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TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC OF THE CLOUDING VIDEO

[ABSTRACT]

‫א‬
[Prof. Ph.D.] Milena Szafir
profmilena[at]manifesto21.tv
Submitted on January 24th, 2014

This paper aims to examine the mobile live streaming Brazilian street manifestations (2006-2013) to

discuss these possibilities of affective memorable – or remarkable – “immaterial distribution of storage and means

of retrieval” as online audiovisual aesthetic representations.

Interactive practices in art, science and technology realities are allied to the database video content production and

as Vesna (2007) highlights “artists have long recognised the conceptual and aesthetic power” of it and have been

working in this multilevel “rich territory [which] databases and archives serve as ready-made commentaries on

our contemporary social a political lives. Even the places that are traditionally outlets for the work become ready-

mades.”

These abundant audiovisual clouding live production – that institutions have been classified pejoratively

(ideologically) as 'amateurism' – will not be a symptom of a change of roles (against those who are authorized to

speak whereas others are condemned to hear)? If “the cloud is not an object but an experience and its particles are

the very building blocks of a molecular aesthetic in which we live and act”, there's receivers' wave crafting the

response forms to break the mainstream media monologue. In other words, beyond the Aaron Koblin and Chris

Milk (Google Labs database interactive video aesthetic), is there not a lack on the "new" audiovisual formats to

‫ א‬Milena Szafir is regarded as creator of the first live mobile webtv from streets via cellphones (2006-2009), one of the pioneers in
the Brazilian live cinema [vj'ing] scene and received in 2011, for the body of work, the “Sérgio Motta Art and Technology
Award”. During the last fifteen years she has been drawing and teaching several media lesson plans, from open audiovisual
workshops to graphic & motion design graduate courses and, as a Professor in the Federal University, in 2013 she wrote the
initial lines to propose a transdisciplinary media lab in Brazil using obsolete hardwares [from Film-TV-Video realities] as literacy
and teaching tools, beyond their necessary preservation. Her research issues are on the audiovisual apparatus [experimental
practices and aesthetics], focusing low & high technologies, video editing-montage, online remix issues, surveillance situations,
spectacle media and the sci-fi field.

< http://ocradst.org/cloudandmolecularaesthetics/milena-szafir/ >, accessed on June 15th, 2014

 TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC OF THE CLOUDING VIDEO p. 2 / 3

face the complex of clouding appropriation experiences?

Therefore, towards an aesthetic of clouding video, how could we analyse this audiovisual representation on

immaterial and cognitive live streaming political images and sounds that manifest “the desire for immediacy”?

Areas: Hypermediacy & Expanded film

Keywords: audiovisual aesthetics; database emergence; online interactive video; political live streaming; cellphones.

Submission: January 24th, 2014

@ 3rd International Conference on Transdiciplinary Imaging at the Intersections of Art, Science and Culture :: Istambul – Turkey

Second version: May 27th, 2014

< http://ocradst.org/cloudandmolecularaesthetics/towards-an-aesthetic-of-the-clouding-video/ > [accessed: June 6th, 2014]

This paper aims to examine the Brazilian mobile live streaming from street manifestations (2006-

2013) to discuss part of these possibilities of affective memorable – or remarkable – “immaterial

distribution of storage and means of retrieval”[#1] as online audiovisual aesthetic representations.

Online databases and archives [memories' shadows in the 'public space' of the collective minds]

provide “us with our stock figures, our subliminal points of reference, our unspoken point of

address”[#2] and “serve as ready-made commentaries on our contemporary and political lives”[#3].

Interactive practices in art, science and technology realities have been allied to the database video

content production and its conceptual and aesthetic power uses can produce “engrams of a

passionate experience [that] survive in the form of an hereditary patrimony printed in memory”[#4].

These abundant audiovisual clouding live production – that institutions have classified pejoratively

(ideologically) as 'amateurism' – wouldn't it be a symptom of a change of roles (against those who

are authorized to speak whereas others are condemned to hear)? If “the cloud is not an object but an

experience and its particles are the very building blocks of a molecular aesthetic in which we live
 TOWARDS AN AESTHETIC OF THE CLOUDING VIDEO p. 3 / 3

and act”[#1], then there're some receivers' waves which are crafting the response forms to break the

mainstream media monologue. In other words, beyond Aaron Koblin and Chris Milk (the Google

Labs) database interactive video or the found footage, essay film, telematic or remix aesthetic

discourses, isn't there a lack on the "new" audiovisual formats to face the complexity of clouding

appropriation experiences? What about these chaotic-fuzzy TV & cinema's grandchilds, the

enunciatives subjectivities through intensive dataflow?

Therefore, towards the emergent clouding video aesthetics – with their immaterial and cognitive

gestures through the live streaming political images and sounds as well –, how could we analyse

these audiovisual online dialogues which manifest “the desire for immediacy”[#5]!?

Abstract References:
#1 TICTIIASC* CALL, 2014
#2 SAMUEL apud GINZBURG, 2014 [Portuguese-Brazilian Version]
#3 VESNA, 2007 [Accessed 24 January 2014]
#4 WARBURG apud GINZBURG, 2014 [Portuguese-Brazilian Version]
#5 BOLTER & GRUSIN, 2000 [1st Paperback Edition]
*"Third International Conference on Transdisciplinary Imaging at the Intersections of Art, Science and Culture"