36 seem relevant. It is a revelation of the mechanics of the work without simply being mechanical. It is akin to acknowledging and admiring the skills of the painter or sculptor by the close observation of their brushstrokes, the fingermarks intentionally left in the finished work. Or even those refinements evident in the programmer’s code. The true meaning is somehow revealed in these small details, these fingerprints left by the author.

93 If an audience member chooses to investigate the spatiality of the floating frames that make up The Casting’s construction by moving around to the rear of the screens, they discover a further construct. Hidden behind are another two adjacent screens, one depicting a mid-shot of the artist in the classic reverse angle of the interviewer, which faces the mirrored screen of the interviewee, in this case being the real voice of the front facing work.

Omar Fast. (2008). The Casting (screen captures of front and back screens).

Fast has, in a similar process to CNN Concatenated, cut up a series of interviews, reassembling and remixing the actual US marine’s stories of war in a way that seamlessly presents the tableaux vivants at the front as continuous stream / two continuous screens. In an echo of the Garibaldi panorama, this hidden reality – in cinematic terms Burch’s sixth segment – is reworked or data-mined to present the heightened narrative of the main frames. It acts as a clever magic trick, with the re- enactments of the front screen acting as petrified fountains of thoughts. Given the horrors depicted, petrified here works in multiples of definitions.

... we are forced to accept as real the existence of the object reproduced, actually re-presented, set before us, that is to say, in time and space. Photography enjoys a certain advantage in virtue of this transference of reality from the thing to its reproduction.37

But here in Fast’s work, the reality is cached from the atypical viewer who may not move all the way through the actual space of the gallery to the actuality of the media’s text, hidden behind the screen, but may instead stay with the metaphorical images, the memories depicted on the primary screens of The Casting.

94 4.16 The metaphorical image: the work of Luc Courchesne

Jacques Ranciere, writing on the metaphorical image, says:

The device of the installation can also be transformed into a theatre of memory and make the artist a collector, archivist or window-dresser, placing before the visitor’s eyes not so much a critical clash of heterogeneous elements as a set of testimonies about a shared history and world.38

Luc Courchesne is one such artist who deals with the metaphorical image and ideas around the frame (or lack thereof), from his Portrait One (1990) through Hall of Shadows (1996) and Passages (1998) to Immersion, Setting Sun (after Monet) (2010),39 in modes of representation that like so many artists working with digital technologies echo those nineteenth-century devices revered by the media archaeologists.

Luc Courchesne. (1990). Portrait One interactive installation. © ZKM. photo: Luc Courchesne

The bulk of Courchesne’s creative outputs of the 1990s revolve around ideas of portraiture, and often use a Pepper’s Ghost40 inspired device of an angled mirror reflecting video monitors. The moving image content of the works plays off laser-disc and allows user interaction. This is controlled by various computer systems – initially Hypercard. The interaction allows for conversations to be had with various characters

95 or portraits; these were usually shot against black, and took on the feel of a confessional. These sets of interactive testimonies, with their use of polished, highly reflective glass, subvert traditional ideas of the frame, specifically the cinematic frame, in which the figures, Phantasmagorias, seemingly float, ghost-like, in the void. Manovich refers to Prokhorov and his transparent and opaque definitions of screen41 and something similar can be seen represented here with Courchesne’s use of the onscreen pop-up to instigate and assist the user in their conversations with these virtual characters; although this is an interaction that is at best Eliza-esque42, reducing the relationship to that of viewer and actant.43 But here, as in computer and most console games, the body of the work becomes at the very least background to the menu. The usual convention in this type of work is to pause the body of the text (the game) and to hide it in some way, typically via the visual block of the menu (segment six). More recently, due to the increase in the processing power of Graphic Processing Units (GPUs) in computers and consoles, menu interfaces are now able to use cinematic devices, such as blurred focus, or Prokhorov’s ‘from transparent to opaque’.44 This is also one of the main design elements for interaction in Conversations, and will be discussed in Chapter Five. This represents a layering of data, of media, of information, and is reminiscent of other technological descendants of Pepper’s Ghost, such as the Heads Up Display (HUD) and the autocue / teleprompter. As reflective technologies, HUDs act as a visual block to the real world, whilst autocues act as a visual block to the camera itself, via their various levels of opacity. In the gaming world, these blocks (as menus) allow for user interaction, usually through textual input, but increasingly through new forms of interaction, such as gesture and speech control. These forms of interaction allow new forms of user input.

4.17 Interaction and user input

Many of these technologies – especially the latter ones – are also reliant on various forms of user input. Where menu interaction is required, the result is usually some form of response from the currently hidden application / media. This ranges from simple user options – selection of languages and subtitles – to customisation of

96 settings like screen resolution, to more sophisticated interaction like multiple narrative pathways. These types of interaction have become more and more sophisticated over the last few years, particularly with the introduction of networked devices, and now incorporate two-way interaction via technologies like data mining and social media, connecting threadlike across the inter-webs. With the addition of augmentation this mix adds the virtuality of an interface and its interaction on top of what is essentially a representation once removed, a frame of the actual places each user inhabits. Here the virtual representation is within the frame, the actual representation exists outside the frame. The concrete and the imaginary have flipped places.

4.18 Augmented reality and visual space

There are numerous augmented reality applications for mobile devices. LAYAR is one such application, which is, as its tag line claims, ‘a beautiful, fun augmented reality app that shows you the things you can’t see’.45 These applications combine aspects of data and social networking, RSS46, mapping, data mining and so on to overlay real time media elements over live image feeds, mapping media spatially relative to the existing space. Additional meta-data information such as GPS coordinates, elevation, meteorological information and horizon lines (presented as wire-frames) can also be overlaid and mapped onto existing structures within the actual environment. With this amount of detail and information controlled within this floating frame, the user decides what level of detail they wish to reveal from the hidden realities of what is out of and behind the frame. Like any other network device, these types of elements and interactions are not limited to either actual or virtual agents. LAYAR is fundamentally a compiler and interface for numerous augmented reality software, but it also lets users play classic arcade games like Space Invaders in such a way that the virtual agents or invaders are mapped onto actual live spaces, revealed and intercepted in-field as the user rotates around their environment. The frame is now unlocked and determined by the user. Manual DeLanda writes that the static conception of stability ‘ needed to be eliminated before the full potential of virtual environments could be unleashed’47, but perhaps the pure virtual is not enough for these dissipated systems, these

97 undetermined frames, and its real potentials are seen in these mixes and remixes of reality / corporeality, and virtuality. These remixes and reworking of elements like the point of view extend to other areas of game technology, for instance the First Person Shooter.

4.19 First person shooter and virtual space

A strong imagination creates its own reality, scholars say.... Tis very probable, that visions, enchantments, and all extraordinary effects of that nature, derive their credit principally from the power of imagination, working and making its chiefest impression upon vulgar and more easy souls, whose belief is so strangely imposed upon, as to think they see what they do not see.48

Michel de Montaingne, 1580, On the force of Imagination, Essays.

The style of Burchian block was popularised by the predominantly three-dimensional First Person Shooters (FPSs) of the early 1990s. The most notable of these came out of the company ID software, with their computer game Wolfenstein 3D49. After a decade of platform scrollers this became the template for the next generation of FPSs, both in style of game-play and in style of the framing device. These point of view framings can be traced back to Edwin Porter’s Great Train Robbery from 1903, with its framing of an actor pointing a pistol directly toward the viewer and shooting. In the case of computer simulation, a similar impact occurs in terms of affect, but now on the user as opposed to the audience. In a typical FPS this type of framing is reversed, as though you are the actor, firing from the actual world into the virtual world, the user’s point of view being that of the game environment, the gamer’s virtual arm gripping and using their various virtual weapons. These types of games have menu systems that pause the game, as Prokhorov has theorised. These menus are usually reserved for out-of-game options such as video, audio and interface settings for the gaming device – PC or console – and not those in-game textual information that denote, for instance, player score, health, positioning or ammunition levels, which are typically shown as overlay, not unlike the Heads Up Display. Early 3D platformers extensively used sixth segment devices when working with an out-of-field. Enemy combatants would appear from around corners, or as the

98 user moved around a corner. Alternatively they would be hiding behind barriers of various types. In the case of Wolfenstein it was castle doors. In the case of more sci-fi FPSs such as Doom or Quake it became the airlock. All of these games used the same gaming engine developed by ID software, but as other game engines developed, like the Unreal engine, they inherited many of the tropes established by these earlier games. The scene from Alien (as discussed in the previous chapter) can be considered a prototype for this sort of platform environment, especially in its use of the out-of- field, but it also has parallels in terms of the emotional impact and suspense that is triggered within the audience. As software, hardware and graphics engines increased in power and sophistication, adding extraordinary effects and realism, additional methods of working with the unseen were developed. These atmospherics included lighting effects: darkened corridors, faulty, flickering lighting that hid opponents within the frame. Enemies both real and those that were intelligent agents generated by the software now could attack you from all sides of the frame. This reflects Burch’s other five segments. These games also enhance their immersion by the use of sophisticated audio techniques, especially as these games moved from midi based audio to sample based audio. This combined with gaming and audio hardware such as surround sound used sound effects and music stings as motifs to represent unseen dangers, by placing that audio sonically, that is, spatialised. Depending on the level of sophistication, it gave the user an enhanced sense of location in that relative out-of-field. Both Eavesdrop and Conversations use audio as a method to enhance immersion (discussed in Chapter Five) through the spatialisation of their soundtracks to place unseen characters, props and actions in their environments. One relative aspect on this game-play is for the user’s character / agent / avatar to remain hidden from other agents whether virtual or actual, via what is known as stealth mode.

4.20 Stealth mode and virtual space

Counter-Strike Source (2004), a modification of the Half-Life Engine50, is a key example of such a stealth mode approach. It features teams of up to sixty combatants. Counter terrorists and terrorists are assembled in an online mode, and are given

99 opposing objectives, to plant or diffuse a bomb, or to prevent the rescue or complete the successful rescue of hostages. These objectives are to be completed within a given time frame, and are set in a diverse range of locations, scenarios as diverse as desert oases to snow-bound office buildings. Generally the programmers and designers at Steam51 develop these locations, but since its inception, user design modifications of these spaces have occurred on servers around the globe, using Valve software’s Source SDK, the Software Development Kit. These virtualities inhabit the relative space: there are limits to the play area that force interaction and the completion of the objective, compared to the open worlds of sandbox games. There are also limits in time based on the successful completion of mission’s objectives. All of these spaces feature a number of positions within the environment where players can hide from and lie in wait for, opponents. If one takes into account other participants’ viewpoints for one moment, it is the user’s avatar that becomes the out-of-frame, the unseen allay or hostile threat. If the user’s personal agent dies during the mission, there is the option of passively viewing the rest of the game from the point of view of the other participants, from both sides of the battle. In this case the POVs are taken out of the user’s control, but the ability to switch between a series of viewpoints – to the other players – remains. One variation of this agent is that of the use of an avatar within the virtual environment, where the user is represented as a full body entity within the virtual environment. This agent is usually portrayed with their back to the user, their faces unseen, as they navigate through environs, however via out-of-game menu options, customisation to these agents can take place. This mimics the landscape paintings of Friedrich, those works that feature lone figures, seemingly insignificant, viewing the vista before them. They reflect his composition but not just from a compositional viewpoint, they also reflect this thematically. Friedrich’s characters were often presented alone, facing overwhelming forces, albeit ones that were natural. Avatars in games such as those mentioned above are individuals also facing overwhelming forces, but seemingly invincible opponents. Network capabilities were then added into these game engines, which were later enhanced as distribution methods such as Steam shifted games from fixed

100 environments set within the data limits of the CD-Rom, to the open-ended and constantly evolving distribution methods enabled by the internet. Online modes were enabled, where instead of playing against virtual agents you could play against and interact with actual agents, in the form of other gamers and users, or in co-op mode, with and against others in teams. This online co-op mode of interaction – the largest and most open ended of which is World of Warcraft – has also morphed into online worlds that mix virtual space with social networking, such as Second Life, or proprietary technologies and experimental spaces, such as Home for Sony’s PlayStation network.52 Here the users are hidden from one another, presented as they are by virtual enhanced representative, the simulacra of their actuality. Or in the case of the Tupac hologram, presented as a Phantasmagoria, as an augmented spirit form. These types of imagery, these Phantasmagorias, of the seen and unseen, those set around the spiritual, seem to be a considerable focus for media archaeologists, artists and technologists working with and examining these technologies. Obviously this is partly a result of the technology itself, the limitations or rather restrictions set into these technologies. They are also informed by the types of work that the ancestors of these media tools and technologies presented, from Etienne Robertson presenting his ‘projected pictures of ghosts onto smoke and translucent screens in dark rooms’53 influencing works as diverse as Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride, to the sublime Tales of the Bond Store54 exhibition which premiered at the launch of the Museum of Sydney in 1996. They are also present in Eavesdrop and Conversations that form the basis of this dissertation, discussed in the following chapter.

4.21 Conclusion: complexity of interactions

There has been a rapid shift over the last two decades in the way users and audiences create and interact with framed media, the types of devices that utilise this interaction, and the way in which the user is represented on screen. It is seen in the rapid development of interfaces, from the mouse to the dataglove to the gesture-based interaction of the Kinect. It is also evident in the way media artists work with such technologies, from strips of film, to reels of videotape, to lines of computer code.

101 Part of this is Moore’s Law and those rapid increases in the processing power of CPUs and GPUs in computing, which have now trickled down into smart devices and consumer electronics. It is also in the rapid development and increasing sophistication of programming languages, from C++ to Java and now HTML5, that allows for new complexities of interaction and immersion, locally and also via the network. This also involves the move from an analogue or photochemical acquisition to digital acquisition and presentation. With linear technologies the language of the out- of-frame, spatiality and temporality developed slowly, as part of screen culture. These new innovations allow for infinite methods of dealing with spatiality and temporality that rewires and informs our notions of the framic, interaction and immersion, of the offscreen. These methodologies and technologies form the background research for Eavesdrop and Conversations, by delineating the way the out-of-frame can be evoked in virtual space. Its evocation is no longer dislocated from the concrete space within the frame. Rather it forms part of an expanded and more complex sense of visual space and grammar, that includes the seen and the unseen, the in-frame and the out- of-frame.

1 Blake, W., 2008. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. University of California Press.

2 Hofmann, Werner. Caspar David Friedrich. Thames & Hudson, 2000.

3 ibid.

4 ibid.

5 Not only that, 3D models of his works are bought and sold as popular design elements within the virtualised space of Second Life.

6 A Proposition is a Picture 1992 on Vimeo (WWW Document), 2010. URL https://vimeo.com/13005236.

7 Cocteau, J., 1961. Esquire. Esquire.

8 Doomed to repeat their actions, as such they are linked thematically to the places and characters that inhabit Eavesdrop and Conversations, the projects to be discussed in Chapter Five.

9 Portapak – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Portapak.

10 For example the Fluxus Movement’s use of magnets to affect the image on cathode ray tubes.

11 Fairlight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Fairlight.

12 MIDI – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. . URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ MIDI.

102 13 RS-232 – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ RS232.

14 HyperCard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Hypercard.

15 Scala, Inc – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Scala,_Inc.

16 Resurrection rap: Tupac hologram knocks ’em dead at Coachella (WWW Document), 2012. The Sydney Morning Herald. URL http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/resurrection-rap-tupac-hologram- knocks-em-dead-at-coachella-20120417-1x4ep.html.

17 Murray, J.H., 1998. Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. The MIT Press.

18 Talk:#Jean-Luc Godard – Wikiquote (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/ Talk:Jean-Luc_Godard.

19 For example moving image acquisition now has the ability to tag media using meta-data prior to post production. Tags can include elements like time and date information, scene and take names and numbers, lens information such as f-stop, and whether the take was good or not.

20 Grau, O., 2004. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. MIT Press.

21 Kluitenberg, E., Zielinski, S., Sterling, B., Huhtamo, E., Carels, E., Beloff, Z., Druckery, T., Akomfrah, J., 2007. The Book of Imaginary Media: Excavating the Dream of the Ultimate Communication Medium, Pap/ DVD. ed. NAi Publishers.

22 Zielinski, S., 2006. Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means, illustrated ed. The MIT Press.

23 Pinterest / Home (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://pinterest.com/.

24 The panorama has recently been restored and is at the Saco Museum in Maine. http:// www.sacomuseum.org/panorama/.

25 Louis, C.A.M. of S., Ravenswaay, C.V., Leonard, H.S., 1950. Mississippi Panorama: The Life and Landscape of the Father of Waters and Its Great Tributary, the Missouri : with 188 Illustrations of Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Photographs, Bank Notes, River Boat Models, Steamboat Appurtenances and the Dickeson-Egan Giant Moving Panorama of the Mississippi. City Art Museum of St. Louis.

