Daniel Binns is a media theorist and filmmaker tinkering with the weird edges of technology, storytelling, and screen culture. He is the author of Material Media-Making in the Digital Age and currently writes about posthuman poetics, glitchy machines, and speculative media worlds.
As previously alluded to, I’m in the very strange process of having to think through my own comprehension of the cinematic medium. In a way, I’m taking baby steps towards my own theory of film. I’ll be taking these initial explorations to a couple of conferences in New Zealand in a couple of months, and I’m also running a studio around the same topic in the second half of the year.
The basis of this new research is that throughout film history, film theory, the notion of the ‘frame’ is never questioned. So much of this is due to the fact that up until very recently, the frame itself was a tangible thing: there’s little need to theorise or philosophise about something you can cut up and hold in your hand. While my research goes out on multiple tangents, the ones we’ll be looking at in the studio have to do with our framing of the world, and how we can link this notion of framing to our conception of self, and our own thought process. It sounds pretentious, I’m well aware, but I’m hoping that through exploring what a cinematic frame is in 2015, we can move towards a comprehension of digital cinema that is either entirely new or, at best, a – ahem – reframing of older theories of film form and philosophy.
I’m in the midst of writing a paper for inclusion in a semiotics journal that will eventually, I suppose, become my theory of cinema. The thing is, I could probably just cobble something together from Deleuze and wrap it around a conception of mobility and collaborative cultures. The more I think about it, though, the more intrigued I’m getting about just what my conception of cinema is. ‘Cinema’ doesn’t mean the same thing now as it did fifty years ago. Nor twenty, or even ten years ago. It’s coming to mean the original ‘niche’ understanding of the broad swathe of films that aren’t made, necessarily, for commercial gain. In this sense, ‘cinema’ means a body of filmed work that speaks to something larger than the typical art/commerce spectrum. The definition of what that larger something is, thus, becomes the crux of this paper I’m working on. My issue, though, is that I don’t think movies-for-the-masses should necessarily be excluded from the category of ‘cinema’. I guess I’ll have to work in some social angle, and I guess the mobility and consumer-creation stuff is the bridge there. Anyway – expect more disjointed rantings on the subject as I work through this.
“Hipster style bearded man taking selfie with selfie stick.” – actual description from Shutterstock. Click to see full copyright details and purchase a high-res non-watermarked version, if that’s really your bag.
Today I had the pleasure of attending the RMIT nonfictionLab‘s symposium on interactive documentary. A great many interesting talks were given, and I’m hoping to collate some of my notes into coherent ramblings here and elsewhere over the coming days.
I was reading various tweets today, watching some of the presentations at the conference, and ruminating more generally on photography, mobile media and the ‘self’. As something of a disclaimer, I abhor selfie sticks. I find their presence and purpose incomprehensible, and the people who use them (for the most part) arrogant and, possibly appropriately, self-absorbed.
In spite of this, my mind kept returning to them today, in light of some of the discussion around ‘autodocumentary’. In using our smart devices to track and photograph and record and measure every movement we make, we are, in a sense, creating a narrative; a documentary of our lives.
The ‘selfie stick’, ostensibly, aids in the act of taking ‘selfies’, or photographs of the photographer. The ‘selfie’ finds its origins in the ‘fridge shot’: an often poorly-composed, over-exposed photograph of the photographer and one or several other people. I find this origin important, given that the current ‘selfie’ is a refined and technologically-improved (allegedly) version of the earlier iteration.
What struck me today is that the ‘selfie stick’, by its nature, is a step in a weird direction. Physically, the device distances the camera from the ‘self’, allowing a modicum of control over the composition and quality of the resulting artefact. I think it could be argued, then, that the selfie stick does not create ‘selfies’ as we have come to know them. A photograph taken with the aid of a selfie stick is more akin to one taken with the aid of a tripod, in that the photographer takes much more care with the composition and preparation of the shot.
