Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde
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Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde Steve F. Anderson Abstract Euro-American Structural film movement of the 1960s This article maps two divergent trajectories within a nar- and 70s, and to explore resonances with a range of cul- rowly defined sphere of short-form, time-based digital tural concerns of relevance to the digital age. I do not, media created between 1995 and 2005. Works dis- however, wish to spend much time justifying my use of cussed include music videos, design-oriented short the term “avant-garde,” which admittedly carries specific films, and motion graphics by directors Michel Gondry, historical connotations which are not all applicable to the Virgil Widrich, Mike Nourse, Barbara Lattanzi, Rico present discussion.[3] I will argue that these questions Gatson, and design firms Logan, Ramon & Pedro, and guide us toward two primary terminal points. The first is H5. These works are considered in relation to the histor- the movement toward a kind of "open source" video ical avant-garde – particularly the Structural film move- authoring modeled after the combined practices of open ment of the 1960s and 70s – and analyzed as respons- source programming communities and peer-to-peer file es to a range of cultural concerns specific to the digital sharing networks – two practices that have significance age. The analysis identifies movement toward two termi- for the future of digital media across a wide range of nal points: first, a mode of remix-based montage production and distribution practices. The second is the inspired by open source programming communities and emergence of what I call the "digital analogue," a mode peer-to-peer networks; and second, the emergence of a that foregrounds material aspects of production seem- mode of imaging termed the "digital analogue," which ingly in defiance of the conventional wisdom that digital foregrounds the material basis of digital production. media are characterized by dematerialization and dis- connection from the physical world. Aporias of the Digital Avant-Garde Because the title of this essay features the rather glar- This article maps two divergent trajectories within a nar- ing oxymoron "digital avant-garde," it may be useful to rowly defined sphere of short-form, time-based, digital media – specifically: music videos, design-oriented short films and motion graphics – created during the past ten I will argue that these questions years. Despite the fact that the work under considera- guide us toward two primary ter- tion here has rapidly proliferated and resonated with minal points. The first is the move- many of the key theoretical issues in cinema and visual culture studies of the past three decades, it has been ment toward a kind of "open largely neglected by theorists and critics of digital cul- source" video authoring modeled ture.[1] Part of the reason for this neglect is practical. The works themselves are often ephemeral or difficult to after the combined practices of access and they tend to occupy a liminal position open source programming commu- between what is called "experimental" or "avant-garde" nities and peer-to-peer file sharing film and video, and the equally broadly defined field of practice termed "new media." These works therefore do networks – two practices that have not fit into any consistent curricular or publishing niche, significance for the future of digi- are rarely a part of mainstream culture, do not receive theatrical distribution or broadcasting, and are often tal media across a wide range of regarded with suspicion as proper objects of study with- production and distribution prac- in an academic context.[2] Nonetheless, I will argue that tices. The second is the emer- much of this work may be productively understood as a processing ground for some of the most compelling gence of what I call the "digital issues in digital culture, as seen across the broad spec- analogue," a mode that fore- trum of contemporary media. grounds material aspects of pro- I am particularly interested in considering this work’s duction seemingly in defiance of potential for understanding emergent approaches to the the conventional wisdom that digi- perception and construction of space, time, and bodies; the status of narrative; and relations between technolo- tal media are characterized by gy and material culture. As a point of entry, I propose to dematerialization and disconnec- ask whether this work may be meaningfully understood in relation to the historical avant-garde, particularly the tion from the physical world. intelligent agent 06.02 transvergence.anderson.digitalavantgards.01 define these two terms in isolation in order to frame the If these images can be said to refer to anything, it is use I hope to make of them in juxtaposition. First, the to millions of bits of electronic, mathematical data.[5] term "digital" rarely denotes a set of cohesive practices. Digital media are notoriously hybrid, often bringing The problem with digital images, as Crary defines them, together images, sounds, and objects that are comput- is that they are not linked in an indexical relationship to er-generated or mediated with others that originate in the "real world" – which he revealingly equates with the the analogue, photochemical, or textual worlds. There "optically perceived" world.[6] What is at stake here are is, however, a certain utility to "digital" as a historicizing not merely the technical affordances of competing tech- term, particularly as it implies its own eventual obsoles- nologies of vision but a philosophical metaphor describ- cence. I am less interested, therefore, in defining "digital ing the way we attain knowledge about the world. But in culture" in terms of technology, than in attempting to characterizing the ontological shift represented by digital identify the social practices and preoccupations that are imaging in terms of loss, it is all too easy to find our- particular to the digital age. One of the things at stake selves in a nostalgic desire for the prelapsarian authen- within the consumer culture that surrounds digital media ticity of the photograph – a concept that is itself dubious is the growing invisibility of its underpinning technology. at best. This is of particular relevance given the current move- ment toward ubiquitous computing and wireless net- In his essay "Avant-Garde as Software," Lev Manovich works; even flat panel monitors and microprocessors extends this loss to the failure of the avant-garde to sus- that are embedded in everyday objects seem to negate tain the convergence of formal and political interests: the physical infrastructure of the computer and by impli- cation, its socio-industrial base. The old media avant-garde came up with new forms, new ways to represent reality and new ways Within visual culture, digital imaging has come to signify to see the world. The new media avant-garde is a parallel ontological shift away from the indexical trace about new ways of accessing and manipulating of the photograph. Where photochemical imaging could information […] The new avant-garde is no longer lay claim to a direct relation to the physical world, both concerned with seeing or representing the world in conventional wisdom and our own experience tell us new ways but rather with accessing and using in that digital images are differently disconnected from the new ways previously accumulated media.[7] world they purport to represent. Although the problemat- ic of representing reality long predates the appearance Manovich aptly describes the development of database of digital technology, the early 1990s marked a point-of- structures and recombinant media that are crucial to no-return for the representational capacity of images. In networked culture, but his model overlooks the potential his 1991 book Representing Reality, documentary film of this new media avant-garde to engage new ways of theorist Bill Nichols offered this almost sheepish dis- seeing the world that are rooted not in optical perception claimer: but in the harnessing of data flows – a shift summarized by Peter Weibel as a move "from the ruins of represen- [through digital sampling] The image becomes a tation to the practices of processing."[8] Part of the goal series of bits, a pattern of yes/no choices registered of this article is to understand the functioning of digital within a computer’s memory […] There is no original networks as not merely a vehicle for the transmission of negative […] against which all prints can be com- data, but a means of "seeing" and understanding the pared for accuracy and authenticity. There may not world. At stake in this investigation is an emergent even be an external referent. The implications of all understanding of the ways media practitioners are this are only beginning to be grasped. They clearly enacting new forms of networked subjectivity and cre- set a historical framework around the discussion ativity that are specific to an "open source" authoring presented in this book, which continues to empha- mode. I do not mean to uncritically privilege these net- size the qualities and properties of the photographic worked practices, which are as readily deployed for evil image.[4] as for good, but to highlight the transformative impact of networks on historical avant-garde tactics of appropria- The previous year, in his influential book on 19th centu- tion and recombination. ry visual culture Techniques of the Observer, Jonathan Crary noted that digital imaging constitutes a categorical Given the constraints of our present historical moment break from the photographic processes that were devel- and the purposes of this essay, the "avant-garde" may oped in the early 19th century. With digital imaging, be defined as a non-singular and contradictory range of Crary asserts, vision is relocated to minor practices that are dialectically related to – i.e, both resistant to and constitutive of – dominant media a plane severed from a human observer […] Most of systems.