Film Screening - BB Optics

On April 10, I attended the PFA’s screening of BB Optics. This screening involved a presentation by Bill Brand of a number of works he has been responsible for preserving through his company, BB Optics. The six short features shown were the Nixon White House Super-8 Films, New Left Note, The Fallen World, Fire in My Belly, Home Avenue, Black and White Film, and Daffodils.

The Nixon White House Super-8 Films were created by members of Nixon’s cabinet who were given video cameras to record whatever they chose to. The majority of the film focused in on Nixon attending political events. The film lacked sound, making it extremely boring to watch. I didn’t understand the point of filming Nixon giving a speech when you aren’t able to hear what he is saying.

The next clip shown was New Left Note. This clip consisted of mostly scenes of political protest. The editing was extremely jumpy and disjointed. As Mr. Brand discussed, the clip left out the leaders, choosing instead to focus in on the common people involved in the protests.

The Fallen World was the artist, Margie Keller’s intimate portrayal of her husband. The first shot focused in on a huge stone sculpture. A classical music soundtrack accompanied the clip. The video followed a middle-aged man as he walked around to different sites, including a graveyard.

A Fire in My Belly focused in on scenes from Mexico. The film started off by cutting between newspaper articles and scenes on the street of Mexico. Next, the film showed two wrestlers fighting along with scenes of a cock fight and a bull fight. Finally, the film ended with scenes from a circus, showing a person on a trapeze and a monkey doing tricks.

The next three films shown by Mr. Brand were described as portraying intimate situations. The first film, Home Avenue, involved a women retelling the story of how she was raped in college. She discussed each event at the same locations that each event took place. In the next film, Black and White, we watched in black and white as a woman undressed and then slowly covered parts of her body with black paint, making them disappear to the audience. The final film was Daffodils, which was intimate showing of Mr. Brand by his wife.

Overall, I was disappointed with the BB Optics showing at the PFA. I found most of the clips boring. This probably stemmed from the fact that I had no connection to the film archival process like many people in the audience did.

Philip Schmidt

Announcement about Film and Event Reviews

The last day of class, May 2, is the deadline for posting film and event reviews to the blog for course credit. If you have attended something and not yet posted about it, be sure to do so over the next week!

There is a film 5/2 at PFA. Plus this weekend the San Francisco Film Festival begins, so you could try to see something in it if you still need to attend a film: www.sffif.org. Check it out even if not for class; there are some great things in the program...

Jim Campbell, Shadow

Jim Campbell’s artwork, Shadow, is an intriguing piece because the ability to see its details is impossible. The piece is seen from afar as a Buddha in a square glass box. Upon approaching it, smoke fills the glass box, making it impossible to see the intricacy of the piece, leaving only a shadow of the Buddha inside. Campbell describes his work as frustrating. It is this frustration that controls the interest of its viewers. Because the viewers would soon lose interest if they could outsmart the piece, Campbell dedicated most of his efforts to ensure there were no holes in the interface, which would hinder the viewer’s attempt to sneak up to the object. I found it comical that the Buddha is sitting atop a scientific journal article from 1993. This is ironic because it is impossible to get close enough to the piece to read it. As I stood in front of the piece I found myself running up to it, as if I could move faster than the smoke within the box. Campbell’s piece was extremely interesting because we are able to interact with it, but is also frustrating as he described.

Campbell also described his work as a, “one liner.” As I sat there, I became somewhat disappointed as Campbell seemed uninspired by his own work. Many individuals were enthusiastic, asking questions and finding new ways to interpret the meaning of the piece. I felt like everyone was looking too far into the piece, whereas Campbell saw it as just a Buddha in a box. Campbell’s lack of enthusiasm caused me to question the true meaning of art. Are we looking to far into it, trying to find meaning that does not exist? Or can it be interpreted in any way, differing with every viewer?