26 Metz, C., 1990. Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. University Of Chicago Press.

27 The Center for Digital Art – Video Archive - CNN Concatenated (WWW Document), 2012. URL http:// www.digitalartlab.org.il/ArchiveVideo.asp?id=344.

28 Lessig, L., Yeo, R., Gordon, D., Breitz, C., Fast, O., Grey, M.J., McCoy, J., McCoy, K., Gordon, D., Marclay, C., Pfeiffer, P., 2004. Cut/Film as Found Object In Contemporary Video. Milwaukee Art Museum. p. 24.

29 Lutticken, S., Michalka, M., Fast, O., 2008. Omer Fast: The Casting, Bilingual. ed. Walther Konig, Koln.

30 2008 Whitney Biennial: Omer Fast – Whitney Museum, 2008.

31 Wikipedia contributors, 2012. Tableau vivant. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

32 Barthes, R., 1982. Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, 2nd ed. Hill and Wang.

33 ibid. p. 12.

34 Bazin, A., 2004. What Is Cinema? University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles. pp. 14-15.

35 Lacan, J., 2007. Ecrits: A Selection. Psychology Press.

36 Pettigrew, D., Raffoul, F., 1996. Disseminating Lacan. SUNY Press. p. 343.

37 ibid. p. 60.

103 38 Ranciere, J., 2007. The Future of the Image. Verso. p. 25.

39 courchel.net (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://courchel.net/

40 Pepper’s ghost – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper’s_ghost.

41 Manovich, L., 2002. The Language of New Media. The MIT Press. pp. 207-208.

42 Eliza was an automated reply application that developed out of research by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT in the 1960s.

43 Biocca, F., 1991. Television and Political Advertising: Volume I: Psychological Processes Volume Ii: Signs, Codes, and Images. Routledge. p. 63.

44 op cit. Manovich. p. 207.

45 Layar (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://www.layar.com/

46 RSS – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ RSS.

47 Dixon, J., De Landa, M., 1998. Virtual Environments and the Emergence of Synthetic Reason, in: Virtual Futures: Cyberotics, Technology and Post-human Pragmatism. Routledge. p. 67.

48 Montaigne, M. de, 1910. The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne. Forgotten Books. p. 132.

49 Celebrating 20 Years of Wolfenstein 3D – The Game That Started It All (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://www.wolfenstein.com/.

50 Now ported to the Steam engine on the Valve network.

51 Welcome to Steam (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://store.steampowered.com/.

52 PlayStation Home - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Home.

53 Zielinski, S., 1999. Audiovisions: Cinema and Television as Entr’actes in History 1st ed., Amsterdam University Press. p. 45.

54 Gibson, R., 1996. The Bond Store Tales, Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.

104 Chapter Five: Eavesdrop and Conversations

5.1 Escaping the frame

This chapter explores the experimental component of my doctoral research: a number of multi-planer works which incorporate non-traditional framing techniques and multi-modalities. It focuses on the projects Eavesdrop and Conversations, which provided innovation in the areas of panoramic, interactive, multi-layered narrative and virtual environments. I undertook the cinematographic design and post production in Eavesdrop and the cinematography, cinematographic design, video editing, and compositing in Conversations. The Eavesdrop digital monograph includes a documentary on Eavesdrop, alongside other elements I shot and developed for this dissertation. I also designed and constructed the digital monograph Conversations the Parallax Effect, which includes a 20-minute documentary on the project that I wrote and directed. Both are presented as part of this thesis, along with the disc of additional support materials, including a 3D fly-through of Eavesdrop. Working across a number of roles over the course of the production of these works, including the areas of cinematography, design and postproduction proved both challenging and rewarding. Both allow for non-linear interaction, whereby multiple layers of assets exist unseen, till called up by the user. These projects offer an alternative and innovative representation of the offscreen space of Burch – his six axes – whilst dealing with notions of the concrete and the imaginary as per Bazin via Aumont. They also echo Deleuze’s notions of the out-of-field, of the relative and absolute in the out-of-field and those tenuous threads that sometimes link these spaces. In doing so they explored how the out-of-frame can be reformulated for media as providing a new dimension of meaning, informed by the media histories outlined in Chapter Four of this dissertation. This type of interaction and immersion has been previously unavailable in traditional analogue technologies with a fixed frame.

105 5.2 Background to the projects

The chief investigators for Eavesdrop were Melbourne theatre director David Pledger and media artist Jeffrey Shaw, a leading exponent of technology-based art installation. In the case of Conversations, the chief investigators were: artist and director of the iCinema Centre, Dennis Del Favero; filmmaker and media theorist, Ross Gibson; Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Ian Howard; and Jeffrey Shaw. A production team that included doctoral students (including myself), iCinema support staff, software developers, actors and various production crew numbered in the dozens, with a total production time from initial development to presentations of two years for both projects. Both these projects are the realisations of tens of collaborators, all with a common goal. As the producer of Eavesdrop explained in Experimentas journal Mesh:

They say that film is the director’s medium and television the producer’s medium… But unlike those media, when it comes to exhibiting the finished piece, the mechanisms for recognising the work of creative collaborators are largely non-existent.1

Whilst sharing some technologies, the presentation, interface and interaction of these immersive works are worlds apart. My work across a number of roles over the course of the production of these works, including the areas of cinematography, design and postproduction, proved both challenging and rewarding. This was despite my having extensive experience in these particular roles, and having had some experience of working with interactivity in my previous studies and in my teaching practice, although not on the scale of these projects. Numerous technical and creative challenges were encountered in dealing with these works that are either completely frame-less or where the frame is user controlled. Whilst at the time of production the technology existed,2 to capture 360° panoramic, moving images, the type of performance-based work involved in these projects meant that alternative methods needed to be developed. My production and post-production background, along with my research interest and pre-existing knowledge of data-base-driven narrative, proved invaluable to the realisation of these ambitious projects.

106 Both of these projects required new ways of thinking in regards to the treatments of their framings, their temporalities, their acoustics, and their coding. They reflect new methodologies in cinematography, post-production and data-basing, and in the research issues around their use in the realisation of offscreen space, the impression of offscreen assets, and the creation of offscreen meaning. This dissertation also reflects the research shift that has taken place over the last decade, during the course of my doctorate studies.

5.3 The problem of the frame

My initial area of interest was in methodologies that artists and filmmakers adopt and adapt when dealing with non-temporal material and media. The focus was to be on those media that require some degree of data-basing, those files that are the containers for meta-data. These are works that include elements of interactively, randomisation, immersiveness and multi-channelling. This includes those media that can be distributable via online and disc-based methods, as well as media that are large-scale and in situ, such as installation. At the start of my research this material was easily discernible from the media of traditional moving image works, due in part to limitations in elements like resolution and graphics capabilities. Over the last decade all of the processes of media, from pre-production to production, post-production and distribution, have undergone a revolution that seems comparable in part to the revolution of the written word after the development of the printing press. It is due to the trickle down effect that these digital technologies become accessible to the masses. This has been aided by the move from analogue and photochemical tools, to creation technologies that are digital. This has enabled new methods of process, the way that these works can be made in collaboration. No longer do collaborators need to be in the same room – they can now work globally. Your producer could be in London, your director in New York, your editor in Sydney, and your programmer in Berlin.

107 It also offers new ways for the audience to engage, in the way that the user or viewer now experiences these emergent formats in, for example:

· the move of the collective cinema experience to the lounge room experience · the move from the games arcade to the gaming computer, thence to the gaming console · the move from a localized environment to the network environment · and the exponentially shifting nature of the type and size of screens that we use to engage with these media.

Eavesdrop and Conversations can be seen as responding to these moves, and providing engaging and creative responses to these shifting technological formats.

5.4 The shift in technological formats

This research developed and morphed, based upon the collaborative projects. Firstly it evolved into issues arising in the production of polyphonic narrative structures and the methods of developing such media. Secondly it flowed into the use of the frame in non-traditional, post-directorial temporalities – media works outside of the tradition established by cinema and television, but which inhabited many of the same narratives and tropes. This follows Manual DeLanda’s argument that we are moving away from the static and self enclosed single systems to an dynamic and multiple open systems, from monological to dialogical,3 to layering and fragmentation of media, from monophonic to polyphonic structures.

5.5 Monophonic to polyphonic structures

By polyphonic I mean media that uses multiple streams of audio-visual media and meta-data for its user and viewer experience. This shift we are currently going through in the way media is used is not just structural or dyadic, whereby similar media types run concurrently – it is also cultural. In this case, the everyday use of media is undergoing a transformation comparable less to the development of the printing press, and more to the development of a technique like musical counterpoint, where different instruments, notes and melodies are written and performed together. Just as we moved from the monophonic to the polyphonic structure in music, our interaction and experience of all forms of media has also shifted, due to the rise of

108 the data-base. This was covered in part in the preceding chapter, where I looked at media works that used and engaged polyphonically. One can also see examples of this shift in consumer technologies. Development of the DVD-Video4 specification in the mid-1990s allowed for multi-channelling of audio-visual data-base information through interaction, usually through the use of remote control. Consumers could now navigate menus and media non-linearly. They could jump between streams of media. By using the angle, audio and subtitle buttons of their remote, users could now switch between multiple video, audio and subtitle layers, effectively remixing the original work in up to 2,304 variations.5 Additional programming allowed for streams and chapter points to be randomly accessed and played, removing editorial, author and user control completely. These changes seem to be addressed appropriately at the authorial level, in the process of distribution and delivery of media. But when it comes to the pre-production and production levels of creation, the lack of appropriate tools and assets of production for media means that creative methodologies are needed to hack the available tools and assets, for instance in the appropriation of game authoring technologies such as Virtools, the software platform used for both Eavesdrop and Conversations. In turn these new methodologies impact on the treatment of the frame.

5.6 New methodologies and the frame

One problem of this shift, this revolution, is that it has yet to be reflected adequately in some of the production processes of convergent media work. Developing these works requires polyphonic authoring environments. For example, whilst video editing applications allow for non-linearity, they do not allow for projects to be edited that are multi-linear. However, there are a couple of workarounds. The closest we can get with these programs is via the repurposing of their stereoscopic support, which enables two streams to be seen side by side. Instead of each frame being set aside for parallax versioning of the same viewpoint, the channels can be used for works that are more divergent. Another method is to use the applications multi-cam feature, used for the cutting of events, though this is only really of use in the checking of relationships of

109 streams to each other, that is how they sit when viewed simultaneously, polyphonically. This shift also requires the re-thinking of traditional production roles, in particular those roles traditionally considered authorial – the writer, the director, the director of photography, and the editor – roles where traditional linear media work is said to be made. This is a new world, where the contents of the frame and the way that they are organised are not authorial, not locked in place. It is a post-directorial world where innovative methodologies to writing, directing, shooting and editing are necessitated, and where those other crew roles will become much more significant. Such a post-directorial world also contributes to the way the out-of-frame is approached.

5.7 The floating frame

It was with these methodologies in mind that Eavesdrop and Conversations were approached. That they were all panoramic and data-base driven was coincidental to the original proposal. They are radically different in both their approaches to the panoramic and in their representation. They also differ in their stylistic approach to the out-of-field, their mise-en-scène, and montage. They have different approaches to user interactions, data-basing and meta-data, and the various enabling hardware and software. But they all share one thing: an innovative approach and representation of out-of-frame space via the use of a floating frame. Their floating frames depict fractions of larger, spatialised and vividly realised environments, what would have been considered the out-of-frame in the analogue world. They also present a multi-linearity of assets, fields of view and points of view, using various methods of authoring and interaction. They do this using floating frames and environments, and they include assets that run in tandem and in counterpoint to those which are represented. Through immersion, interaction and impression they are able to represent much more – that which is vividly unseen, and which is vividly implied. These two projects developed as part of my research program are informed by a project I post-produced in 2003, an installation entitled proXy.

110 5.8 proXy

The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently—like the effect of a fog or moonshine—gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance.6

Carl von Clausewitz, 1832, On War. proXy was a project that directly influenced and preceded Eavesdrop and Conversations. It helped develop many of the skills and workflow solutions needed for the large scale, multi-channel, data-base driven projects that were to follow. It helped to re-wire my conceptions of linearity, of what constituted the framed space, and of what constitutes the edit. Its structure is as a multi-screen installation, one that has a multiplicity of aspects and points of view, both physically and within its content. It presents two sides of the story, but as in The Casting (discussed in Chapter Four) we do not get to witness these views concurrently.

It was also an installation project that came about by incident, rather than accident or design. Sydney-based theatre director Rachael Swain had received a development grant from the Australia Council7 to research and develop a dance work that addressed and explored non-indigenous relationships with place and country. Part of this grant was to go towards working on the dramaturgical aspects of the work with Andre Lepecki, who would act as a mentor in New York.

Rachael arrived in New York for this mentorship on September 10, 2001. As the events unfolded in the following days and weeks, Rachael and Andre started an extensive process of documenting the area around Ground Zero. The particular location in focus was around the area where makeshift noticeboards were established, especially those featuring head-shots of the missing victims. With approval from the Australia Council, the themes and content of the development shifted to address and reflect on these events, with the project morphing into what eventually became the multi-channel installation proXy, which exhibited at the Performance Space in Sydney in 2003.

111 proXy is a work that reflects and responds to ‘the onset of devastation, personal drama, violence, shock and media noise.’8 In contrast to the US representations of grief and loss, newsreel footage was acquired from a number of media sources around the globe, for example of the US invasion of Afghanistan that followed 9/11, in November 2001. Additionally, cloud footage was shot, which was used as a divisive element, breaking up or disturbing what were three distinct acts of the work.

Rachael Swain and Andre Lepecki. (2003). proXy.

The installation consisted of two large, intersecting irregularly shaped screens. The first screen was twelve metres long, the other nine metres, with heights varying from a metre and a half to three metres. These panoramic screens were reminiscent of both a cross and an evocation of two buildings lying on their side. Irregular in shape and frame, the screens were also presented at an obtuse or askew angle to the viewer, that is, the screens were not perpendicular to the floor of the gallery. The faces of the missing persons are presented initially as a polyptych, spread over the larger of the screens, with the smaller screen dedicated to panoramic material from Afghanistan. The end of each act is signalled by an explosive act – each of the screens collapse into the centre of the work. The audience is momentarily left in

112 darkness and confusion. Over the course of the three acts this material becomes increasingly abstracted with the images seeping between the screens. The polyptych, initially presented as a sharp or defined frame, dissolves away in the abstract and undefined. Lines and framing conventions become not so much blurred but obliterated, over the course of the twelve-minute loop of the work. Given the size and layout of the screens, the viewer could only ever see three of the four image streams at any given time. The other out-of-field stream is perceivable purely as a fog of movement, which shimmers through the translucency of the projection material. Viewers were aware of it spatially as they walked around the structure, and depending upon its relative stream they had an idea of its content, not as a mirror, not as a reflection, but as an indicative or impression. ‘Fog of war’ is an expression implying ambiguity of situation and information, but here, through the use of physical structure and barrier of construction, it is made concrete, albeit opaque. The three distinct three-minute acts were separated by one minute of cloud material. These clouds were superficially representative of calm, but were colour graded in post-production in such a way as to be reminiscent in part of twilight, and in part of raw meat. They also work symbolically as a prelude – the calm before the (desert) storm. These are the empty skies over Manhattan and the calm over Kabul. Unseen forces are at work in that relative offscreen space, with their arrival represented onscreen in the sudden implosion to nothing, to black, which eventually resets itself for the next act.

113 Rachael Swain and Andre Lepecki. (2003). proXy. proXy presented a number of research challenges given the scale of the work. For starters the size of the work meant that it fitted the ground floor of the performance space with barely a metre to spare. But there was also the technical challenge of working across what evolved into four separate video streams. These screens needed not just to sync up throughout the course of the work, but included imagery that was constantly flowing between screens. I ended up developing a method loosely based upon notation or scoring for music whereby each of the four streams and their relationships to one another could be viewed, composited and edited. This was then projected virtually onto a three-dimensional computer representation of the screens, so as to check for synchronisation issues. Once approved by the rest of the collaborators, the four movie files were then encoded and sent to a media server for delivery and playback. This methodology developed for proXy proved for Eavesdrop and Conversations that a basic methodology for perfect synchronisation of media across frames existed, albeit a synchronisation sans interaction.

114 Gregory Ferris. (2012). Eavesdrop (3D render).

115 5.9 Eavesdrop

The Doll: Is that woman lookin’ at us!?

Tibor: I do believe she is. Don’t take any notice of her, and don’t make a scene.9

The creation of proXy and the lessons and processes that were developed during it were assisted by the initial discussions I had with iCinema co-director Jeffrey Shaw and Melbourne-based theatre director David Pledger in mid-2003 regarding a new installation project. The project would be multilayered with a principal series of interconnected narratives. Each of these narratives would include additional media assets that enhanced the main stories through back-stories or other esoteric trajectories.

Gregory Ferris. (2004). Eavesdrop panorama (stitched rendering).