‘Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention,’ writes Susan Sontag in her magnificent On Photography (1977), ‘[though] the act of photographing is more than passive observing.’
Sontag is relaying here that while photography necessarily detaches any interaction or meddling with the subject (if recording something as it appears in nature or, for want of any other word ‘reality’), it cannot be seen as just that: recording. In the framing up of any given subject, you lose any claim to objectivity.
I would argue that in holding the camera at arm’s length, with no idea of what the frame is, or what the light is like, or whether you and your mates are even in the damn picture, the ‘fridge shot’ and, to an extent, the original smartphone selfie (before front-facing cameras, introduced to Apple devices with 2010’s iPhone 4 – yep, only five years ago), are more in line with the former definition. This is mainly due to the fact that the artist’s control over the artefact is limited, both physically and in terms of the relinquishing of some of the act to the technology itself.
The ‘distancing’ that comes into play with the selfie stick is an attempt to control the entirety of the act of taking selfies which, in some small way, detracts from the entire philosophy and purpose of the selfie.
Yet another, this time thoroughly thought-out, reason to detest the selfie stick.
I booted up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare lastnight, for the first time since its release. I remember enjoying playing through the single-player campaign (I’ve never been much for online multiplayer) way back in 2007, and being staggered at some of the visuals, even with it running at lowest settings on my old Toshiba laptop. The reason I’m playing through it again is for inclusion in the published version of my PhD thesis.
Eight years later, the opening chapters of the game really hold up from a visual point of view. Yes, games have come a long way, but the sheer rollicking action of the training sections and cargo ship prologue mask some of the less crisp edges and other visual shortcomings.
Hilariously, though, the game is really bad. It tries to do so much in such a short span of time (rough play-through, from memory, was under ten hours?), and in so doing draws on every cliche of Anglo-American foreign policy for the last hundred years. This, however, makes it perfect for my thesis.
The first key element is the ‘othering’ of all races, nationalities, religions and genders. You’re safe if you’re white, American, Christian, and male. But even the British — one of whom the player controls for a significant part of the game — are heavily caricatured and stereotyped. The first words out of your superior’s mouth are ‘What kind of a name is Soap, eh? How’d a muppet like you pass selection?’
The antagonists of the game are… Arabs? Russians? Hell, throw in the North Koreans and the Chinese and everyone’s covered.
The primary antagonist is a fellow named Khaled al-Asad, who leads a separatist group in an unnamed pan-Middle Eastern country. Naturally, said country is rich in resources, hence the international interest. The player is introduced to al-Asad while the camera is situated inside the head of the President. As the President, you’re driven through the streets of an anonymous city, and every stereotype is there: people being shot, people shooting, people running, children playing soccer, a firing squad executing civilians, helicopters and jets flying overhead, wild dogs chasing random people. You arrive at a public space, where al-Asad is finishing a rallying speech to the separatists. He calmly wanders over, levels a gun at your face, and pulls the trigger.
The gross over-generalisation of these early parts of the game is deplorable, but you can’t deny the compelling spectacle. I certainly can’t deny I’d like to get back into the game right now.
A big couple of months, hence the lack of updates. I’ve taken up a new position as Lecturer in Media at RMIT University. Yes, RMIT in Melbourne. I’m now, once more, a Victorian. The move has been tough, but it’s great to be back down here surrounded by family and friends and much decent coffee.
The new job is shaping up well, and is sucking most of my hours, particularly in terms of catching up on research. I’m still in the process of editing the PhD for publication, and will have finished another two publications by the time I start teaching proper in early March.
Things bode well, and I’ll keep this updated as often as possible, particularly with notes on research, more war films, games, and so on.
Her language contains elements from Aeolic vernacular and poetic tradition, with traces of epic vocabulary familiar to readers of Homer. She has the ability to judge critically her own ecstasies and grief, and her emotions lose nothing of their force by being recollected in tranquillity.