The video Campbell showed was attention grabbing, because you really had to look at what you were watching in order to understand what is truly there. The video started out as a blurry mixture of colors, but as I watched, it slowly began to develop into movement. Eventually I was able to see it for what it truly was, a boxing match. Campbell said that this type of art is very interesting because every individual who experiences it is different. Some take 10 minutes to see it for what it is, whereas for others it takes 10 seconds. These videos provided art in which the viewer can interact, making it more appealing as well as entertaining.

Response to Berkeley Dance Project 2007

The piece The Reception, featured in the Berkeley Dance Project 2007 at UC Berkeley, is an examination of “cyber culture” and “corporeal presence” through a crossing of choreographed dance and what they described as tele-immersion technology. The thirty-minute Reception included actual dancers who interacted with people that were filmed and then either televised on a monitor, or projected onto a screen. The narrator, who also physically participated in the show, asked the audience to examine their own notions of presence, and whether the lack of physical presence can be replaced, and equally so, through cyber-incarnations. These questions echo the notions of Mark Hansen in his article Seeing with the Body.

In the first segment, a female dancer dances with a cybernetic partner projected on a large screen in front of her. A web camera captures the image of the dancing girl, and, remotely, sends the image to a program in another building on campus, which reinterprets the image, transports it back, and projects a pixilated dancer on the large screen. The result is a sort of digital shadow. As the process of capturing the image, transporting it, and transposing it takes a few seconds, there is a slight delay between the dancer and her digital shadow. The actual dancer reacts to this delay, and tends to repeat herself, in order to present the illusion of dancing with an actual partner, or perhaps just her reflection. From this, arises the dichotomy of whether the digitization is supposed to simply be a sort of reflection (ballerina practicing in a mirror), or the replacement of a human, creating a new dance partner that will never break synchronicity.

The second segment questioned the notion of presence, and the lack thereof, in connection with digital replacement. The narrator muses on a distant lover, and his desire to see her and be with her. He then interacts with a “talking-head” (the head and shoulders) version of his lover playing on a monitor from a pre-recorded video. They converse back and forth with one another, presenting a believable interaction. Two questions arise from this. Firstly, from a personal standpoint, if our ideas on “what is real” are merely reinterpretations of our perceptions of reality, then does a digital reincarnation of someone suffice for their absence if we perceive the digitization to be real? And secondly, from an audience standpoint, and through a similar reasoning, is there a difference between watching two real people interact, and a real person and a digitally portrayed person interact if we can ignore the presence of digitization?

The questions raised in The Reception are tackled by Mark Hansen in his article Seeing with the Body. Hansen claims that digital reinterpretation, such as that featured in the dance piece, creates a “plane severed from a human observer”. (58) He believes that this in no way mimics or suffices for human presence. The existence of digital medium blocks reality-based human perception, as we are cut off from the “real” emotions of physical contact.

Eddie Berman

Doug Aitken

Doug Aitken, prominent LA artist, spoke of creating non-linear narratives that discuss the relation of different images in space. The theme in all of his works seem to be “Let’s make it, break it, and make it new again”. Aitken was frusterated with the rigidity of film and wanted to work with different perceptions. With works such as Diamond Sea, set in the diamond mines of Africa, he claimed to first break the linearity of film. He creates a psychological landscape out of physical one by allowing images to expand and become, what he calls, “kaleidoscopic”. Other works, such as Eraser and Monsoon focus on negative space. Other works he discussed included Rise which showed a cityscape from a “God’s eye view”. Next he discussed Into the Sun, which he claimed “expanded the notion of filmmaking through its connection to mythology.” The photograph he showed of the exhibit in London had projections of film on 3 walls and red earth covering the floor. Aitken also talked about Restless Minds, a film showing the beat patterns and linguistics of auctioneers.
Aitken discussed many interesting things in him lecture, however I was most taken with his ideas on the closed door policy of museums. I loved how he projected his work on the outside walls of a museum, in order to escape the constraints of tickets, hours, etc., so that even a person walking by or traveling on a bus could experience his work. I am also intrigued by the dioramas that he creates. For example, Plateau 1 is a large model created almost entirely out of fed-ex boxes. The sheer intricacies and the 6 months that it took to makes is completely fascinating.
I enjoyed the discussion and the work presented was very interesting and stimulating, however Aitken seems to be a slightly pompous, stereotypical artist—mellow, but very full of himself.

