Anissa Marianne Jousset Student ID: 10916547 MA New Media and Digital Culture University of Amsterdam Supervisor: Prof. Dr. R.A. Rogers Second Reader: Dr. M.D. Tuters June 23rd 2016 Jousset 1 Excessive Graphic Motion: On the contemporary music video as the next instalment in post- classical digital cinema Abstract: The evolution of cinema in the digital age has become topic of interest to both film and media theorists alike, positing the death of film and emergence of new, original genres. Contemporary music videos can be seen as an outcome of this strained relationship, as a media that both borrows from film and brings it into the future through its use of cinematic in technical and narrative terms. Although definitions of the music video remain elusive, a compilation of film and media theory has allowed the music video to find its place within the genre of post classical cinema, addressing concerns of post digital art and affecting the medium in both aesthetic and audience related terms. The accelerated, condensed content of the music video has affected the medium of film not only in aesthetic terms, but has also determined a new kind of hyper-aware audience which reflects new media debates on human-computer interaction, embodiment, and, to a greater extent the evolution of the human experience in the wake of an increasingly digitizing new media landscape. Keywords: Music video, aesthetics, post-classical cinema, digital cinema, new media, embodiment, retrograde technicity, viewer engagement, late capitalism Jousset 2 Cover photo: Collection of screenshots from corpus of videos glitched. (Anissa Jousset) Special Thanks I would like to thank Pepijn Bierhuizen, Max Cantellow, Alexander Guian-Illanes, and Xeniya Kondrat for their help and support throughout. Jousset 3 Table of Contents I: Debaser: Establishing music videos as an undervalued film genre II. Sound & Vision: Contextualizing the post-classical music video III. Heaps of fragments: Defragmenting the aesthetics of post digital cinema IV. Everything, all at once: engagement and the viewer experience in the digital age V. Take A Look At These Hands: the Post-Digital Identity Crisis VI. Post-Pop Depression: Status update on the position of music videos in post classical digital film Works Cited Videos Jousset 4 I: Debaser: Establishing Music Videos as an Undervalued Film Genre Just Plain Old Movies The scene is the contemporary new media landscape, and our protagonist is film. As we follow him through an analogue desert, increasingly dominated by digital technology, we may expect him to break, falter, or even die. However, a digital plot twist will prevent this, a revolution of some sorts. Film will not die, film will go on. In theoretical terms, the death of cinema in the digital age has become a topic of great interest to both the fields of new media and cinema and has spurring discourse from both sides questioning the ability of film to adapt .The accelerated development of digital technologies, in relation to the capturing, processing and production of cinematic images has begun to blur the boundaries between individual creation and automated production, modifying the temporality and narrative structure of film, as well as its temporality as a medium. This, along with the increasing availability of digital means of producing and distributing images are some of the elements that have triggered a cinematic identity crisis within which I will establish the music video as being film’s response to new media culture. Although the impact of digital technology on video manifests itself in a multitude of formats which would be equally relevant to study in relation to the evolution of the video medium both in terms of form (i.e. Vine or Snapchat videos), and platforms, I have chosen to place my attention on the music video in order to add to the symmetrical bidimensionality of the relationship of film and new media. In this, I would like to present the music video as both a cinematic response to new digital technologies, and as a new media art form which takes its roots in film but has begun to branch out and become a film genre Jousset 5 in its own right. Here the music video finds its place as being one of the multiple outcomes of debates concerning film and new media. In the following chapter, I will contextualize the debate on the position of cinema within the new media landscape and offer my own contribution to the theoretical debate through the introduction of the music video as a cinematic genre. Through the works of André Gaudreault, Philippe Marion, and Patricia Pisters, I will lay out the debate on the end of film in the age of new media. After having mapped out the issue, I will offer my own ideas concerning the death of film, in context with the fluid, ever changing nature of the medium, by arguing that the crisis it is currently faced with is a key component in a revolution, focusing primarily here on the technological aspects of cinematic production, which are at the core of the new media debate. In order to build context for the study of the music video in the field of film, a study of the current stance of the music video ranging from its origins on MTV and its commercial roots to how far it has come in both in theoretical and media terms will be done. Here I will address the gap in literature concerning the study of the music video, and its definition as a media that is independent of being strictly commercial and that remains thoroughly undefined. Taking into consideration the works of Simon Frith and Anthony Goodwin on the study of video clips, both of whom place great importance on the role of pop culture in the meaning making of these clips, I am proposing a re-examination of the definition of pop culture. This new definition is based on the works of Adorno and Benjamin in relation to the role of pop music and the aura of art respectively, which will be reworked in order to shake the foundations of critical theory. I will end by placing the music video as the bridge between cinema and new media, as being a yet undefined component in the cinematic matrix, which is both in the process of Jousset 6 defining itself as a medium, and thus far remains underestimated while asserting the position of cinema in the digital age. Carrying The Cans In her 2013 book Unruly Media: YouTube, Music Video, and the New Digital Cinema, Carol Vernallis addresses the dynamic relationship between music videos and film: “indeed a close study of this “low art “can help to explain contemporary film” (94) This vacant space between two medias, which have been deemed very different from each other or not studied by media theorists, is where I place myself. While the music video has been thoroughly criticized for its pop culture and commercial value, its role in terms of validity as a film genre has not been thoroughly addressed. Music videos, in essence have been found to borrow from other visual art forms, and have come increasingly closer to the medium of film in particular, which seems to have come as a bit of a shock to affected parties in the industry. Music video style has colonized contemporary cinema more than we know(33).This “colonization “of film, which now finds itself amongst the ranks of classical art, gives the music video a threatening impact on the fundamental origins of film. The branching out of the music video into the media of film is informed by the structural fear of low and highbrow culture blending and becoming indistinguishable. In the domain of film, this fear echoes filmmaker Paul Greenaway’s concerns regarding the death of cinema’s classical form (Gaudreault and Marion 2). The concern that film is being tainted by new media forms can partially be attributed to recent technological developments and the rise of the Internet as an outlet for new media which have left film theorists full of questions regarding the damage digital technologies will do to the Jousset 7 ecology of the film industry. The individual’s power to seize the means of production, the immediacy of rendering the images, and the diverse broadcasting outlets available for the distribution of moving pictures is amongst some of the fears film theorists and (other affected parties) have with regards to the relevance and place of film in the age of digital technology. This situation is addressed by André Gaudreault and Philippe Marion in their 2015 book The End of Cinema?: A Medium in Crisis in the Digital Age, in which they address the status of cinema in the crisis brought about by new media(2). In this, they place themselves within the context of contemporary debates which are expecting cinema to become obsolete because of digital technology, which would alter the definition of cinema. Gaudreault and Marion acknowledge this question by stating that uncertainties concerning the future of cinema are not medium specific but are a part of greater debates concerning the status of classical media which have lost many of their bearings since the advent of digital technologies(2). The theoretical fear of the death of film, in more visual terms, is also deeply rooted in Rancière’s death of the image, in which he states that in contemporary culture there is nothing but images, and that therefore images are devoid of context or meaning (Pisters1).With regards to the Internet as an artistic environment, which facilitates the broadcasting and sharing of content at an unprecedented speed, the hermeneutical death of the image is not an unfounded fear to have.