This project would end up becoming the world’s first panoramic, interactive, immersive and multi-linear narrative film, entitled Eavesdrop, and would go on to premiere at the Melbourne International Arts Festival at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in 2004. Eavesdrop would then go on to further exhibition at the Brisbane (2004) and Sydney (2005) Festivals.

5.10 The structure and narrative of Eavesdrop

Eavesdrop works within a hardware configuration and software engine initially developed by Jeffrey Shaw for his work Place, A User’s Manual (1995)10. It used a circular projection screen where the user-controlled field of view is panned via a rotating platform in the centre of the installation. The whole of this moving panorama plays during this interaction, but the user’s field of view / point of view is focused via the rotation of the mechanical platform, and the framing of the widescreen projection.

116 Unlike the canvas panoramas of the mid-eighteenth where the panorama scrolled to match a narration, in Place and Eavesdrop, it is the user who scrolls and who decides on the focus and frame. This structure would go on to serve as an inspiration and prototype for AVIE, the world’s first 360° stereoscopic immersive interactive visualisation system. It is set up in the Scientia building at the University of New South Wales, Sydney Australia, and is where versions of Eavesdrop and Conversations can still be viewed. Eavesdrop features a multi-scenario narrative written and directed by David Pledger. There are seven different scenarios that play out in the same 360° surround space. These scenarios take place over the course of approximately nine minutes, and include one character – a waiter – that appears and disappears across six of these scenarios. These channelled narratives play out in a literal-metaphorical space, a purgatorial place, with the waiter acting metaphorically as play on words. These characters have been waiting in this place for a very, very long time. Characters interact, react and acknowledge between scenarios, and in one example wave at one another across the crowded room.

The characters are all caught in a loop wherein they are doomed to repeat the last 9 minutes of their lives. Each narrative (life) emphasises a spiritual, moral, ethical, psychological or physical landscape: a young man tries to escape the suburbs, a minor celebrity wrestles with his conscience, an elderly couple work out how they might end their lives, a political activist is intent on a new revolution, two young boys enact negligence upon themselves, a woman uses cosmetic surgery to find an identity, a middle-aged man is undone by the grief of unrequited love.11

In the travelling version of Eavesdrop, the user is presented with a navigational section of the panorama. They control the specific section of the work they are viewing, at any specific point of the narrative. In other words the user controls their field of view, their focus, and are able to pivot their view across the seven scenarios. The soundtrack is also spatialised and focus-able over twelve channels so that all the characters’ audio is spatially correct in the environment. The user is always aware of the location of all of the characters, even if they are not within the frame – the Eavesdrop frame works ‘… like a mobile mask according to which every set is extended into a larger homogeneous set with which it communicates’12 as per

117 Deleuze’s Movement-Image, whilst still conforming to Walter Murch’s ‘three- dimensional continuity of the actual space’13. Murch was describing actual space in terms of the edit, but the continuity of screen space and offscreen space (the hors- champ), is crucial to the selling of the cylindrical, panoramic space of Eavesdrop as much as it is to classical cinema. Here the user, using a rotating platform and wheel interface, becomes director, cinematographer and editor, deciding that which is seen in the frame and when other viewers in the space see in relation to other parts of the work. And like the sculptor, they also decide what to leave out, what is to remain hidden, cached. This is achieved through interaction through the use of a rotating platform, gaming style buttons and zoom control.14 This rotating platform allows layers of interaction between diverse visual spaces to occur.

5.11 Layers of interaction

Layers of interaction are introduced whereby users can zoom in, crop and recompose onto the characters. At a certain point in this zoom the image is designed to fade. This is according to the cinema or theatre convention, which is to go to black. We are now in the interior world of Eavesdrop’s characters. Images appear and we get a number of short cached15 linear movies that reveal the back-stories, the private lives, of the various characters that feature in the main channel, the moving panorama. These narratives are also spatialised so that they appear on an axis relative to the main film. These vignettes – shorts within the larger panorama – offer the viewer/user insight to the current plight of the character. Their present world purgatory dissolves briefly away to reveal hidden memories, desires and horrors. In this structure hundreds of years of cinematic and theatrical shorthand add to a user’s literal, physical and metaphorical insight. This places the user, hauntingly, metaphorically and spatially, as an eighth character set within this purgatorial space, physically out-of-field but relative to the virtual framed space. There is also the connection that people make with the characters in Eavesdrop, both in the story contained in the panorama, and their back-stories, beyond that of simple spatial and framing concerns. Part of this is set up by directorial mise-en-scène, and part of this is created in post-production. The panorama itself

118 concludes with a major event whereby over a short period of time the previous nine minutes of the lives of the characters are dramatically linked and rewound. The panorama resets, and these characters are forced to repeat these moments of their public narratives over and over. This temporal mode shares similarities in the way the viewer experiences the frame with that of canvas panoramas like that of Banvard’s Mississippi. Here, audiences were aware of not just the point of view but also of the journey to come, and everything was located even when not in frame. It is also shares many structural similarities with the early technologies of mise-en-scène. The field of view of Eavesdrop is similar to Banvard’s, as is the scale of both works, with the panning speed controlled by the user. Both offer metaphorical journeys. Banvard’s Panorama of the Mississippi River is an enhanced narrative journey of the landscape of the river, whilst Eavesdrop offers a narrative that ‘emphasises a spiritual, moral, ethical, psychological or physical landscape’.16 As mentioned in previous chapters, these scrolling canvases were often presented as immersive experiences. Audiences were surrounded, or immersed, giving the impression of actual place. This impression was aided by the use of dioramic elements to give the sense of depth to the illusion. I was brought on board Eavesdrop in its early stages to consult, research, and develop a workflow for production. The plan was to shoot the main narratives as one event using a panoramic camera system developed by Jeffrey Shaw at the Centre for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe.17 This was a series of surveillance-style cameras arrayed in a panoramic sweep, recording to MiniDV recorders. I realised that this would prove problematic for a number of technical and practical reasons. Firstly the resolution and image (the DV compression) of this setup was not of a high enough quality to allow for high-end compositing. Secondly, there were fourteen actors undertaking performances over seven different scenarios. This would require the lighting of the entire set, as well as the complexity of successfully miking and recording of the fourteen actors to individual channels. This would mean that lighting and sound recording would have to be hidden somewhere in the set or location18, via the use of practical lighting19 and radio microphones, or that these devices would have to be part of the mise-en-scène.

119 Finally and most importantly, the performances of the actors would need to be perfect within all the scenarios, which would make it difficult or near impossible to achieve the perfect take. This required innovative approaches to the recording of these scenarios involving segmented scene production and integrated scene post- production.

5.12 The stream-play

Based on my research after reading the scenarios / scripts,20 I developed a process to shoot each of the scenarios separately, which would then be stitched together in post- production. As the control of lighting and framing now became an imperative, I also suggested that the setting be switched to a location where staging could be under a controlled situation. This was subsequently shifted to the National Theatre in Melbourne. It was also at this stage that I became responsible for the creation of the panoramic movie elements of Eavesdrop, along with the work of editing the internal ‘films’. The stream-plays featured a number of interactions between characters both within their own space as well as across the staged environment. The character of the waiter wandered in and out of the frame of each of the scenes, often existing co- currently across scenarios.21 These characters are placed evenly around the space, seven sets of characters in the 360° environment. The cinematographic process was as follows. The director of photography Michael Williams created a locked platform for the camera, with the camera’s22 focal plane directly over the axis of the tripod. Each of the scenarios would take place in a field of view slightly over 50° enabling the final total of 360°. I would monitor staging and performance so that it stayed within the middle of this frame. The focal distance of the lens would then be set for the duration of the shoot, and would be wide enough to allow for overlap and stitching. After a successful test run in the shooting space, Pledger further developed and refined the scripts to include additional interaction between each of the scenarios. I was able to take these scripts, and using the same multi-modal approach of proXy, rework them using a musical notation method. Instead of the four streams of proXy we now had seven.23 These streams would – at certain points – sync with each other in a number of different combinations. A number of methodologies were needed to

120 trigger responses by the actors at the appropriate time as well as to connect certain streams to each other. One of the scenarios of Eavesdrop is that of a band playing24, which is acknowledged by the rest of the scenarios over the course of the action. In a number of the scenarios characters dance in response to the music, others sing along. My solution was to shoot the musical performance first, and then play back this soundtrack in the subsequent shoots using hidden earpieces on the actors. Time code generated from the performance take would be the master for the rest of the week’s production, which would be slaved to it. I would then be able to sync each scenario within an edit timeline prior to stitching. Thus this initial scenario became the offscreen motivation for the additional streams. Another scenario, entitled Post-Op, features a character encased in a metal frame, the apparent result of some blotched plastic surgery. A medical monitor displays her vital signs, blood pressure and heart rate. This character stares directly across the implied space, where the Tibor and the Doll scenario spatially occurred. The line ‘Is that woman lookin’ at us!?’ refers to this character. Over the course of the three acts this character starts to cry, the only response capable for this performance as she is locked within this cage of her own making. The implication is that this scenario’s woman is the living doll of the other. In order to connect these two streams together I created a mirrored version of Tibor and inserted it in post-production into the medical monitor. Whilst the Tibor streams references Post-Op, through its screenplay and performance, the latter links across framic space through both gaze and through the post-directorial, through editorial and post-production technique, through a post mise-en-scène. The innovations in the process of recording these scenarios carried over into what ended up being the most difficult part (for me) of the project: the creation and animation of the panorama itself, involving the integration of the numerous virtual spaces into one unified immersive panorama.

121 5.13 The immersive frame of Eavesdrop

Other devices were developed during production and post-production to further sell the illusion that we were looking at one complete environment, one single immersive panorama. For both the test and actual shoot I set up a portable edit system that could capture a direct video feed from the camera, so we were able to test the stitching process as the shoot went along, and see if there were any performance issues that would hamper the stitching process, for instance hands moving out-of-frame. In the instance where the performance in a take was so strong, but the actor’s hand moved across the stitching area, I ended up rotoscoping25 the hand that aided in the illusion of a seamless whole. Another scenario featured a character smoking and blowing the smoke sideways. I ended up shooting pickups of smoke against a black background which I composited onto the panorama, giving the illusion that the smoke wafted across the scene into the next scenario. Given the shooting methodology, we could also make subtle shifts in some of the lighting between scenes, darkening some areas, lightening others, in order to create the illusion of spatiality. I also got the director of photography to shoot background plates of each locked scenario to aid in compositing. At the end of the panorama part of the shoot, I also got him to capture various close-up shots of elements that may have been useful in post-production. These compositional elements, production and post-production, combine to add additional meaning above and beyond that implied or created in direction. Each scenario is compositionally separated from the others by the use of vertical lines in the staging such as columns of drapes. Some of these were setup in the staging, other I added in post. This classic mise-en-scène device implies that characters are separated, if not physically by space, at least emotionally. Where the National Theatre did not have pre-existing verticals, columns were brought in to act as both stitching aids for the panorama as well as symbolic separators. These characters are trapped within the entirety of this purgatorial space but are also trapped within their own scenarios. Symbolism was also rendered post-directorially as signifiers for user interaction.

122 5.14 Entering and exiting panoramic space

These mise-en-scène elements also served purposes in relationship to user interactions. Whilst the user controls for the floating interface used symbols to represent control options, other visual elements were digitally incorporated. For instance, the PLACE visualisation structure of the cylindrical screen as developed by Shaw has – in order to make it as installable in as many situations as possible – an open gap in the screen, to enable entry to and exit from the work.

Place: a uses manual (1995) emphasises both the similarities and differences between various technologies of navigation. In these works, Shaw evokes the navigation methods of panorama, cinema, video, and VR. But rather than collapsing different technologies into one, he ‘layers’ them side by side; that is, he literally encloses the interface of one technology within the interface of another… A panorama interface is placed inside a typical computer space interface. The user navigates a virtual landscape using a first person perspective characteristic of virtual reality, computer games, and navigational computer spaces in general.26

In the stitched movie of the nine-minute take, an exit sign has been digitally inserted into space, matching the physical exit of the space, a virtual representation of an actual way out. It also acts as one denotata to the characters, including the user as a figure immersed. It is the escape from Eavesdrop’s relative purgatory, out into the unseen, absolute space outside. In Eavesdrop, performers were limited not just to a certain section of the sides of the frame, but had limits in the depth they could perform in. This was partly due to the camera position, the lens and the lighting conditions. It was also to allow for certain effects to take place, like the disappearing and reappearing waiter. The performance therefore had certain limits placed upon it, based upon the requirements of delivery and framing that were outside of the directorial. As each of the scenarios also required that the camera be locked off for the duration of each take, the framing of the individual streams became reminiscent of the framing convention of early cinema, with its limitations on lighting, editing, camera and a deep depth of field. The final result was a continuous image that wraps the PLACE and AVIE environments perfectly. AVIE is,

123 … the world’s first 360° stereoscopic projection theatre. Its 120 square-metre circular screen surrounds the audience and provides the conditions for a completely immersive three-dimensional cinematic experience.27

AVIE allows for other potentialities of interaction with the material generated for the project.

5.15 Post interactive version

The panorama of Eavesdrop is indeed seamless and has since been re-purposed for other panoramic devices including that of AVIE, where it can be presented, sans interaction, in the round. Here the viewers (as there is no user control, per se) have as their vertical framing constraint the top and bottom of AVIEs screen. But horizontally, the users have only the constraint of their own limits of perception – at least until they perceive the edge of the exit / entrance of the AVIE space. Unfortunately, it has yet to be presented in the round in its seamless entirety with interaction. This creation of seamlessness in Eavesdrop, its continuity of vision including the onscreen and the offscreen, aided in the creation of the subsequent project, Conversations.

124 5.16 Conversations

RYAN: What would you call it -- the movie of my life?.. When you see a wall or a door, when you see something stopping you … you’ve gotta wonder what’s on the other side!... The thing that constrains you, it can be the thing that excites you28.

The narrative of Conversations is based on historical events,29 the story of Ronald Ryan and his escape from prison with his partner, Walker in 1965. A prison guard was shot dead during their escape, allegedly by Ryan. Questions still surround Ryan’s guilt, and his subsequent death by hanging, the last person in Australia to receive the death penalty.

Conversations. (2004). Ryan is caught. (screen capture).

Conversations attempts to respond to these questions in a method reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon,30 that is, through a multiplicity of imagery and unreliable witnessing. The characters throughout Conversations are metaphorically and physical evasive, eluding both the users’ questions and, in some cases, the very frames they inhabit. The initial seed of the project were in early 2003, just after the start of my doctorate program.

125 5.17 History of the project

Conversations started pre-production in 2003 in parallel to Eavesdrop. It’s an immersive multi-narrative that explores the out-of-frame within two distinct 360° stereoscopic worlds where multiple users control their points-of-view. These panoramic environments inhabit a layered space that the user can navigate and switch between. The bulk of the production and post-production work took place in 2004, and included the shooting and compositing of thousands of video assets, along with the programming of the interactivity. Fine-tuning of these assets and interaction took place in early 2005, based on audience previews of a prototype. The digital monograph Conversations, the Parallax Effect, a DVD-video that I authored and developed, was released in 2006. This monograph included my documentary of the project, behind-the-scenes documentation, and an examination of characters and video sequences that featured as part of the project. It also included printed essays by Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis.31 The introductory essay best summarises the work.

Conversations is an experimental Distributed Multi-User Virtual Environment forming the central focus of an Australian Research Council funded study investigating the reformulation of narrative within digital cinema. It offers viewers an immersive multi-modal interactive narrative experience dealing with the events leading up to the escape, recapture, trial and hanging of Ronald Ryan... It allows viewers “to inhabit the landscape of the escape, to experience the confusion of the crime scene first hand; then it enables us to encounter the key protagonists of the subsequent trial. Instead of being presented with ‘facts’, viewers are asked to negotiate the historical landscape themselves, to draw conclusions from their encounter with both the scene of the disputed events and the opinions of the characters who dominated their aftermath”.32

Conversations consists of a number of distinct environments that work as documentation, reenactment and through engagement with its users.

5.18 From viewer to viewer / user

Conversations consists of two very distinct virtual worlds, a world that is a reenactment, followed by a ghost world. Viewers start with a cinematic device of a

126 linear prologue, featuring archival footage mixed with text elements, superimposition and newspaper mockups that set up the narrative of the virtual environments to come. The prologue of the digital monograph accompanies this dissertation. The interactive sections of Conversations begin for the viewser33 with a re- enactment of the Pentridge Prison escape, presented as a non-interactive 360° panoramic film. With this interaction there is no concrete frame, rather the frame is floating with every movement of the user’s head via a HMD (Head Mounted Display), which tracks the user’s head position horizontally and vertically, matching and mapping the 3D image in their displays to that of the virtual environment. This film is single channel and stereoscopic. The user control is limited to circling around to view the 360° re-imagining of events. My role in the production of this involved the cinematography of the various assets, compositing and positioning the assets against stereoscopic still photographs of the actual prison.34 It also involved the creation of digital assets such as 3D modelled vehicles, set extensions, and enhancements such as the removal of the tripod legs from the background still of the panoramas of Pentridge Prison.