Breakdown of Due Dates

4/22 Dance Performance at 2pm

4/23, Due in class: 2-3 page Final Paper Outline
Include the name of what you are working on in the title of the outline. Start with a short paragraph articulating your main argument. (A thesis paragraph.) List a CLAIM for each body paragraph; this is a topic sentence. Indicate the EVIDENCE or sources you will work with to support that claim (text, scene). Paraphrase your ANALYSIS of pertinent details of this evidence. Briefly suggest how your INTERPRETATION will link this analysis to your claim. (see handout) Cite the sources you are using at the end of the outline.

4/23 6pm Screening of your clips
You can show a SHORT clip from the film you are writing on: must be under 5 minutes!! If you are not writing on a film you can use my laptop (or yours) to access a website or show an image of a game or artwork.

4/25 and 4/30 In-Class Presentations
You will have five minutes to present your final project to the class. You will need to explain your argument in a general way; it is a task very similar to that of writing the introduction to your paper. We will be especially interested to hear how you will use Dlz/Vrlio/Sbchk/Hnsen; how the example you are working on relates to things from the class that we have all read or seen; and how its presentation of space and especially time fit in with the larger themes of the course. You will be able to use my laptop or yours to show images or slides but you are not required to do so. (If you want to use my laptop you will need to e-mail me a PowerPoint file titled with your name by 9am the morning of your presentation.) We’ll talk more about the presentations in class on 4/23.

4/30 6-8pm (screening time) ROUGH DRAFT due in two copies, Peer Edit
You will be partnered with another student to do a live peer-edit. You will read and discuss each other’s rough drafts, offering critique and advice. You’ll take home the copy that your partner read and wrote on, and we will keep the other copy. You can choose to show each other edits beyond this session if you find it helpful.

5/7 FINAL PAPER Due by 6pm in hard copy and by e-mail
One hard copy is due to Norman’s box in the Rhetoric office. The other copy is due by e-mail, as a Word.doc attachment, to Brooke at bbelisle@berkeley.edu. Please put “Final Paper” in the subject line of this e-mail so it will land in the right place. You will not get your final papers back, since we find that so many students never come pick them up. We will e-mail, to whatever e-mail address you have listed on BearFacts, your grade on the final paper and your grade for the cours, and probably a sentence of commentary. We will e-mail you more extensive feedback about your final paper only if you ask us to do so; please indicate this on the front of the hard copy you turn in AND in the body of the e-mail you send that has your final paper attached.

Office hours 2/23 - 5/2 (brooke)

4/23 MONDAY in Rhetoric Library
11.15 joanna
11.30 cathy
11.45 chris
12 laura
12.15 olivia
12.30 johnny

4/25 WEDNESDAY in Rhetoric Library
11.15 leesha
11.30 alina
11.45
--
12.15 robin
12.30
12:45

4/30 MONDAY
11.15
11.30
11.15
11.30
--
12
12.15
12.30
12.45

5/2 WEDNESDAY at Cafe Milano on Bancroft between Telegraph and College
11.15
11.30
11.45
---
12.30
12.45
1
1.15
1.30
1.45
2
(3pm film at PFA)

Final Paper Rashomon

I'm planning on doing my final paper on the 1950 film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa and written by Shinobu Hashimoto along with Kurosawa. The film takes place in 12-century Japan and follows three different accounts of the murder of a Samurai, as told to a trial judge. Each account, - the first from the killer, the next from the slain samurai, and the last from a third party - are each completely different from each other. Yet, as Kurosawa presents each story with equal credence, he challenges the viewer to decipher which is true, if any of them are. I'm planning to relate this to Sobchack's idea concerning memory.

