SMU Video Art 2019

 “This film exists only in the present: the moment of projection. It refers to nothing beyond this real time. It contains no illusion. It is a primary experience, not secondary…the space is not referential; the time is real, not referential.” McCall said. Projection film created an opportunity to experience a film in a way that is only closely matched by witnessing a live play. Except even in the live play, though the space may not be referential, time within the narrative typically is.  The projection, in the case of Line Describing a Cone, is not a story that was recorded on a set somewhere and then replayed. It is a story that is unfolding before the viewers in real time, not a playback. This experiment with temporal and special elements of time make room for new experiences that projection film can bring.

I like how the work is described as being perfectly in the present, with the past and future playing no role. I definitely agree that Line Describing a Cone is a participatory performance. It adds a completely new layer of depth to the piece since the amount of people viewing change the ambience. It is helpful the level of specificity McCall uses about his set ups and how much thought goes into these complex installations. After reading this excerpt it is clear how much knowledge McCall has of incorporating projections into “non time-based” interactive art.

When Anthony McCall begins to describe his term “Line Describing A Cone” I became instantly confused: “ Line Describing A Cone is what I term a solid light film. It deals with the projected light beam itself, rather than treating the light beam as a mere carrier of coded information, which is decoded when it strikes a flat surface” (McCall, 61). This definition could genuinely not be more vague. Is he arguing that the light is the film/art and the story that the light is carrying is irrelevant? As in: the medium of light should be the only thing taken into consideration...But isn’t light just a carrier of information anyway? (In terms of a film, I guess).  I feel as though this line is important (when he was describing this film) but am unsure with what McCall is trying to depict: “the space is real not referential; the time is real, not referential” (62). When trying to actually break this down: objects are where they are based upon what other objects are around them (what referen

I really appreciated how Laura U. Marks depicted the accessibility of different platforms in today’s modern technology because this is going to have a continuous influence on society (something imperative for artists to take into account before showing their work). This was something I witnessed a lot when I traveled to Ghana, Africa. The communities there may not have enough money for food or water or a toilet, but they would somehow save enough to buy a phone so they could have Instagram, Twitter, Facebook: not only to communicate with others but for the sharing of photos/art.  Marks’ depictions brought on thoughts from my own experiences at galleries. I have had some pretty unpleasant experiences watching films/videos or viewing different pieces of art in galleries. Art gallery is not a place that excites a lot of people my age. Nevertheless, maybe some of these memories are from my childhood where my family spent hours in the museums of Italy and France (which looking back at t

"the space is real not referential; the time is real, not referential."  "the more people that are present the more 'solid' the form becomes."  what does he mean by that? does the presence of people effect how solid the cone becomes, or does he mean solid in a different way.  participatory performance I thought it was interesting that the viewing is shown in a traditional manner, but is also interactive and acts as an installation. He incorporates the experience of a screening, and the experience one might have in a gallery.  I also couldn't help but think about Picasso's light drawings in relation to McCall 

Simulacrum: image or representation of someone or something Borges fable: "On Exactitude in Science," (1946) short story by Jorge Luis Borges about the map-territory relation. In an empire where cartography becomes an exact science, a map is made that portrays every element of the country with perfectly accurate detail. A map that precedes what it depicts, and therefore causes the territory's rise, raises a simple but valuable dilemma of what is representation and what is real. The author says the sovereign difference between the representation and the real is what gives that abstraction charm. In this case, mapping is simply equating the real into a system of signs of the real. "The real will never have a chance to produce itself." It's like removing death as even an option in life. Simulate (from text): to feign to have what one doesn't have Dissimulate (from text): to pretend to not have what one has If one were to simulate an illness, he wo