Conversations. (2004). The viewed and the viewer. The Head mounted display being tested.

(video still by Gregory Ferris).

The HMD consisted of stereoscopic LCDs (one for each eye), surround sound enabled earphones for immersive sound, and a GPS device to detect head positioning on the X and Y axis. The Z axis was controlled via gaze – looking at an object for any extended duration drew that object (usually a character asset) to the user. The lack of resolution of the HMDs assisted in covering many of the imperfections of this panoramic opener, so much so, in fact, that a number of users were convinced that the work was

127 shot on location in Melbourne. We also had to be particularly sensitive during the production of the reenactment, as opinions over who was actually guilty of firing the fatal shot (killing Hodson, the prison guard) during the escape were varied. The notative path for this sequence ended up being much simpler than that of proXy and Eavesdrop. Instead of starting at the beginning of a timeline, as is the case in the traditional editing and compositing structure, the fatal shot was the origin point for the assembly of the panoramic film. In this way I was able to work both backwards and forwards from this time – event and image – frame, giving a multiplicity of possibilities. Three of the characters inhabiting this temporal and framed space were capable of actually firing the fatal shot. This huge panoramic short film was rendered as an image sequence, to be incorporated as an asset in Virtools,35 the authoring system used for Conversations. The main method of interacting with this spatialised environment is via a head- mounted stereoscopic audio-visual display. This enables the viewer to not only navigate and interact in a 360° horizontal plane36 but also 360° vertically. The headset display presents a field of view approximately that of human perception, and uses axis detection to change the user’s angle based upon their head movements, up, down, left and right. If one was to use cinematographic terminology, panning and tilting, the user’s head becomes the camera, and their gaze becomes the zoom or track. There is no implied ‘… presence of an offscreen space containing the person’s unseen or “cut off” portion’, as described by Jacques Aumont.37 Looking straight down, the user simply sees the ground, rather than some avatar-like representation, as though the user is incorporeal, a ghost in the machine. This motion image is also stereoscopic, the final work reminiscent – due to the parallax – of a view-master. This world is rendered to the user as fragments that are called up based upon the user’s point of view. The software takes this ultra high-resolution image and fractures it, breaking it down into smaller, more manageable frames for processing. As the user / viewer pivots around the reenactment, only those sections of the frame in and around their field of view are cached. If the user moves their head the corresponding framic areas are loaded into memory, and the non-adjacent frames discarded.38 If one follows the Burch model of offscreen space, the discarded frames are still regarded as concrete

128 once they inhabit the viewed frame, despite no longer being cached. Enhancing this worldview is a spatialised soundtrack, which was modelled at Sydney University’s CARlab. Audio assets are attached and tracked to events and characters as they move around this Conversations reenactment space, as well as sonically moving in space reflecting the actions of the user. After this reenactment level is completed,39 we transition via that most traditional of cinematic devices, the cross-fade, into the second world, a spirit level, the world of the phantasmagorical.

5.19 The phantasmagorical

This is the ghost world, which is made up of thousands of intelligent individual short video clips. These combine to present this layer as a cohesive world of characters central to the Ryan case. It includes police detectives, prosecution and defence lawyers, witnesses, Ryan’s mother, a prison chaplain, the hangman, Premier Henry Bolte, prison officers, Hodson’s ghost40

Conversations. (2004). Hodson’s ghost. (cinematography and compositing by Gregory Ferris). and finally Ryan and Walker themselves. These characters can be called up by users and interacted with, along with a number of virtual objects / assets relevant to the case and narrative. The work is nodal, so multiple users can inhabit these two worlds and interact not just with the ghosts, but also with each other, and are represented in this virtual world as wire frame avatars. Users engage with these characters using voice recognition, and with other users via Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). The user /

129 avatars become both witnesses to the events as well as confidants with the assets / characters, as well as other users.

This doubling of vision creates a cinematic effect, where one is both identified with the avatar (the self as protagonist) and identified as a director who manipulates or animates the avatar from ‘offscreen’ with commands on the computer. The avatar becomes a synthetic actor, a doll, or a mask, as others have observed. With only a limited range of gestures, expressions and emotion such as smiling, waving, frowning, laughing, dancing, hitting and jumping, the avatars’ visible behaviors are carefully scripted and constrained. This means that, unless one has the privilege (as a programmer) of inventing new actions or avatars, one’s bodily self-expression is reduced to a fairly narrow repertoire.41

These two worlds offer both a version of escape and a versioning of the aftermath, that is partly narrative by the virtual inhabitants of Ghostworld. But panoramic representations of escape are not new, as this thesis has already established.

5.20 Historical precedents

One of the most famous of the Banvard era moving panoramas mentioned in chapter four was that of the fugitive slave Henry ‘Box’ Brown. Brown managed to escape from a plantation in Virginia in 1849 by posting himself to freedom in a packing crate to Philadelphia, where he became the toast of the Abolitionist community.42 Someone suggested to Brown that he could make money by telling his story and the story of slavery in the form of the moving panorama, and so he did in a semi-fictional account entitled the Mirror of Slavery, which he later took successfully to Europe.43 Other artists use the idea of the unseen to expose hidden or unpalatable histories. Kara Walker is an African-American painter, filmmaker and installation artist who works with silhouette images, cut from black paper as her primary aesthetic tool. This 19th century aesthetic is used to great effect on works dealing with issues of oppression and slavery, often to shocking affect. The horror produced by Walker’s imagery is heightened as the audience is left to fill in the blanks, or the black, within these outlines in this case. Impact is also created in her diverse modes of presentation. These include cylindrical panoramas on a scale similar to Place / AVIE, where the spectator enters, becoming immersed in the horrors of the period. It also includes her 16mm film installations like Song of the South that unpacks the Disney film of the

130 same name in order to reveal the hidden truths of racism in the deep south.44 Of course parallels in theme and modes of presentation can be made between Walker’s panoramic work and that of Henry ‘Box’ Brown with his Mirror of Slavery moving panorama of the 1850s. This presented the horrors of slavery to promote the Abolitionist movement, as well as his personal narrative – his escape from slavery by hiding and shipping himself off in a small wooden box. Conversations has a number of parallels with these old media, and those media discussed in earlier chapters. It also shares many of the tropes of new media, through its interface, interaction and design.

5.21 Field of views

Conversations shares many of the conventions and technologies of the game engines mentioned in the preceding chapter. It is a distributable, multi-user virtual environment that features unique viewpoints for each of its users. It allows for voice interaction between participants allowing socialisation and features spatialisation in both vision and audio. There are technical similarities in the ways these immersive worlds are cached, represented and rendered, and in their utilization of conventions within software and hardware technologies that are traditionally used in game design and visualization. The way the onscreen display offers choices in interaction in the Ghost World is modelled on the popup menus in computer gaming, as outlined in the preceding chapter. Conversations as a prototype provides an alternative to traditional gameplay and is a mix of ‘the trans-spatial and the spiritual, a duration which is immanent to the whole universe, and which does not belong to the order of the visible’.45 Theoretically, Conversations reflects on the rise of digital media, which ‘has led to a decline in the use of traditional single layered narrative and loss of cinematic representation’.46 These emerging multi-layered virtualities also offer opportunities in the depiction of onscreen and offscreen space. This is relatively easy to argue in regards to temporalities in the media arts, and the corresponding decline of linear fine art models such as avant-garde and experimental cinema, the possible exception being the resurgence of underground and outsider cinema. At this moment it is less apparent

131 in contemporary cinema,47 but research projects such as Eavesdrop and Conversations are pointing to innovative and exciting approaches to narrative through their non- traditional systems of framing, interaction and presentation. This new mode of representation is also framic. The cinematic representation referred to here is not just in relation to the move from monological to dialogical, from monophonic to polyphonic, or from linear to non-linear. This move to digital capture and playback has also enabled the framed-space flexibility of form. Motion assets such as Quicktime movies are no longer limited to the aspect ratios of broadcast and cinema. Notions of what constitute absolute and relative space, of the in-frame and out-of-frame, are now as flexible as the sandbox. The addition of interaction enables user-controlled variation in cinematographic behaviours such as the aspect ratio, point of view and – with the increase in power of the graphics processor – focus. Notions of pre-determinist and emergent are not limited to just the multiplexity of these newer media forms, but also unlimited in the field of views of this media.

5.22 Conclusion

The introduction to the text, Conversations the Parallax Effect, is subtitled Immanence and Eventfulness. This seems to imply both ideas around a divine presence and events that fascinate and enter the public’s subconsciousness. Both Eavesdrop and Conversations present virtual spirit worlds devoid of linearity. Both play out like interactive dreams, and like dreams, both are void of fixed frames, spatiality and temporality.

The digital, in contrast, is conceptualised as non-linear, or a process that flows, like the air, in any direction simultaneously. This monological explanation – the reduction of narrative and the digital to the spatial and its attendant logic of the linear, on the one hand, and the non-linear on the other – reduces narrative to a mono-temporal process and the digital to a temporal process. In other words, the linear is conceived as a something exiting within a single time, while the nonlinear is conceived as something existing outside of time. This monological explanation fails to account not only for the multi- temporal character of digital narrative, but also the workings of conventional narrative itself.48

132 Whilst Eavesdrop and Conversations do not offer the spatial and temporal sophistication of, say, gaming worlds with their multi-million dollar budgets and their potential infinity of space through the sandbox, they offer us a way of reflecting on narratives, events and points-of-view that may question our own personal points-of- view, in the physical sense but also metaphorically. Both reference the traditional forms of the framic space, the cinematic. They present as interactive immersive environments. Their use of the floating, user controlled frame allows for new ways of thinking and reacting to space and the out- of-frame. They do this by integrating the out-of-frame into an expanded and complex visual space that can be navigated by the user. Their immersive approach to the visual world allows the user to move in-between and across what were previously segregated cinematic spaces, now folded into one panoramic yet highly differentiated space.

133 1 Thiele, M., 2005. Profile: Eavesdrop Project. Mesh, p. 17.

2 Albeit with output resolutions that were too low to produce satisfactory outcomes.

3 As mentioned in the Conversations monograph, from Virtual Environments and the Emergence of Synthetic Reason.

4 DVD-Video – Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia (WWW Document), 2012. URL http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/DVD-Video.

5 The specification allowed for up to nine streams of video, eight of audio and thirty-two of textual information, in a single multiplexed file within the disc. The numbers of multiplexed files on each disc were only limited by the size of the disc, single layered being 4.7 GB and Dual layered 8.5 GB.

6 Clausewitz, C.V., 1997. On War, Wordsworth Editions.

7 Gallasch, K., 2003. In Repertoire: A Guide to Australian New Media Art. Australia Council for the Arts.

8 Swain, R., 2003. proXy. Australia Council for the Arts.

9 From the shooting script of Eavesdrop, by David Pledger.

10 Place-A User’s Manual : Jeffrey Shaw (WWW Document), 2012. . URL http://www.iamas.ac.jp/ interaction/i97/artist_Shaw.html.

11 Note from the shooting script.

12 Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image. University of Minnesota Press. p. 17.

13 Murch, W.; C., Francis Ford # (Foreword by), 2001. In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing, Los Angeles: Silman-James Press. p. 18.

14 This is detailed extensively in the video documentation.

15 In computer terminology where digital assets are pre-loaded in memory so as to enable instant playback where needed.

16 ibid. Pledger.

17 ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (WWW Document), 2012. URL http:// on1.zkm.de/zkm/e/

18 David Pledger had an early draft of the seven scenarios that make up the panorama, with the idea that the location be an actual nightclub or café.

19 Lighting that appears within the frame as a prop, for instance a lamp.

20 I eventually started to refer to these scenarios / scripts as streamplays.

21 Again this would have been impossible with the original staging.

22 Eavesdrop was shot on Digital Betacam so as to aid with compositing.

23 Coincidently both projects have what could be regarded as three acts.

24 The Ennio Morricone Experience.

25 Hand painting and animating a mask.

26 Manovich, L., 2002. The Language of New Media. The MIT Press. p. 112.

27 Bartscherer, T., Coover, R., 2011. Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts. University of Chicago Press. p. 228.

28 From the streamplay of Conversations by Ross Gibson

134 29 Scripted and directed by Ross Gibson, who also developed the structure of the characters' interaction with the user.

30 Kurosawa, A., 1951. Rashomon.

31 McQuire, S., Papastergiadis, N. & ICinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, op cit.

32 ibid.

33 ‘Viewer User’ is a term developed during production by fellow doctorate researcher on Conversations, Keir Smith.

34 These were reworked for the interactive section, the Ghost World.

35 Virtools is primarily used in projects such as Gaming and Virtual reality.

36 as per Eavesdrop.

37 Aumont, J. et al., 1992. Aesthetics of Film, University of Texas Press.

38 I have included a visualisation of this phenomenon in the documentation on the Conversations DVD.

39 This world’s duration is a little over two minutes in length.

40 Hodson was the prison guard who was killed.

41 Hall, J., 2006. Visual Worlds. Taylor & Francis US. p. 120.

42 The American movement established to abolish slavery in the 1860s.

43 Ernest, J., 2008. Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, annotated ed. The University of North Carolina Press.

44 Kara Walker | Main | Exhibition History browse (WWW Document), 2012. . URL http:// learn.walkerart.org/karawalker/Main/ExhibitionHistory

45 Deleuze, G., 1986. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, University of Minnesota Press. p. 17.

46 Anon, Project Overview. Available at: http://icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/conversations/project- overview/ (Accessed April 11, 2012).

47 Current experimentations with 3D and 48 frame per second frame – rates notwithstanding.

48 op cit, Conversations the Parallax Effect.

135 6 Conclusion

Oliver Grau, in Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion, writes on spatialised illusions:

On the one hand they give form to the all-embracing ambitions of the media- makers, and on the other, they offer the observers, particularly through their totality, the option of fusing with the image medium, which affects sensory impressions and awareness. This is a great difference from the non-hermetic effects of illusionistic painting, such as trompe-l’œil where the medium is readily recognisable, and from images or image spaces that are delimited by a frame that is apparent to the observer, such as the theatre or, to a certain extent, the diorama, and particularly television. In their delineated form these image media stage symbolically the aspect of difference.1

The central aim of the doctoral research was to investigate the relationship between the out-of-frame and the visual space experienced in media arts. It does this by exploring how the out-of-frame has been conceptualised and how it can be re- formulated as an integral component of the visual experience. It then tests this reformulation, through the projects Eavesdrop and Conversations. These are convergent panoramic works that employ floating frames, which are user controlled and panoramic. These are delineated from the static frame of the cinema or television through their experimentation with spatiality, immersion, interaction and layering. The thesis has examined how these projects use their media assets to create senses of place, character and meaning using conventional framing but also out-of- framing techniques. These projects do this through mise-en-scène and montage that is non-framic, post-directorial and post-editorial. Created not on the production set, nor in the edit suite, they are generated in a radical elsewhere, as in the lines of command software code that introduce elements like randomisation, user navigation, multiple pathways, and access to databases. In its examination and discussion of linear media, the doctoral research focuses on that which is meaningful in the out-of-frame, a topic which has attracted little research to date, the conceptual writings of Deleuze and the formalist approaches of Bazin and Burch notwithstanding. This thesis looks toward mise-en-scène and montage as traditional methods in which to impart place, character or meaning

136 onscreen. This framed space is the primary focus of film theorists when they discuss meaning. The thesis’s primary focus is on the unframed, and how it can achieve similar meaning across conventional and non-conventional media. It explores historical precedents for these spatialised media, in pre-cinema technologies such as trompe- l’œil and the nineteenth-century spatialised illusion of the moving panorama. It looks at the out-of-frame in the cinematic, and how this can create place, character and meaning. The thesis applies this research in the out-of-frame to post-cinematic media and their interfaces, tracing the development and the use of the out-of-frame in technologies that are database-driven. These are traced from the consumer level – such as gaming technologies – to the expanded immersive media environments of Eavesdrop and Conversations. It does this by examining enabling technologies – metadata, tagging, gesture control – and how these assist to define meaning in offscreen space by using polyphonic structures, such as the layering of assets. Works like these that are polyphonic require new methodologies of authoring. No longer is media set via directorial intent. It is flexible and fragmented, a world of fragments to re-quote Godard. Media is now linear and non-linear, passive and interactive, distancing and immersive. It is data-based, spatialised, and expansive in both the cinematic and the non-cinematic. It is an exciting time to be involved in the media arts, both as a producer and as a consumer. Media has increased its interactive abilities, starting from simple remote control protocols, to network capabilities and gesture control. Simultaneously, we have seen a proliferation of digital devices that are, thanks to Moore’s Law, infinitely more powerful than the systems that originally sent men to the moon. These devices are networked, open, social systems: augmentable, able to merge the actual world with that of the virtual. They do this through the layering of assets, over virtual environments for example, frames over frames. These devices are gateways to the sandbox, and the open worlds of gameplay. This is indeed a radical reframing and fragmenting of media. It is in this area that I see this research being applied. I have a number of projects in pre-production that are influenced directly by the research outcomes of this

137 doctoral research. The thesis also offers what could best be described as threads for additional research revolving around media archaeologies, such as the late nineteenth century fad of the magic play. I also plan to expand on the use of the out-of-frame in certain texts outlined in the thesis. For example I’d like to research and present further on The Departed’s use of Burch’s six segments to create meaning. I also believe that there is additional research to be done in virtual representations of old media, such as the moving panorama. These canvases were designed to travel and be presented, and the idea of the virtual presentation of such archaeologies is of some appeal. I’ve started discussions with Peter Morelli at the Saco Museum about one such project, using the Pilgrims Progress canvas that was discussed in chapter four. In the years since the completion of Eavesdrop and Conversations, the tools that enable the authoring of such media – MaxMSP2 is one such object basic application that affects sound and image through interaction – have become readily accessible. The movement from C++ programming to object-based programming has made the creation of interactive and immersive media more viable to media artists. The media world may be fragmented, but its fragments are interrelated, as I have tried to demonstrate through the concept of the out-of-frame and its relationship to the other elements of visual space in media art.