Mark Hansen - Seeing With the Body: The Digital Image in Postphotography

1. In Mark Hansen’s article, Seeing With the Body: The Digital Image in Postphotography, he starts by discussing a particular scene in Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner. In this particular scene, Rick Deckard places a photograph into a machine and using this machine, is able to explore the space three-dimensionally within this two-dimensional picture. Hansen believes that the digitization of photographs creates a crisis. In one way, digital manipulation of photographs poses a “threat…to traditional indexical notions of photographic realism” (54). This isn’t the first time that this problem is brought up in the movie. At a different point in the film, a replicant named Rachael confronts Rick Deckard after Deckard accuses her of being a replicant. She shows him a picture of herself with her mother. Yet, the audience realizes that the photograph is a fake. In this world of advanced technology, a photograph, something that usually can be counted on to be authentic, can no longer be trusted to be authentic.

2. Another crisis created by the digitization of photographs that Hansen discusses is the “radically new understanding of the photographic image as a three-dimensional “virtual” space” (54). As Deckard uses the machine to move around within the two-dimensional picture, he transforms this two-dimensional space into a three-dimensional space. This machine transforms a photograph from “a physical inscription of light on sensitive paper” into a “data set that can be rendered in various ways and thus viewed from various perspectives” (54). In a sense, this machine that is able to move around inside of a two-dimensional photograph has gained a human-like quality. With commands from a user, the machine is able to move around the photograph, focusing in on particular areas of interest. This is the same as if a human being was suddenly transported to the scene of the original photograph, able to move around and explore as he pleased. This machine is taking the place of human vision, allowing a person to explore the area in a picture without having to actually be there.

3. This visual technology is “relocating vision to a plane severed from a human observer” (58). Suddenly, a person does not need to be present to observe a scene, all he needs is a photograph of the place and the right technology. This technology is taking the place of the human eye. However, this shift from the human eye to technology changes what an image represents. With the use of technology, images suddenly represent “millions of bits of electronic mathematical data” (58).

Philip Schmidt

Kenneth Anger Films

Tonight’s films from Kenneth Anger were confusing in the sense that they had no plot, and Scorpio Rising was especially difficult to view because of the rapid assembling of different scenes flashing before you. It reminded me of a slideshow rather than my traditional idea of a film.

Fireworks had somewhat of a plot and possibly represented a dream. A sailor was holding a man while lightning flashed, then the scene cut to the man sleeping on his bed. I assume that when he “woke up” he was dreaming, and his dream was about a group of sailors beating him up. Although the movie ends with a scene of him sleeping, confirming my idea that it was a dream, there are parts that lead you to believe it wasn’t. For example, the fireplace is now on fire, presumably from the flaming Christmas tree in the dream, and the hand on his desk is now fixed, when it was broken in the “dream”. On another note, something in the film reminded me of the film we saw in class where the dancer danced into different rooms. At one point in Fireworks, the man was talking to a sailor at what looked like a bar, then in his home next to the fireplace. Unlike the film we saw in class, this was much more abrupt and it was difficult to tell if it was meant to be connected to the previous scene.

Rabbit’s Moon wasn’t much easier to understand, but an interesting idea the lecturer brought up was the debate he had when restoring the film: flip the image or don’t flip the image? Apparently the film was accidentally flipped when Anger transferred it, which caused Lipman to wonder whether or not to flip it back. There were two sides to it: 1) the big dipper would appear correctly if it was flipped or 2) not flipping it may keep what was intended. He decided making two versions, one flipped and one not, which I think was a fair decision.