1 Grau, O., 2004. Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion. MIT Press. pp. 13-14

2 What is Max? « Cycling 74 [WWW Document], 2012. . URL http://cycling74.com/whatismax/

138 7 Appendix

7.1 Documentation materials

The scope of the research is mirrored in documentation included with this dissertation. Both Eavesdrop and Conversations have been published as digital monographs, as DVD-video discs, both of which I authored. The disc Eavesdrop includes: interviews with the chief investigators; documentation of the Powerhouse Museum installation that was part of the 2005 Festival of Sydney as well as a multi-channel, multi-angle version of the seven scenarios that feature as part of the main panorama. It has since been published by Contemporary Arts Media1. Conversations2 also includes a twenty-minute documentary on the work that focuses on the initial exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney in 2005, and features interviews with the chief investigators as well as key crew. A third disc offers digital versions of this thesis, in both epub and pdf formats. It also includes an ancillary folder of support materials, a 3D fly through of Eavesdrop; images and videos, tagged and searchable by chapter and meta-data. The disc also includes the associated publication by Scott McQuire and Nikos Papastergiadis, The Parallax Effect.

1 http://www.artfilms.com.au/Detail.aspx?ItemID=4568

2 McQuire, S., Papastergiadis, N. & iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, 2006. Conversations the Parallax Effect, Paddington, NSW: University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts.

139 7.2 Eavesdrop treatment and shooting script

EAVESDROP © david pledger 2004 shooting script

Scenario

Eavesdrop is a multi-narrative mediation of psychological states in around the theme of moral inertia. The stories take their cue from middle Australia and talk around, speak to, allude and confront a certain condition of morality.The characters are all caught in a loop wherein they are doomed to repeat the last 9 minutes of their lives. Each narrative (life) emphasises a spiritual, moral, ethical, psychological or physical landscape: a young man tries to escape the suburbs, a minor celebrity wrestles with his conscience, an elderly couple work out how they might end their lives, a political activist is intent on a new revolution, two young boys enact negligence upon themselves, a woman uses cosmetic surgery to find an identity, a middle-aged man is undone by the grief of unrequited love. The stories play out in a literal-metaphorical space, at once a club and a purgatory. Some of the characters have been here a long time, and their familiarity with their surroundings is telling. Others have only just arrived and they play their immediate passing over and over again in search of some flicker of awareness. The stories are interconnected through their unity of time and place, and in some cases there are direct narrative cross-overs with the characters. A band plays throughout the 9-minute duration, and the patrons are obliged to participate in singing-and-dancing choruses. A waiter provides a unifying presence in all the narratives and sometimes he is simultaneously present in several of the narratives. He is the agent of a space that is the central character of the project. Special to this space is the ability to enter into the private, interior landscapes of each of the characters. These interior landscapes convey a compressed sense of the emotional states the characters are experiencing. Get too close to any of the characters and the spectator will be bumped into this interior life without warning.

140 In this way, Eavesdrop is intended to work on three layers: the interior landscapes of the characters, their public narratives, and the engagement with the spectator through the simple interactive medium of zoom and pan functions on a platform-module that the user employs to navigate the space.

141 SCENARIO 1 Tibor and His Doll

ACT 1 @ 0:00

Tibor is sitting down at a table made up for dinner – a white table cloth on which is arranged a silver service setting. Tibor is middle-aged, with the bearing of an old-style gangster, refined but brutal. He is dressed formally in a dinner suit. He is meticulously manicured down to plucked nose-hairs.

Tibor’s dinner guest is a large-ish Doll whose overall appearance, size and scale is reminiscent of a ventriliquist’s doll. The Doll is dressed like a young woman, quite stylish, ready for an evening’s entertainment.

The Waiter is fussing over the dinner setting. He is very much ‘in attendance’. With respect to The Doll, his role is active. In the ensuing conversation, The Waiter alters The Doll’s physical positions according to the responses the dialogue requires. The Waiter speaks The Doll’s lines.

Tibor It’s a full house, tonight.

The Doll What a smart place! Isn’t that that minor celebrity?

Tibor Certainly is.

The Doll This is a flash joint for a morgue, as they say.

Tibor And who says that?

The Doll You do, honey, you do!

They laugh out loud at their in-joke. The Waiter adjusts The Doll’s head so it appears to be guffawing. Tibor takes the photo-opportunity.

Tibor Hey, baby, smile! You look great!

The camera flashes. Tibor and The Doll appear to be looking directly at Brazil sitting on the opposite side of the Club (Scenario 4). From their POV, it appears that she is looking directly at them. The Doll takes offence.

The Doll

142 Is that woman lookin’ at us!?

Tibor I do believe she is. Don’t take any notice of her, and don’t make a scene.

The Doll Okay, all right.

Tibor raises his glass.

Tibor To us!

The Doll does the same.

The Doll Wonderful band!

Tibor Wonderful musicians. Wonderful music.

The Doll A perfect combination for the evening’s celebrations.

Tibor A perfect evening for a combination of celebrations.

The Doll Touche!

Tibor To you!

Another round of guffawing. Tibor takes another photo-opportunity.

Tibor Smile! You look great!

The camera flashes. They stop again as the woman across the way has caught their eye, catching theirs.

Tibor Don’t say a word.

The Doll Cow!

Tibor Behave yourself! This is a respectable place.

143 The Doll Mad cow! Tibor Will you please control yourself? Look away! Simply look away!

The Waiter slowly turns The Doll’s head back to the dinner table.

Tibor I am trying to avoid a scene.

The Doll Why is she staring at us?

Tibor Perhaps she has nothing better to do.

The Doll With a face like that it’s hardly surprising.

The Band starts up the chorus of Track 1. They sing with animation perhaps even do a little physical routine they have worked out.

SCENARIO 1 ACT 2 @ 3:00

Tibor and The Doll resume their positions, Tibor facing The Doll, and The Doll gazing at Brazil.

The Doll Do you think it’s me?

Tibor Now, now, I won’t have that kind of talk.

The Doll Is it so strange that we are having a quiet dinner together? Are we such a strange couple? The two of us?

Tibor No. I won’t accept that.

The Doll begins to cry.

The Doll It’s because of me, isn’t it? Because I’m so…different?

Tibor

144 No, it has nothing to do with you. And you’re not different. You’re just you. I love you just the way you are. You’re my living doll!

The Doll I can feel everyone looking at me. Silence as the characters in each of the scenarios are motivated to observe or check each other at the same time. Perhaps, even the band stops playing.

The Doll You see what I mean.

Tibor I know where this is leading and I won’t follow.

The Doll (beat) It’s because you don’t love me.

Tibor (resisting) No, I won’t, I won’t follow.

The Doll It is, isn’t it? You don’t love me. That’s why you’ve brought me here tonight. To break it off!

Tibor Is that what this is about? Do you honestly think that I do not love you? After all that we have been through together, my little timber-top?!

The Doll’s sobbing gets heavier. This spurs on Tibor even more . During the speech, The Waiter de-materialises. As he does so, The Doll’s sobbing abates.

Tibor I love you. I have always loved you. My love for you has never been in doubt. But you have always expected me to prove myself in the most diabolical and unfair ways. It must stop! If you have not accepted my deepest feelings for you now then I know I can never satisfy you. I promised my shrink I will not shoot people for you. (patting his breast pocket) My little friend will remain right here, tucked away. I just want a pleasant evening. No drama.

Tibor waits, expecting a reply. The Doll does not move. Tibor takes a photo of The Doll.

Tibor Smile! You look great!…Alright….Okay?

The camera flashes.

145 Tibor Alright….Okay?

Tibor lets out a long breath.

Tibor Am I to simply sit here and absorb this aggression from you? Pretend that none of this is happening, that it is all some abrasion going on inside my head? Am I to punish this poor woman to prove my love to you? I tell you, once and for all, that type of behaviour no longer happens.

The Doll is silent. Tibor thumps the table.

Tibor I will not submit.

Tibor thumps the table again.

Tibor I will not, will not, will not submit!

The Waiter enters, and restrains Tibor by catching his arm in full swing. Tibor, horrified at what he has done, leaves the table in distress. The Waiter picks up The Doll and takes her to Tibor who embraces her passionately. He gazes in adoration at The Doll and slowly waltzes with her. The Band plays the chorus of Track 2.

SCENARIO 1 ACT 3 @ 6:01

At the end of the dance, Tibor gives The Doll to The Waiter who returns it to its seat facing Brazil in Scenario 4. Tibor resumes his seat and takes a long pull of the glass of wine on the table.

Tibor I would really like to apologise for my outburst. If you could erase what I said from your memory, you would be doing us both a great service.

The Doll Done.

Tibor You are too kind. I am in your debt.

The Doll Good. She won’t stop looking at me. Do something about it.

Tibor concentrates on maintaining composure.

146 The Doll If you don’t, I will kill myself.

Tibor Don’t say that. The Doll I will. I will kill myself.

Tibor Don’t say that.

The Doll. I will.

Tibor (slowly) Alright. Alright. Alright. I will try.

Tibor stands up.

Tibor (clears his throat) Look, I’m terribly sorry. I wonder if it might be possible for you not to stare at us so. It’s a little rude don’t you think? Our situation may be a little unusual but I can assure you there are stranger things in this world.

The Doll Like a stare-person.

Tibor (to The Doll) Yes, alright, shut up. Or I’ll kill you myself.

The Doll Really?

Tibor (to The Doll) No, no, no. (to Brazil) Do you think you might…? You’re upsetting my friend quite a lot?…..(to himself, about Brazil) She looks strangely familiar…can’t possibly be…(turns to The Doll)

The Doll Ugly cow! You fix her. You fix her right up.

Tibor realises he has taken the bait, and catches himself.

Tibor Same old. Same old, huh?

The Doll Yes.

147 Tibor Why?

The Doll That’s just the way it is.

Tibor Why?

The Doll It just is!

Tibor Have you considered she finds you attractive?

The Doll No.

Tibor Is that so impossible?

The Doll Yes.

Tibor Why?

The Doll Because if she finds me attractive, that would mean she finds herself attractive, and that can’t be right, can it honey? Because she’s an ugly cow! Isn’t that what you think?

Tibor You are a mean piece of wood!

The Doll If you say so!

Tibor I’m not starting.

The Doll Too late. It’s already started.

Tibor My head will explode before I do this.

The Doll

148 Time is against you.

Tibor I will not do this.

The Doll Well, if you won’t then I will. I’d like a glass of water, please.

The Waiter assists The Doll with her drink..

Tibor I will not do this, and I will not let you do this!

The Doll I want you to know there are no hard feelings. Pick me up, please!

The Waiter picks up The Doll.

The Doll You have one last chance! Otherwise I will do what you should do but do not have the courage to.

Tibor No, don’t do this, please. I can’t help myself. I beg you. Don’t.

The Doll (to The Waiter) I wish to address the Woman who keeps staring at us. Please take me to her!

The Waiter takes The Doll, and as they back away from the table, they de-materialise. Tibor shift his gaze directly at Brazil.

Tibor No, no, no, no. Don’t! Don’t change. I can’t help myself! I love you just the way you are. I can’t help myself…

Tibor remains fixed in his chair. He sees The Doll place a gun at the head of Brazil (Scenario 4) and watches as the gun goes off. Tibor implodes.

There is a bright white flash.

END: 9:00

LOOP Tibor is sitting down at a table made up for dinner – a white table cloth on which is arranged a silver service setting. Tibor is middle-aged, with the bearing of an old-style gangster, refined but brutal. He is dressed formally in a dinner suit. He is meticulously manicured down to plucked nose-hairs……

149 EAVESDROP: Tibor Tight close-up of The Man’s head as it flings violently from one side to the next morphing with The Doll’s head. (ref: Francis Bacon / Sexy Beast)

The Doll Trees being cut down

SCENARIO 2 Shimmer

ACT 1 @ 0:00

Charlene is sitting on a two-seater lounge. A coffee-table is pressed in hard towards her, causing her knees to bunch up. On the table is a newly brewed pot of tea with accompanying cups and saucer. Across from her is an empty chair. She looks around the club nervously, as if waiting for someone but not sure which direction they will choose to make their entrance.

Scott appears on the chair, shimmering at first then becoming actual.

Scott Charlene?

Charlene jumps.

Charlene Scott, I didn’t even know you were there. Do you want a cup of tea ?

The Waiter materialises out of the background and pours the tea.

Scott No, thanks Charlene. I’ve given up.

Charlene I didn’t know that. What about a sweet biscuit?

Scott I’m trying to give that up as well. Caffeine and sugar. Trying to lose a few Ks.

Charlene You’re not overweight.

Scott I feel like I am.

An awkward pause.

150 Charlene Is something wrong??

Scott Nothing.

Charlene What’s the matter?

Scott I’ve got something to tell you.

Charlene Gee. Now you’ve got me worried.

Scott I want to leave Erinsborough. And I want you to come with me.

Charlene Leave Erinsborough?

Scott I’ve got to get out of here, Charlene , I’m suffocating.. The houses, the people, the lighting, it’s all the same. I want to see if I can make it outside in the real world. I want to go and live in the city.

Charlene Live in the city?

Scott And I want you to come with me and be my wife.

Charlene Scott, are you mad?

Scott Charlene, it’s me, Scott. You’re looking at me as if I was mad. I’m asking you to leave Erinsborough, come with me to the city and be my wife.

Charlene Scott, I can’t, you know that. How would I tell Mum and Dad? I’ve got a good job here as an apprentice mechanic. I’m even doing brake installations, now. Do you expect me just to chuck it all in, and risk everything?

Scott You would if you loved me Charlene.

151 Charlene I can’t, Scott. I just can’t. We’re happy here. At least, I thought we were.

Scott Look Charlene, I know, you’ve constructed a whole world for us here. And it’s not us. I mean, I love you. It’s the place we’re living in. Something’s missing.

Charlene Scott, what are you saying?

Scott Well, think about it, Charlene. Isn’t it strange that we live in a suburb named after a television show?

Charlene You know, I’ve never even thought about it. I’ve just thought that Erinsborough was a lovely name.

Scott (to camera)I feel like I’m living in some kind of strange television.

Charlene This world is as real as any other. We can live here, love here, raise a family here. This is our world. I have a good job here as an apprentice mechanic.

Scott It’s not my world. I don’t recognise it. I’m lost here, Charlene, completely lost. My soul is evaporating, and now I know why. None of this is real. It’s been made to make me feel better about what I’ve lost.

Charlene What have you lost Scott? What did you have that you don’t have now?

Scott I don’t know, Charlene. I’m trying to remember but I can’t. I feel it. I feel crippled. I’m so full of fear and self-loathing. If I can just leave this place I’ll be able to recover some of what I was, what I wanted to be.

He pinches himself hard on his hands. Charlene grabs Scott’s hands across the table and squeezes them hard. The Band plays the chorus of Track 1.

Charlene Let’s sing, Scott. Let’s sing along with our friends. That often helps in times of crisis.

Scott and Charlene sing-a-long with gusto.

152 SCENARIO 2 ACT 2 @ 3:01

Charlene How are you feeling now Scott?

Scott Better. A lot better. Strange how singing always makes me feel better. I want to explain something to you, Charlene. I don’t know if I have the words but I’m going to try. I’m ashamed of where I live. There I’ve said it. I’m ashamed of what’s become of where I live.

Charlene What’s there to be ashamed of Scott? Every year we’re voted one of the most liveable places in the world. Why, even last year we were nominated for International Tidy Town.