Hansen - Seeing the Body: The Digital Image in Postphotography

1. In Mark Hansen’s article, he starts off with the scene from Bladerunner in which Deckard manipulates a photograph in order to discover evidence leading to the whereabouts of the replicants. In his investigation, he operates a computer and reveals the invisible by walking through the image as if it is a 3d world rather than a flat image. However, this manipulation of photographs and the digital technology comes into question as he brings up William Mitchell. Mitchell grows wary of the present day digital manipulation of images and questions “the status and interpretation of the visual signifier” (57). Hansen proposes Mitchell’s guidelines limits the scope of digital photography and imaging. Instead of digitizing a hardcopy image, one can construct a 3d environment within the computer and take a picture within this environment. Game developers often such virtual worlds and take screenshots of these virtual environments. This may supposedly break Mitchell’s limits, however images within computers still relay the images back to in a 2d format. While Mitchell may worry about the implications of digital, digital photography acts as a quicker, perhaps more efficient tool in traditional photography, bypassing many steps of development.

2. Hansen later raises the question of the human perception versus the machine vision. Several theorists before the digital age criticized the human mind in operating in a camera-like fashion, taking snapshots of reality and missing out on true motion. As the technology evolved to present day digital media, Hansen brings up Florian Rotzer’s belief of “functional isomorphism.” “A person does not see the world out there,” rather “see[ing] the model created by the brain and projected outwards” (65). Hansen suggests that if the computer vision “abandons perspective entirely in favor of a completely realized modelization,” then it is possible to modify what our perspective. This poses the problem that human construction becomes as malleable and controlled like a photographic image. However, Hansen rebuts that the computer vision can only be an instrument or aid of human perspective.

3. The digital technology acts as an extension of our bodies or rather “embodied prosthesis.” Hansen then quotes architect Lars Spuybroek, suggesting that all thoughts and movements belong to the mind and within our body. These thoughts come to fruition when we will our body to move and operate in the “haptic” world. Hansen then interprets the computer to be an extension of our bodies, able to extend as a prosthetic into the virtual world. Suddenly our “body, in short has become crucial mediator between information and form: the supplemental sensorimotor intervention it operates coincidences with the process through which the image is created” (78). Our body acts as an intermediate between the mind and the virtual world full of data.

-Benjamin Louie

PFA: "The Passenger" by Michelangelo Antonioni

Frustrated about his life and his failure to effectively inquire/report about rebels in Africa, David Locke takes the identity of a dead man (Mr. Robinson) in the hotel room adjacent to his by switching rooms and passports. Locke soon realizes that his new persona is a gun dealer for the African rebels that he was attempting to report about. He finds this new lifestyle intriguing and tries to make all of the schedule appointments in Mr. Robinson’s schedule. However, nobody seems to show up at most these appointments but in the process he meets a mysterious lady, known as “The Girl.” Throughout the entire film, he is being pursued by both his wife and a hit squad that was trying to kill Mr. Robinson for supplying the rebels with money. The movie ends in a tragic scene in Africa, where Locke is murdered by the hit squad and his wife sees his dead body.

In one scene of the movie, Locke listens to a tape of a conversation that he and Robinson had in the past. What is particularly interesting about this scene is that the conversation is being acted out on the screen at the same time we see Locke listening to the tape in the future in the same room—merging the two times into one image. So in effect, this scene allows the viewer to experience two moments in time simultaneously. In another scene, Locke’s wife and friend watch video tapes of Locke reporting the news. This allows the wife and audience to look at Locke in a previous time and persona—giving us the ability to juxtapose Locke’s new and old personas.

-Christopher Melgaard.

Final Paper - Donnie Darko

For my final paper, I am writing on Donnie Darko. This movie was directed by Richard Kelly in 2001. It’s about a suburban teenager who comes face-to-face with his destiny. I chose this movie in particular because of the element of time travel involved. Donnie is able to take look into his future and use the future to make a decision about the present. By doing this, he collapses time, taking an interval of time and turning it into an instant. In particular, I am going to focus in on the use of opsigns and sonsigns in the film. My biggest concern so far has been finding an academic outside source that isn’t a film review.