Scott That’s what worries me most, Charlene. We’re so concerned with cleanliness, with our appearance.

Charlene Would you prefer us to be dirty? I can be dirty for you, Scott. If you want me to.

Scott It’s not that. It’s just that we concentrate so much on the surface, we’ve forgotten to attend to what’s underneath. The soil is bad here, Charlene.

Charlene Now you’re confusing me.

Scott looks around at the next table to make sure he cannot be overheard.

Scott Alright I’ll give you an example. Last week, when that family applied to move into the vacant house at the end of the block, why was there such a protest? What was wrong with them living here?

Charlene They were different, Scott. We don’t cope with difference. You know that. And besides it was Mr Richard’s old house? He was a soldier and fought in the wars to save us. We couldn’t have a house full of the kind of people Mr Richards fought to keep out. It would have been wrong, Scott.

Scott But where else were they to go?

153 Charlene It’s not our problem. This is our home. I’ve got a good job here as an apprentice mechanic.

Scott Charlene, the disappointment when they were told to go back to where they came from… The look on their faces.

Charlene They will be better off there, Scott.

Scott We say that, Charlene, but we know that’s not so. Deep down, we all know it and we still can’t bring ourselves to do anything about it. And it’s this feeling deep down, that’s making me sick. I’ve got a cancer, Charlene. And so do you. We’re all sick, Charlene. We have a disease.

Charlene Scott, I can’t believe you’re saying all this. You can’t take all the good in people you’ve known for years and turn it upside down and call it dirty. Good people live here, Scott. Good people. I’m one of them, and you’re one of them!

Scott No, I’m not Charlene, I’m not.

Charlene Where do you get all these ideas? Have you been reading books again?

Scott It’s not the books, Charlene. Books aren’t dangerous.

Charlene No, just what’s inside them. Ideas!

Scott It’s not the books and it’s not the ideas. It’s me, and what I’ve realised. I’m looking for something different, something new.

Scott pinches himself hard on his hands. Charlene grabs Scott’s hands across the table and squeezes them hard. The Band plays the chorus of Track 2.

Charlene Let’s dance, Scott. Let’s dance with our friends. That often helps in times of crisis.

154 Scott and Charlene dance alone but together, maniacally.

SCENARIO 2 ACT 3 @ 6:01

Charlene How are you feeling now Scott?

Scott Better. A lot better. Strange how dancing always makes me feel better.

Charlene There’s something I want to explain to you, Scott. And I hope it will change your mind. Scott Go on.

Charlene A lot of what you’ve said is true. Perhaps we are a little small-minded here, a little selfish. But I think if you work hard for what you’ve got then you’re entitled to keep it, to call it your own and not to have it threatened by others. But, if you start giving things away, one day you’re not going to have anything left to give.

And can you be sure those people you’ve helped are going to do for you what you’ve done for them? It’s human nature, Scott, to be mean and selfish and to want to have things and keep things. Human beings aren’t really anything special, and to expect more of them is just downright foolish.

And what you said about me, and how I’ve created all this for you well, that’s true too in a way. None of this is real and all of it is real. It just depends on the way you look at it. If you look at your way, I guess, it all is some kind of crazy fiction made up just so that you’ll feel right. But if you look at it my way, this whole fiction has been created out of love, my love for you, Scott, a deep and abiding love.

And I think that’s what life is about. To use your words Scott, it’s a construction and if it’s concrete enough then that’s all there is and that’s all there needs to be, ‘cos it’s filled with love and that’s the only reality worth fighting for. And if any of that means anything to you then I’m asking you to stay with me here in Erinsborough for ever. Stay with me, Scott. Please, stay.

Scott starts pinching his hand again. He knows what he needs to do but he can’t bring himself to deny Charlene. The Waiter materialises and wipes the table, stands behind Scott.

Scott Alright, alright. I’ll stay with you. I’ll stay here with you. I’ll try to make this real.

155 Charlene Oh Scott. You make me so happy. You make me so happy.

Their heads are bowed, their hands clasped together on the table. Charlene is crying. Scott is perfectly still. After a few moments, Charlene recovers. She looks to Scott who is strangely unmoved.

Charlene Scott, what is it?

Scott I can’t move.

Charlene Scott, what’s happening?

Scott I don’t know. I feel numb.

Scott’s physical presence becomes less stable. He appears to shimmer.

Charlene Scott, I don’t understand. I thought you loved me.

Scott I do Charlene, I do. Get help!

Charlene Scott, don’t do this to me.

Scott begins to disappear.

Scott I can’t help myself.

Charlene Don’t go!

Scott Come with me!

Charlene I can’t.

Scott I’m sorry.

Charlene

156 I’ve got a good job here as an apprentice mechanic…

Scott disappears leaving Charlene alone on the lounge. The Waiter de-materialises.

There is a bright white flash.

END: 9:00

LOOP: Charlene is sitting on a two-seater lounge. A coffee-table is pressed in hard towards her, causing her knees to bunch up.

EAVESDROP: Scott A series of interior shots of a double-brick veneer house accompanied by the sound of the desert. Charlene From the POV of a car mechanic looking up at the internal machinery of an engine. (a la Blood Simple)

SCENARIO 3 A Man and a Woman

ACT 1 @ 0:00

An Older Man is sitting at a table in an old cane wheelchair. He is smoking, enjoying the quiet. Reading a newspaper, listening to the band maybe even tapping along to the music. He probably knows the musicians, smiles at them. He is discreet, self-confident.

An Older Woman is present in the background or perhaps she materialises out of a seam. She is slightly agitated, twirling her doily bag around her wrist. She looks around, takes in the action at the other tables - the young couple opposite her deep in conversation, two men sitting at the adjacent table, one of whom looks strangely familiar. She appears to be working herself up to say something. The Elderly Man chooses not to notice her. Finally she musters the courage.

Woman Is this seat taken?

Man Yes it is.

Woman Oh.

157 She loiters behind the empty chair creating a pregnant weight with her presence. The Man feels moved to respond.

Man I’m waiting for someone.

Woman Oh.

Man My wife.

Woman Oh, that’s different.

The Woman sits down, pulls a set of handcuffs out of her doily bag and clasps one end over her hand closest to the table and the other hand around a leg of the table. She arranges herself with her free hand, smoothing down her dress, getting comfortable.

Woman I always feel safer with a married man. You don’t have to worry about any shenanigans. Does the waiter come or do you have to order at the bar? Man I beg your pardon.

Woman The Waiter. Does he come to the table or do you have to go to the bar? Oh look, there’s that Radio Broadcasting Fellow. Yoo-hoo! I knew he looked familiar. Oh look he’s waving. What a nancy wave! Always thought he was a bit you-know!

Man No, I don’t know.

Woman Yes, you do.

Man No, I don’t. I don’t know you, and so I don’t know what you mean when you say things. I’m trying to keep a little quiet here, enjoy the music while I wait for my wife!

Woman She pretty?

Man Of course she is. She’s beautiful.

158 Woman I bet you make a handsome couple.

Man Well. It has been said.

Woman Is she good in bed?

Man I beg your pardon.

Woman Your wife? Is she good in bed?

Man That’s absolutely none of your business.

Unwittingly, he lets a little smile sneak out the corner of his mouth.

Woman She is. She is. She is very good in bed. She gives you pleasure, doesn’t she? Oh my god, just the thought of it is making me feel a little…you know.

Man Madam, please, control yourself.

Woman That’s easy. I don’t have any choice.

The Woman raises her cuffed hand and displays it like a trophy.

Man May I ask why you have chained yourself to this table?

Woman I’m protesting.

Man Against what?

Woman Everything! Human rights, government taxes, the rise in the price of aphrodisiacs.

Man That’s a very broad protest.

Woman

159 I feel an ennui, an ennui, an ennui. As the French say!

The Woman affects a mock swoon. She laughs. The Man laughs too, against his better nature.

Woman Mmm, you’ve got a nice laugh. And a wicked sense of humour! I like that in a man. Where did you get that from ?

Man Really, madam, please! I’m trying to…

Woman And a wonderful speaking voice. Can you sing ? Go on, sing for me.

Man I don’t know any songs.

Woman Sing with the band. Sing the music of love.

The Band plays the chorus of Track 1. The Woman sings loudly and with confidence. The Man joins in cautiously not wanting to encourage her.

SCENARIO 3 ACT 2 @ 3:01

Woman Men are more fickle than women, don’t you think?

Man A man needs to be more fickle in order to cope with a woman’s fickleness.

Woman That’s true, that’s true.

Man Women are more obsequious than men, though.

Woman Indeed. A woman needs to be in order to cope with a man’s obsequiousness.

The Man grunts in reply. Pause.

Woman It’s nice to be ‘in love’, don’t you think?

Man

160 Yes. It’s wonderful.

Woman Do you think there are people here in love?

They survey the club, taking in the other guests, considering Tibor and his companion, finally resting on Scott and Charlene.

Man Perhaps. Them?

Woman No, I don’t think so.

Man How can you tell?

Woman Body language. They’re not in love, they’re in combat, some sort of soap opera going on there. They may be about to break up. (looks at Scott) Look at him! His body is all…contorted. No, there’s no love there.

Man Do you have another handcuff?

Woman I most certainly do.

The Woman produces a handcuff from her bag. The Man takes it and secures one hand to the leg of the table closest to him.

Woman What are you doing?

Man Protesting.

Woman About what?

Man The pain of love.

Woman Are you in pain?

Man Yes. I’m hurting terribly.

161 Woman I’m sorry.

Man Don’t apologise. It’s a wonderful feeling. I always thought if I was involved in protest, it would be about something noble like crimes against humanity. But I realise I am too selfish for that. I really don’t care enough about other people.

Woman Love is noble.

Man Do you think love adds to the greater good of the Universe?

Woman Of course.

Man What about self-love?

Woman It’s a public place!

Man Exactly! You’ve heard of the Mile-High Club. Take me to the Low-Table Club.

Woman (laughing) You’re incorrigible.

Man When you’re in pain, strange and psychedelic thoughts come into your head.

Each of them place a hand inside their clothing and begin stroking.The Woman watches The Man.

The Band plays the chorus of Track 2. The Man and The Woman masturbate while remaining in their chairs.

SCENARIO 3 ACT 3 @ 6:01

Man When I was a younger man, I could go for hours.

Woman I wish I’d known you then.

162 Man I was a God on the horizontal plane. Not one woman did I fail to satisfy. That was my mission in life, and I embraced it. To give pleasure to all who crossed my path. And I must say, there were a few young men caught up in my momentum.

Woman You must have been a generous soul.

Man I was generous with my body. I gave and gave until all but what you see was squeezed out. I am but a shrivelled, withered shadow of my former self. A shell.

Woman It’s an attractive shell.

Man Kind of you to say, kind of you to say.

Woman I like a man who has lived a full life. It shows character.

Man I like that in a woman too.

Woman I’m relieved you take that view. Some men like their women to be virgins even after they’ve serviced them for fifty years.

They look at each other, and laugh.

Man It’s every man’s dream to have a 70-year old virgin.

They look at each other, and laugh.

Woman I moved through men like lava down a volcano.

Man Viscous.

Woman Very.

163 They look at each other longingly with wistful, deeply felt smiles, trying to imagine each other in their prime.

Man You would have been some woman.

Woman You would have been some man.

Man Time.

Woman Time.

Man Speaking of which.

Woman Oh my, is that the….

Man / Woman Time.

They smile at each other. They take a moment to look around the club drinking in the other scenes, nodding or waving at those with which they are most familiar.

Man Waiter! The Waiter materialises with his trolley on which is laid a long, silk scarf.

Woman Oh, it’s perfect. (confiding) I’ve never done it with a scarf.

Man Then you’ll die a virgin.

Woman Something new to finish off the old. Would you kindly, dear?

The Waiter assists them in arranging the scarf so that one end is secure around The Man’s neck and the other is looped around The Woman’s neck, and so there is sufficient material for each of them to wrap around their free hand for leverage. They both thank The Waiter who bows courteously, and waits with them. They look deeply into each other’s eyes.

Woman I feel so sexy.

164 Man Me, too.

Pause.

Woman I’m thinking of our first time together.

Man Me, too.

Woman My husband.

Man My wife.

They smile beatifically at each other. With their free hand, they pull the scarf tighter and tighter. Beat. The Waiter pulls the scarf away and their heads release.

There is a bright flash.

END: 9:00

An Older Man is sitting at a table in an old cane wheelchair. He is smoking, enjoying the quiet.

EAVESDROP: Montage of close-ups of bodies from NYID’s Unmaking Of. SCENARIO 4 Post-Op

ACT 1 @ 0:00

Brazil is in recovery from cosmetic surgery. Her face is designed with medical bandages, wraps, ties and pulls appropriate to the places which she has had stretched, filled and screwed fast. The surgery may have been so severe that she is wearing a miniature ironwork head-scaffold which holds her new facial structure in place. Either way, she is so severely restricted that only her tongue and her eyes move. A plastic straw is taped to the side of her mouth so that she can re-hydrate when necessary. Occasionally, small moisture bubbles float from her mouth. Medical paraphernalia surrounds her immediate environment but it’s all quite mobile (and perhaps miniature). She is hooked up to a life-support monitor and the regular beep is a comfort to her until the spaces between each sound increase until there is only space and no beeps. She speaks directly to the user. (From the POV of Tibor and the Doll in Scenario 1 it appears that she is looking at, and speaking directly to, them.)

165 We meet her in medium close-up. She appears to be very engaged and curious. Hers is a vivacious personality type, and one gets the feeling that her presence at the club indicates a person who was perhaps in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nevertheless, she is here and she intends to make the most of it. She participates in all of the group activities including singing the chorus of the Band’s songs. Given her condition, her contributions are somewhat mute and twisted but effective.

She remains encased by the frame, captured by her ironwork prison with the only signs of life, garbled noises and wide-eyed expressive eye-acting. It sounds as if she is saying “Come closer, come closer”.

The Waiter is a constant presence. However, and because of the size of the frame, only his hands can be seen attending to the bandages and head- scaffold. When he is not attending to her, he is visible in the background over either shoulder, sitting in a chair, may be smoking, reading a newspaper.

Clearly there is limited appeal for the user in this narrative, and it is in the Eavesdrop that satisfaction is found. However, the challenge will be to make this static, imprisoned character inviting and sympathetic for as long as possible.

Her presence is also significant for the end and her narrative is entwined with Tibor’s from Scenario 1.

EAVESDROP: As the zoom hits its marker, Brazil’s face appears without any of the paraphernalia of her surgery. She smiles broadly at the camera through the digital noise, and moves away in the direction of a swimming pool. She is wearing a fashionable bikini with wrist and ankle accessories, and they all jingle as she stretches out on a chaise longue. The Waiter attends to her, serving a smart-looking Pimms from a drinks trolley next to the chaise longue. He is present throughout this section, may be putting on sun cream, may be lounging in an extra chair, smoking.

Brazil calls us over with a twinkle of her finger, and we follow her cue.

Brazil Thank God you made it. It’s absolute hell out there! Sorry for the mouth- bubbles but I’m stuck up with so many pins and needles that I can’t even feel my tongue to say the right sounds. I do have something I’d like to share with you.

Brazil picks up a mini-DV camera and powers it up. She turns the side-monitor to our camera and talks to a montage of photos of The Doll from Scenario 1. It is only now that we see The Doll’s uncanny likeness to Brazil.

Picture 1: The Doll in 7-year old girl attire.

166 This is a picture of me, age 7. Remarkable, isn’t it! I was a pretty little girl, all frills and curls. Happy and unaware of the life ahead.

Picture 2: The Doll as a young girl, lying on a leather couch Some years later. The rot started to set in. I had developed my “unhappiness” as my psychiatrist called it. Child psychiatrists are very perceptive and manage to use words from one context and squish them into another so they have two half-meanings. My “unhappiness” can be traced to this realisation. I was a half-meaning cross-bred out of two separate identities: who I was and who I wasn’t.

Picture 3: The Doll, pinched and thin, in fashionable teenage wear Oooh this is me in my Supermodel Phase. I had extreme anorexia and was saved only by the attentions of a strict nurse at the Children’s Hospital. I didn’t want to go there. Who wants to be around sick kids all day. I just wanted to kill myself and thought I had it all sorted out. I didn’t figure on Nurse Jackson. She was a strong personality and inspired me to spend more time around doctors and nurses and in hospitals. I resolved to turn my “unhappiness” to advantage.

Picture 4: The Doll, with a fliptop head and facial band-aids My first Post-Op. I had my cheekbones crushed and re-built, my jaw bust and re-set and some critical cutting edge work on the eyebrow or cranio-lobotomic area. The only way I could pay for all this was to become a test patient. I was written up in a lot of medical journals. I’m a real in-for-anything kind of girl and had lots of creative input in the cranio-facial designs that we tried out.

Picture 5: The Doll, in a happy-go-lucky ensemble This is me before my current operation, the complications of which I am now suffering. I had a vision of myself as some virtual Goddess of the 21st C, but who was in fact a real person. I really wanted to cross over, to cross breed the same basic elements and squish them from one me into another me. To become a truly meaningful half-meaning.

Brazil closes the camera and speaks directly to us.

Brazil Unfortunately, the operation didn’t go too well but I figure what the hell. Eventually there were going to be ‘complications’, things that couldn’t be resolved. But you know what’s really strange, I didn’t die from ‘complications’, I died from a broken heart. And not mine. You see, I had this boyfriend - he called me his Living Doll - a rough-sweet kind of guy, and he was so jealous of all the time I spent on myself, he was so cut up by me cutting myself up, he shot me while I was in post-op. I forgive him. Life is a strange and remarkable thing, and despite the way I went, I felt the way I lived was really something special.

Once the Eavesdrop has finished, we return to the narrative state.

167 As the scenarios reach conclusion, we see The Waiter, over Brazil’s shoulder, emerge from the background carrying The Doll from Scenario 1. The Doll has a small gun in its hand and pulls the trigger. Slowly, Brazil’s eyes stop blinking and the sound of the beep on the heart-monitor and her blinking coincide and stop at the same time.

There is a bright white flash.

END 9:00

Brazil is in recovery from cosmetic surgery. Her face is designed with medical bandages, wraps, ties and pulls appropriate to the places which she has had stretched, filled and screwed fast Return to the beginning of the scenario.

SCENARIO 5 Ted and Bill’s Excellent Adventure

ACT 1 @ 0:00

Ted and Bill sit at a table with their arms crossed in front of them and their heads resting on their arms. Eventually they rouse.

Pause.

They are young, may be late teens, may be early twenties. Bill is smoking and listening to music with just the one ear-plug in. Ted plays with his mobile phone.

Ted What are you listening to ?

Bill Metal.

Ted Cool.

Pause.

Ted How’s ya Mum ?

Bill Yeah alright. Bit upset.

Ted Fair enough.

Pause.

168 Bill How old d’you reckon y’have to be before people stop saying “died too young”?

Ted (checking his mobile) Thirty something.

Bill That’s old…’S that why you think me Mum’s upset.

Ted Well, what d’you reckon?

Pause. Ted How’s……

Bill Yeah, okay…..It’s hard but.

Ted Yeah.

Pause.

Ted indicates Scott and Charlene next to them.

Ted Hey isn’t that what’shisname’s brother… ?

Bill Scott-o? The one who went missing?

Ted Disappeared, didn’t he?

Bill Yep.

Pause.

Ted Doesn’t look like it’s going too well.

Bill Nup.

Ted Why’s that d’ya reckon?

169 Bill Who knows? Too much talkin’ by the look of it.

Longer pause.

Ted Geez, he looks a bit pale.

Bill That’s what happens when ya get a girlfriend. Ya whole, y’know, just disappears.

Ted Ya reckon that’s what did it? Bill Yep.

Ted Really?

Bill Happened to me brother.

Ted Yeah? Geez….I haven’t seen him for a while.

Bill See what I mean.

Long Pause.

Ted So ? Got any plans?

Bill Not really.

Ted Cool. Heaps on but....

Bill Too much. End up doin’ nothin’.

Ted Yeah.

Longer pause.

170 Ted Top band

Bill Top band, yeah.

Ted I like this song.

The Band plays the chorus of Track 1. They like the band. Bill plays with the ring tones on his mobile phone.

SCENARIO 5 ACT 2 @ 3:01

Ted What’s her story?

Bill She is a doll, mate, an absolute doll.

A ring tone sounds from Ted’s mobile phone surprising Ted. He puts it down. Beat. He checks the phone’s screen.

Ted Got a text-y.

Bill Oh yeah? What’s the go?

Ted (reading) No good.

Bill Yeah?

Short pause.

Ted Car accident. Wrapped himself round a roundabout pole.

Bill Shit, eh?

Short pause.

Ted

171 Brakes went on him.

Bill Shit, eh?

Ted A good mechanic’s hard to come by these days.

Both survey the club, looking over at Charlene.

Bill No?!

Ted Apparently. Heartbroken. Not concentratin’ on the job, Pause.

Bill Shit, eh?

Pause.

Bill He was alright, that bloke ?

Ted Yep. (beat) Bit moody.

Bill Runs in the family if y’ask me.

Ted That’s true.

Pause.

Bill When’s the funeral?

Ted Been and gone.

Bill Shit! That was fast. Did ya go?

Ted Dropped in, yeah.

Bill

172 How was it?

Ted Pretty bad.

Bill Yeah, I’ll bet.

Pause.

Bill Many people?

Ted Heaps.

Bill Like, how many, about, exactly?

Ted Couple of hundred.

Bill Jeez, hope we get more than a couple of hundred.

Pause.

Ted Well, there’s two of us, so hopefully more than four hundred.

Bill Yeah, well ya’d think so. Five, at least.

Longer pause.

Ted Dance break.

The Band plays the chorus of Track 2. Ted and Bill get up and do some hair-dancing and some break-dancing. They sit down.

SCENARIO 5 ACT 3 @ 6:01

The Waiter materialises, dancing. From a tray, he takes a small cup containing two tablets and two glasses of water, and places them on the table.

173 Ted Thanks, mate.

The Waiter Don’t mention it.

Ted Alright, I won’t.

Ted and Bill share a chuckle. They repeat the routine.

Ted Thanks, mate.

The Waiter Don’t mention it.

Ted Alright, I won’t.

Ted and Bill share a chuckle.

Ted So how’s it going?

The Waiter Bit quiet.

Ted Yeah?

The Waiter Yeah.

Ted Gets busy but later doesn’t it?

The Waiter Oh yeah.

The Waiter leaves, dancing and de-materialising before his exit. Ted and Bill watch him go.

Ted Nice moves.

Bill up-ends the cup and handles the two tablets, one red, one green.

174 Ted So how does it go?

Bill Buggered if I remember, mate.

Ted Red then green? Green then red?

Bill Does it make much difference?

Ted Difference between a regular trip and a final trip.

Bill Wow! Ah well. Makes it interesting.

Ted Sure.

Bill “Go then stop”. Yeah. Green then red.

Ted Right. Count of three.

Ted / Bill One-two-three.

They take the green tablet, count three beats in the air with their fingers, and take the red tablet.

Bill Geez, I hope that was the right order.

Ted Doesn’t really matter, mate.

Bill Nah?

Ted Nah. I was just kiddin’ ya. Whatever order, same result.

Bill Oh right. Fair enough.

175 Pause.

Ted Do you think this ever stops?

Bill Dunno, mate…Hard to say.

Ted It’s just like being on a merry-go-round.

Bill Or a roundabout ?

Ted Yeah.

Bill One ya can’t get off.

Ted Yeah.

Bill Yeah….Hey I wonder if he’s here?

Ted The roundabout bloke?

Bill Yeah.

Ted Well, let’s look out for him next time.

Bill Yeah alright. Somethin’ to do.

Ted ‘S that radio jock got his yet?

Bill Comin’ right up.

Ted Cool.

Pause.

176 Bill Feel a bit tired.

Ted Yep.

They cross their arms on the table in front of them, and lay their heads down.

Bill Yeah?

Ted Yep.

Ted and Bill fall listlessly onto their forearms.

There is a bright white flash.

END: 9:00

LOOP Ted and Bill sit at a table with their arms crossed in front of them and their heads resting on their arms. Eventually they rouse.

EAVESDROP: Ted Cars on a roundabout pumping music. Bill A metal saw spinning off sparks.

SCENARIO 6 Dead Air

ACT 1 @ 0:00

The Guest is sitting on a swivel chair. The Minor Celebrity, a radio broadcaster, emerges from the bottom right of frame and sits down on a second swivel chair, shaking the hand of The Guest as he does so. A narrow table is between them on which sits a jug of water and a clipboard. There is a nervous tension between them, a kind of expectancy or social awkwardness.

The Waiter adjusts a large microphone hanging between them. He then fixes microphones to the lapels of their shirts/jackets.

177 The Minor Celebrity picks up the clipboard and occupies himself with some written detail. His Guest is left to his own devices but of the two, he seems more at home in his surrounds. Finally, the Minor Celebrity looks up from his notes.

The Waiter We’ll be ready to go in ten. And counting. Eight, seven, six, five, four,…….

The Waiter de-materialises during “three, two, one” as The Minor Celebrity completes a regime of facial warm-up exercises.

MC Welcome to this evening’s program, Place of Choice, coming to you live from the place of choice of this evening’s guest. Hamal Qamal Iqbal, welcome to the show.

John Smith Um, that’s not my name.

MC (off-mike) It does say here in your biography, that’s a nom de plume.

John Smith Could you please use my real name?

MC You’ll sell more books?

MC silently imploring but gives in.

MC John Smith, welcome to the show.

John Smith (shrugs) Well, thankyou for having me.

MC Nice to be had. Firstly. Your place of choice?

The Older Woman (Scenario 3) and Tibor (Scenario 1) have recognised the Minor Celebrity who casually throws a wave in their direction.

MC Unusual surroundings? Does it have a name?

John Smith It has many names.

MC

178 Quelle mysterieux! In your new book, your first book, Clash of Class, your vision of the future is very apocalyptic.

John Smith I don’t think so. It’s a thoroughly secular vision.

MC Really?

John Smith Yes.

MC Well. That’s not how I read it. Perhaps you could precis for our listeners.

John Smith There’s a revolution fomenting in the outer suburbs. And it’s being led by a new proletariat, from the middle class, mostly young professionals tired of being the financial workhorses of the baby boomers. They’ll rise up in a blaze of protests that begin with parking penalties, mortgage repayments and higher education fees, and storm the Reserve Bank and other citadels of Capital.

MC Interesting! You are talking about YMCPs, young middle class professionals?

John Smith Yes.

MC Most of whom are managers?

John Smith Yes.

MC (taking a long drink) They’re not innovators, you know, they’re managers. They know nothing about creating something new, like a revolution. John Smith Exactly. And it’s because they have no experience of revolution that they’ll take to it with a fundamentalist zeal. When they get a taste for it, they’ll run with it.

MC (dismissively) Really? And how will you market this revolution?

John Smith Fear. The new proletariat will use fear as a marketing tool to convince the rest of society.

179 MC Expliquez!

John Smith They will conduct a campaign of meaningless acts of random violence. (beat) Fear will change minds.

MC (mopping his brow) You’re insane.

John Smith Are you alright?

MC I’m perfectly fine.

The Band strike up the chorus of Track 1.

John Smith You must sing-a-long with everyone else. Club rules.

MC I don’t sing!

John Smith Club rules.

MC I don’t sing!

John Smith Club rules.

The Minor Celebrity and the Guest stare each other out. 3 beats. The Minor Celebrity wavers.

SCENARIO 6 ACT 2 @ 3:01

MC An unusual ritual. To have the patrons sing-a-long with the band.

John Smith Ritual focuses the mind, enables us to see ourselves more clearly.

The Minor Celebrity loosens his tie. His Guest pours him some water.

180 MC Thankyou.

John Smith Shall I…expliquez?

MC Please.

John Smith The repetition of rituals, small moments, incidents, events and feelings, like singing a song, create a kind of sensory imprint. Memory.

MC That’s fascinating but not very revolutionary (inverted commas with fingers).

John Smith Au contraire. Memory will help society cope with the fear necessary for our revolution to succeed. For example, what are you remembering now?

The Minor Celebrity fumbles with his thoughts.

MC Me? Water, spilling. Shiny Shoes.

John Smith And you feel fear?

MC Yes.

John Smith So these memories are helping you cope.

MC I suppose so but I don’t know why exactly. What am I afraid of? (starts to cry, laugh)

John Smith It will become clear. It can take a lifetime to understand the parts of a memory as a whole. Or it can take only a few minutes. Look around you. Everyone here is constructing his or her memory to suit themselves.

MC Is that what’s happening?

The Guest remains silent, smiles.

181 The Minor Celebrity is clearly unsettled. He tries to retrieve the initiative.

MC Can you tell us a little more about your ‘interesting’ revolution?

John Smith It’s not really for your generation, for your listeners.

MC What do you mean?

John Smith remains silent.

MC Look, we made the last revolution, you know. We did it! We’re the only ones with any experience.

John Smith You misunderstand me. I didn’t mean you weren’t involved. I mean you’re not central. You’ll be the first targets.

MC What!?

John Smith You will be the first targets.

MC Targets of what?!

John Smith Of the meaningless acts of random violence.

The Minor Celebrity’s breathing works a little harder.

MC I’m just trying to remember this...

John Smith Take your time. MC Water, spilling. A chair, falling. Shoes, shiny shoes.

John Smith Do you recognise the shoes?

MC I don’t know.

182 John Smith You’re doing fine. Don’t rush your breathing. Remembering requires a lot of effort. (beat) You don’t want to get to the end before it arrives.

MC Something happens now. Is that correct?

John Smith It’s up to you.

MC It’s the band. I have to dance with the band. Club rules.

John Smith Excellent.

The Band plays the chorus of Track 2. The Guest watches The Minor Celebrity dance.

SCENARIO 6 ACT 3 @ 6:01

The Minor Celebrity sits, shaking, looking around the club, breathing hard, takes off his jacket.

John Smith What are you remembering now?

MC That I can’t sing and I can’t dance.

John Smith Do you recognise the shoes?

Beat.

MC (agitated) How do you know about the shoes?

John Smith Because I am there.

MC Where?

John Smith Here.

183 Pause. The MC breathes hard, concentrating.

MC I feel…quite sad. I can’t join the revolution. Not middle class enough, anymore.

John Smith Your wage bracket is too high.

MC I never wanted it to be.

John Smith That’s what they all say.

MC (defiantly) And I always thought I drew attention to issues that warranted interest.

John Smith You were only drawing attention to yourself. Your life is a vanity project. Your whole generation is a vanity project.

MC Is it because we’re old?

John Smith It’s not about age. It’s about ego. Your generation will lead the casualty list in a brief, bloody conflict. And you, personally, will top the list.

The Minor Celebrity is thinking very hard, trying to remember. Some beats.

MC You remind me of myself when I was your age. Violence is the only means of revolution.

John Smith That’s why I’m here.

MC What do you mean? John Smith That’s why I’m here.

MC That’s why you’re here. So why am I here?

John Smith

184 It’s your concept. Place of Choice.

MC (looking around) This is my choice?

John Smith You could say that. Waiter! (to The Minor Celebrity) What are you remembering now?

The Waiter materialises. He is pushing a silver drinks trolley on which lays a remote control handset. He hands it to the Guest.

MC I remember spilling this water. I remember doing up the buttons on my suit. I remember catching the shine on my shoes as they leave scuff marks on the floor as they trip over each other. (blinking hard) A face. I remember a face. Your face…… I’m dead?

John Smith You are. And you are about to be. Do you remember the rest? These people here are your staff, trying to get your attention, trying to warn you, you have a madman on-air, that’s me, and he has a bomb strapped to his chest, this one here...

The Guest unbuttons his jacket to reveal a small device strapped to his chest.

John Smith …. set to take out the first target in the New Revolution, the first meaningless act of random violence. Welcome to True Celebrity.

MC I’m too young to die.

John Smith Not anymore, you’re not.

MC I’m not that old.

John Smith It’s not about age.

Beat. MC Is this a memory?

John Smith It is. Until you start running.

185 The Guest presses a small button next to the device on his chest and it lights up a red, digital clock counting down from ten.

MC Shit! I’m dead.

John Smith And out in five, four…

The Guest counts out the show on the fingers of his free hand.

John Smith …(silently) three, two, one.

The Minor Celebrity pushes himself off his chair knocking over his glass of water, tripping up on his shoes, buttoning up his suit as he runs towards the camera in slow motion.

There is a bright white flash.

END 9:00

LOOP The Guest is sitting on a swivel chair. The Minor Celebrity emerges from the bottom right of frame and sits down on a second swivel chair.

EAVESDROP The Minor Celebrity Montage: close-ups of a glass of water being knocked over, a chair falling over, shiny shoes tripping over each other on a floor, a hand on a suit doing up buttons on a moving body.

John Smith Crowded public places, buses, trams, shopping centres, stock exchange etc

SCENARIO 7 The Band

The Band play three variations on a theme, one for each act.

The first variation concludes with a sung chorus:

If I could see you Then, oh, I would see you Again, and again, and again.

186 The second variation concludes with a salsa rhythm.

The third variation plays out with a tonal change in the last minute.

187 7.3 Information Architecture and Dramatic Scenarios for Conversations!