Philip Schmidt

The Passenger-Mara

Michaelangelo Antonioni's "The Passanger" is a film that follows David Locke, a reporter, who takes on the life of David Robertson when he unexpectidly dies. They met in Africa when staying in the same hotel and formed a of friendship. After assuming this new identity Locke walks in the footsteps of this other man without knowing what he is getting himself into, Robertson was a gunrunner for African rebels. Along the way he meets "girl" who is a wanderer herself.

The most striking thing to me about this movie was that it was as if the camera was an observer itself, following this man through his life. The movie begins slowly, with few lines, and the audience is just watching. The camera would shift views and look off into the desert, or watch a camel walking, or a wire on the wall, and then go back to watching Locke. The focus was never entirely on the main character or what he was doing. Something would be happening, and then as if the camera's attention got caught by something on the side it would change views, then "remember" what was going on main stage and go back to the main story line

As opposed to distracting me from the film, I actually felt that it enhanced it. Because of the slower pace of the movie, it had the potential to get boring, as many films of these kinds do. I was more intuned to the film because of these changes in direction of the camera. It made me feel more "there" in the movie because I was seeing these tiny details, these random images that are always present in movies but always bypassed. They gave more visual texture to the film that I really liked.

Another thing that I feel that the director did well was the way he did the memory sequences. After Robertson dies, Locke remembers moments with him, listens to recordings of their conversations, as he begins his transformation into Robertson. The change from present time to memory time is subtle and flows. In one part of the room it will be a memory, and then the camera will pan across the building and look in through a window and it's the present.

Over all I enjoyed the film and was suprised that Jack Nicholson was in it, it seemed a different kind of movie than his others.

PFA Michelangelo Antonioni – The Passenger

Michelangelo Antonioni – The Passenger

Jack Nicholson in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “The Passenger,” stars as David Locke, a British journalist covering the civil war in instable parts of Africa. When an acquaintance, David Robertson, suddenly dies of a questionable heart attack, Locke spontaneously swaps identities, perhaps to leave his lost burnt out life. While assuming the mysterious Robertson’s life, Locke follows Robertson’s appointment book only to discover his new identity is a gunrunner for the African rebels. Locke makes one last visit to his previous life before he escapes and embarks on Robertson’s life. Upon his travels, he meets a young mysterious woman who seems like a wanderer with no direction. She accompanies him on his journey, urging him to continue Robertson’s fight with the rebels against tyrannical rule. However, unsure of his actions, Locke continually runs from both his past life, as his cheating wife and producer search for him, and pursuing African agents, unbeknownst to Locke. As the pursuers catch up to Locke, he also meets his untimely fate.

“The Passenger” starts out with almost no dialogue and often times eerily silences filled with little background sounds. I have never seen a film in which the director continually zooms or pans out from the characters to focus on the surrounding setting or landscape. In many scenes, Antonioni pulls out to situate the viewer in the desolate African deserts, the winding turns and hills of Spain, the bustling cityscape, or focusing on settings outside windows and impending events unknown to Locke. In addition, Antonioni portrays past events in an interesting manner. Rather than cutting or using a flashback blur, he leaves the present characters in the same scene as the past events. In an earlier part of the film, Locke recalls a conversation he had with Robertson occurring as he is sitting at his desk. The camera then pans left toward a balcony in which both Locke and Robertson were conversing with each other. As the camera pans back to Locke at his desk, we discover the conversation occurring was from a recorder. In another scene, Antonioni shows Locke’s wife looking out a window, witnessing Locke crazily burning a pile of branches. As the camera cuts to down to Locke’s level of perception, his wife remains in the upstairs window and another woman worryingly runs out screaming at Locke. We later realize that the worried woman was Locke’s wife and the events occurring took place in the past. His wife in the window is in the present realm reminiscing about the fiasco.

I enjoyed the film’s long drawn out scenic shots. However, sometimes I found the movie too slow and not very stimulating. At times, I felt as if I was wandering along with the characters, confused about which direction to be heading in their journey. Overall, I still enjoyed the film.