Preliminary Treatment by Ross Gibson 27 – 04 – 03

1. The dramatic intrigue.

CONVERSATIONS will display, interrogate and interpret the escape of Ronald Ryan and Peter Walker from Pentridge Prison in Melbourne on December 19, 1965. One of the most controversial murder trials in Australian history, the Ryan case turns on the perceived meanings of a myriad details enacted and witnessed at the escape scene, at the prison wall, the adjoining pavement, the parkland and the road intersection immediately outside Pentridge, where Prison Officer George Hodson was shot dead, allegedly by Ryan but feasibly by accidental rifle fire from another Prison Officer. The escape, which took no more than 3 to 5 minutes once the prisoners had breached the outer prison wall, will be the subject of the 360 degree movie. All the debateable details around the scene will be recorded, allowing them to be investigated interactively by the player. The fact that so much happened so quickly and so contentiously in the enclosing span of 360 degrees of action will render this brief scene endlessly intriguing. It will provide subject matter for a great number of inquisitive ‘tracks’ through the movie. Once the ‘player’ of CONVERSATIONS has witnessed a version of the 360 degree movie depicting the escape, the next stage of the artwork will be available. This next phase involves players and a range of avatars all interacting in a new dramatic space where players can advance the contentious investigation by communicating with each other and by ‘accessing’ the abstract-avatar files in order to gather insights into the psychologies of the major characters as well as into the intricacies of the legal processes and many of the social and political themes that were ignited by this notorious case.

188 The ‘players’ will be witnesses. The abstract-avatars will be a range of investigative functions and functionaries:

• police detectives and crime scene scientists; • prosecuting and defending lawyers; • car drivers who also witnessed the escape; • Ryan’s wife; • Ryan’s mother; • the Prison Chaplain; • the State hangman; • Premier Henry Bolte; • other Prison Officers; • Hodson’s ghost; • Ryan and Walker themselves.

As the artwork plays out through time, in its different dramatic spaces, it will become a kind of fantastical ‘legal moot’ which dramatises how contentious legal and narrative interpretations must be.

2. The spaces.

In psychological/dramatic terms there will be four different dramatic settings in CONVERSATIONS. In physical terms, there will be just two separate spaces which need to be built contiguous to each other. The first setting (and first physical space) is a waiting room where scrapbooks, monographs, news articles, a live feed from the investigation plus archival videos and radio excerpts concerning the Ryan case will be available for visitors to browse while they are awaiting their turn at the head-mounted display. In the waiting-room, players will become curious and begin to understand aspects of the case, thereby formulating some of the questions that will propel the investigation once they don the head- mounted display.

189 The second setting (and second physical space) is an investigative space with a navigation device, such as a large track-wheel coordinated to positional tracking in the head-mounted display, which is the viewing/hearing equipment for the investigation. In this mode, the player is able to navigate a ‘viewing-frame’ or ‘window-portion’ of an entire 360-degree movie which presents the scene outside the Pentridge Prison walls when Ryan and Walker effect their escape and Hodson falls dead from rifle fire. The third setting (in this same physical space deploying the navigation device and the head-mounted display) presents as a ‘portal’ within the Pentridge scene described above. The ‘portal’ leads into a virtual investigation-room where the witnesses gather to encounter each other and to develop their own interpretations of what occurred. Inside the investigation-room, each player sees and hears an avatar of themselves as well as avatars of the other two players. Interaction between the avatars is via the track-wheel plus the positional computation in the head mounted display plus voice communication through microphones built into the head-mounted display. NOTE: Players have entered this investigation-room by using the navigation wheel to move directly into the room when they locate it at the abstract centre of the Pentridge crime scene that they have been investigating in the escape- scene setting detailed above. Logically, players can move freely ‘backwards’ out of the room, returning to the crime scene simply by reversing the track wheel, thereby ‘popping’ themselves back to the street outside Pentridge. NOTE: rather than duplicating the way the police would conduct an interrogation (separating all witnesses and ‘grilling’ them individually and with pre- determined ideas and objectives) this set-up allows the witnesses to pursue their own self-directed investigations by calling up the assistance of various avatars (see next setting). Therefore, the fourth setting (in the navigation+head-mounted display scenario, as above) is the ‘investigation room’ whenever avatars are present. The avatars are high-powered investigative ‘functions’ rather than ‘characters’. The only humanoid figures in the investigation room are the player avatars. The investigative avatars are abstractions or sets of revelatory capability. They have ‘magical’ powers to call up and review movie footage, sound files, newspaper reports and court

190 transcripts, for example. Accordingly whenever these investigative avatars are empowered in the investigation-room, the space has a different mood and performance compared to when it is simply the gathering space for the three witnesses.

3. Interaction and progression through the artwork’s information

CONVERSATIONS offers a range of interactive and/or narrative procedures. It provides:

• a spatio-temporal environment for exploration – ie the escape scene – via comparatively simple ‘pathway’ options for examining possible narrative outcomes consequent to particular actions; • singular and communal modes for accruing and investigating stored files of information; • comparatively complex, algorithmic assemblages of narrative propositions which evolve depending on the ‘history’ that gets built up during each individual player’s engagement in the world of the artwork.

This latter, algorithmic history will be gathered in a number of ways, some of which will be developed during the code-writing. However, from the outset, it is clear that the artwork can ‘learn’ about each player by gathering the history of each player’s searches through the crime scene. Also, a history will accrue inside the investigation- room as the artwork recognizes particular words, phrases and investigation topics as each player converses with his or her co-witnesses and as each player delves into the rich reservoirs of information and experience offered by all the abstract-avatars. The artwork will ‘evolve’ a ‘divulgence behaviour’ in concert with the evolving investigative routines of each player. In this process there are no predetermined lines of information lying in wait for players. Rather, each player will develop their own complex interpretation of all the information and judgements available within the database that underlies the artwork.

191 7.4 Conversations shooting script

RYAN -- a compact, fit man in his forties.

[NOTE: Compare Ryan’s ‘advice’ with Kit’s advice recroded in the booth in BADLANDS.]

I’m the last of the Ryans. [said repeatedly, with a range of emotions]

I sent letters to the papers. The pricks took the bait: they called me Ned Kelly.

This is the truth of it: I’m a pathological liar.

What would you call it -- the movie of my life?

Whatever I do, I can’t help myself … I’ll always go the big plunge.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

I can’t tell you what I’ve done; I can’t tell you what I want to undo.

When you see a wall or a door, when you see something stopping you … you’ve gotta wonder what’s on the other side!

The thing that constrains you, it can be the thing that excites you.

Look at this face. Do you see malice in this face?

Here’s what I’ve learned: you should cheat on a woman before she does it to you.

To see my name in the papers! I get hard just thinking about it.

192 Be careful what you learn … it can bamboozle you too!

Like in a dance, like in most sex, you need a willing partner. I like to put it to people, ‘Are you with me on this?’

Once you’ve submitted to pressure, then you’re due for some pleasure … the pleasure of release.

It’s well-known and I know it: I can charm the birds out of the trees.

Be good to your loved ones and don’t let anyone in power exploit your docile nature.

Some men are born into grace. The law of the land is not relevant to them.

[He claps his hands several times.] How many claps did you hear then? How many people were behind you?

Did you speak to my mother?

Did you speak to my partner?

Will you go look at the judge?

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: a sudden drop out of frame … a violent snap of the neck and head …. eyes closed then SNAPPED OPEN.

RYAN’S MOTHER: a tough, hard-bitten woman 60 years or older

I can tell you this much: life is long and there’s tragedy in it.

193 Have you spoken to the judge? Should I summon the judge?

Can you be clear about the events? About the events of the escape. I mean, perfectly clear?

[She claps her hands several times.] How many claps did you hear then? How many people were behind you?

It’s my son that you’re killing. I brought him into the world.

A man in power gets to define who is guilty.

A powerful man can afford to be polite.

A man in power … is he capable of sin?

You can condemn my son guilty! But remember that a man needing money … well, what does it mean to him, this word ‘guilty’?

It’s true … I was disappointed, you know, with everything that happened. Especially the violence.

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: sudden contractions … birth pangs and shouts. CHAPLAIN: 40 years-old or more

Our scripture is from PSALMS 124: “My soul is escaped like a bird out of a snare”.

A man’s life has been snatched away from himself and from his family. More than just once, a man has been taken.

194 Do you have any sins you’ve wrapped up in a secret? Any shameful things nobody can know about?

Could you cast a stone in my direction? Could you tie a knot in the rope?

Have you ever kept quiet when you know you should speak up?

Our scripture is from the book of JUDGES: “Then the Governors of the Philistines gathered to rejoice, saying … ‘Our God has delivered Samson our enemy into our hands’.”

Would you trust an eye-witness? Were you there at the scene?

When it’s life and death on the scale, what’s the acceptable dose of doubt?

The noose is formed with a metal washer and a clasp. There is no hangman’s knot. Most prisoners find this astonishing.

Our scripture is from the Book of Romans: “He that is dead is now free from more sin”.

The hangman’s identity is protected by a disguise that he chooses.

The execution occurs on the feast of Saint Blaise. He’s the patron saint of resuscitation.

The Hangman is always sudden, like a man at an abattoir, a man permitting no doubt.

My God, the way the world aches! If we could just put an amen to it.

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: rapid sign of the cross; a tightness around the collar.

195 HANGMAN: a man of any age. [Note: the Hangman wore a dark grey suit, a green cap and heavy welders goggles.]

I take them across, from his life of mean darkness to whatever comes after.

The rope should be placed on the left side of the throat. This is not science. It’s tradition. The left side is the sinister side.

I consult The Book of Weights and Measures. I weigh up the prisoner and figure the length of his rope.

When he falls through the trapdoor, he should fall just so far, and no more. I need his neck to break with one decisive, loud bang.

I don’t want to strangle him. That would be grotesque.

If the drop is too long, his head might get twanged off his body.

Ned Kelly was hanged on the same gib. They used an eight foot drop. And they bounced him three times, just to make sure.

I do what you want me to do and you don’t want to think about.

Here is my scripture. From the Book of the Jeremiah: “Remember me. Visit my memory. Take revenge for me. Remember that for your sake, I have suffered rebuke.”

A dead man, what does he want? To lie down in the ground and be nothing but dirt.

Here is my scripture. From the Book of Romans: “The world is full of unrighteousness. Everywhere is fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, debate, deceit, whispers and innuendo. What’s more, the world is populated by backbiters, boasters, haters and inventors of evil things. Everywhere, you see covenant breakers and men devoid of affection.”

196 Here is my scripture. From the Book of Exodus: “You are a stiff-necked people. I will come into the midst of you soon and consume you! Lift up your heads so that you see me, so that I will know just what to do with you.”

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: a large cloth bag puuled suddenly over the head, as if he’s trying to make himself disappear.

PREMIER BOLTE: a short, stout man in his 60s

I am the law. I am the father of our community.

We are not embarassed, not one bit, to to differ from the rest of the world. They can think what they like about hanging and retribution.

I am the father in the law, and Ryan has killed one of our family.

A weak man would do nothing. A weak man would lose favour.

There is talk and there is action.

After it is done, scientists will remove the brain from the skull. They will examine it slowly. This makes us modern. We must know the anatomy of evil.

There’s always a tight deadline on justice. There’s always a clock ticking loudly.

Think of the victim. Think of his family.

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

197 Interrupt gesture: straightening his tie, brushing his lapel, smearing down a lick of hair – a politician readying himself for TV.

JUDGE STARKE: a stern, denonair man, 50 or more

Emotions run high. Time is compressed.

There’s doubt. There’s always doubt. And then there’s reasonable doubt. Even when men are to be killed, reason must prevail.

By the time of the judgement, with the information presented, the law will eave me no alternatives.

If more doubt is applicable, the defendants must produce it.

Can you bring me real doubts? I’m always ready to receive them.

Is he guilty of the killing? What counts is what the jury thinks. Me: I have no opinion.

Is he worthy of hanging? This is up to the jury. The it’s up to the Premier.

I have always had a motto: keep the door open to your office, keep your mind the same way.

What is in the air when a ghost hangs around?

A man who is dead, what does he want?

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: neck and head snapping back and then drooping dramatically down.

198 PROSECUTING LAWYER: a man 35 or older

The defence produce prisoners as witnesses! Men of low reputation, some of whom were not even present at the scene.

A prisoner testifies he heard shots from the tower. We can prove quickly that this prisoner was not even in the jail at the time.

The guards all deny there was any shot from the tower. There’s no doubt that Ryan fired the shot that killed Mr Hodson.

Because Mr Hodson was running hard and leaning forward when Ryan shot him, the bullet appeared to pass downward through his body. There was no shot from high up on the tower.

The jury will rightly declare Ryan is guitly. The law says he must hang. The government must chose whether or not to let that ruling stand.

The future is meaningless to Ryan. He is like an animal that way. He craves immediate sensation.

Ryan’s last ten years show dozens of crimes, three stints in prison. The man is bad and getting rapidly worse.

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: whoosing backwards and forwards, as if on a short bungy rope.

DEFENCE LAWYER: a man 35 or older

There is a bullet mark on the footpath outside the prison. It lines up with the corner of the jail where there many people brandishing guns.

[He claps his hands several times.] How many claps did you hear just then? How many people were behind you?

199 We persist with our claims that it is possible Hodson was killed accidentally by a shot from the jail. Such a possibility produces real and reasonable doubt.

The fatal bullet passed through Mr Hodson’s body, and never was found. No one can prove which rifle killed the poor man.

Consider, the path the bullet took through Mr Hodson’s body. We have doubts about where that bullet came from.

Ryan grew up in violence; he lived in violence; do we succumb to that cycle and dispatch him with violence?

Where is the bullet that killed Mr Hodson? Have you no doubts about this issue? About why it is missing?

Many people had rifles that day. Many people were panicking.

When violence is raging, should we allow it to keep ruling?

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: twanging upwards and then collapsing

ANTI-HANGING CAMPAIGNER: a woman, 20 years or older

Our voices are numbered five to one against this hanging.

We pass judgement on the hanging. We have no opinion about Ryan.

We say there are doubts. We say we are not God. We say we should not kill to force our judgement on a killing.

200 We protesters are young, mostly, and without deep experience of the political world.

Do you trust police and politicians, when they have the right to go killing? Do you gladly give them that right?

This world of men … this world of judgement … of dispatch … This world of conclusive achievement! This world of men!

An execution might be a door slammed against understanding.

[He claps his hands several times.] How many claps did you hear just then? How many people were behind you?

What does it do to us, as a people, when we choose to kill our own kind?

I found this in the Bible, in the Book of Judges: “Samson cried out, ‘Let me die with the Philistines’. Then he mightily exerted and brought the house down on all the Lords and citizens within.”

Have you ever discovered you’re wrong, and then tried to undo what you’ve done?

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: obsessive washing and wiping of hands

PRISON GUARD: a man aged 30 years or older

Imagine this: you go to work … or to school … or to the shop …. And you never come back.

A man can get killed just for doing his job!

201 Put a man’s life on a scale – what would you balance it with?

Only violence will work when violence is already ruling.

Ryan jumped one of us in the tower. He took a rifle and he tookall of our lives along with him.

At least one of us will suicide, years later at work. Because of the grief ... Grief is a world away from guilt. Our grief has nothing to do with quilt. We have no fucking guilt.

In the panic and confusion, really, how many shots might have been fired?

Count all the witnesses … all of the ones who saw Ryan with the rifle!

I stand by my colleagues. Ryan killed one of my friends.

I support the Premier if the law says to kill the killer of my friend.

I want an end to the sadness. But the sadness is strong.

[He claps his hands several times.] How many claps did you hear then? How many people were behind you?

Can I bring you someone. Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: sudden jerk and then jacknife, as if shot in the heart.

GEORGE HODSON: a man in his forties or older

I was snatched. It was sudden as a gunshot, snatched from my friends and my family.

202 When it happens, you don’t believe it, but you know it. You ask yourself, is this how it happens? Is this how it finishes?

You call out for people to help you, to help your body and soul.

Witnesses say I muttered the word, “Father!”

A lady passing by, she knelt with me and prayed.

I hear these words: “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory.”

My scripture is from Jeremiah: “I have heard multitudes defamed, and I have seen fear on all sides.”

My death led to more deaths.

How can you heal murder?

My scripture is from Jeremiah: “If only my eyes were a fountain, so I could weep day and night for all who’ve been slain”.

Will you speak to the judge? Will you interrogate the Premier?

My scripture is from Psalms: “My soul is escaped, like a bird out of a snare.”

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

Interrupt gesture: lean forward then collapse suddenly,as if hit with an axe.

WALKER: a man in his 20s

203 I was Ronnie’s running mate. He picked me out and trained me up. In Pentridge. We went over the wall.

It’s true, I killed a man. I killed a man in a public toilet while we were on the run. The guy was a meanand petty crim ... and he recognized me.

Ron pretended we were the Kelly gang. He said ‘we were bent on redistribution’. The idiot newspapers! The story caught on.

We gave them a story. And they got to perfom on TV – the politicians, the lawyers, the big-shot detectives.

When we got outside the jail, we were both in a panic. I ran around like a kid in a thunderstorm.

Can I bring you someone? Who do you want?

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