-Benjamin Louie

Week of April 16 and 18

For Monday read the following chapters from the second reader:
From Writing Analytically: Writing the Researched Paper AND Finding and Citing Sources
From A Short Guide to Writing About Film: Researching the Movies

Monday we'll talk mostly about writing the final paper.
Monday night there will be a screening.

Wednesday we'll talk about the screening and the following article.
***You have to find it yourself as part of the assignment***(hint- it's indexed on JSTOR):
"Seeing With the Body: The Digital Image in Postphotography" by Mark Hansen, (originally published in Diacritics in 2001)


Your paper topics look great!

A little help for people going into things we have not read much about...
For people writing on games or online words these two books are helpful:
The Video Game Theory Reader by Mark J. P. Wolf
First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game by Noah Wardrip-Fruin

For the person writing on Camille Utterback here is a chapter on her from a recent book: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10720&mode=toc

Butterfly Effect

Butterfly Effect by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber released in 2004. I'm really intrigued by the way this movie represents this theory of chaos. Butterfly effect is the theory that a small occurrence turns into a huge effect. The main character has holes in his memory that are filled in by what he does in the present. At first he uses his journals to access his past. But in the end when his journals are gone he uses a home video. It's interesting that for the course of the film he traveled back through his own thought process, but the video was an outside objective point of view but provided the same result. I'd like to tie this in with Virilio's Open Sky with the "ghostly double" as Ashton Kutcher travels back basically into a memory and directs his memory-self to do something. I'd like to consider more also the way Kutcher's character experiences pain and nose-bleed as he rushes back to the present, as if this is the toll on his weighted body to speed through the journey of time to the present, yet he always maintains the same consciousness throughout the film.

Final Paper - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

For my final paper, I would like to analyze the last installment of the Star Wars saga, released in 2005 and directed by George Lucas. I am a fan of the series and find the concept of space travel and “the force” intriguing. I would narrow the focus on the technologies of the holographic images and the ability for space crafts to travel at the speed of light. I may choose to go into specifics of “the force” such as foreseeing the future. The main relation to the course will be through the technology that is possibly dissolving space and time.

STARGATE

My final paper will be about the movie Stargate by Roland Emmerich, released in 1994. I want to write about Stargate because I am a fan of the movie and find it very interesting and I dont find it hard to relate Virilio's open sky and Optics on a grand scale. In the movie there is one specific scene where they are trying to place 7runes in a correct order to open a time portal with no control over how far they are traveling when they open it and go through they are in a dark pyramid. (more to it but will become relevant in the essay) This can be applied to teleconfrencing due to the hole in space and a hole in time. A concern I have is how many times im going to have to watch it to understand it enough to relate it to virilio.

Final Film Paper- Mara

For my final paper I am going to analyze the film "Enigma" (2001) directed by Michael Apted, screenplay by Tom Stoppard. This film is about breaking the Nazi Shark Enigma code in WWII that led to one of the greatest breakthroughs in the war. This movie relates to the changing of technology through time and how humans adapted and integrated it into their lives. New forms of communication, ways of conducting war and espionage caused a shift in thinking. Technology made everything close and became a battle between man and machine. I will use Virilio's "optics on a grand scale" which discusses the loss of journey and the ever present now. I will also incorporate Sobchack's ideas on expressive technology that "Chan[ge] not only our expression of the world and ourselves, these perceptive technologies also change our sense of ourselves in radical ways that have now become naturalized and transparent". Jericho is the main character who lives codes and has a close relationship with the new technology that is a part of him because of his ability to be on par with the machine. The machine becomes the eyes of the Allies in the war. Also, time becomes irrelevant as space becomes smaller.
There is also an aspect of memory that can be gleened from the film as well. Throughout the film Jericho experiences poignant memories by physically being in places that evoke memories. With the growing of instant communication, there will be less need to have a physical presence and when that happens, what will create our memories if we do not experience people in the flesh.