Artists:
Jennifer and Kevin McCoy
Work's Name:
Horror Chase
Produced date:
2002
Introduction:
"Jennifer and Kevin McCoy" is a husband-and-wife team comes from Brooklyn, New York, starting their working in interactive media, mass media and global commerce.
Just as this data-based art work created by re-examining the classic scene of a stylish horror movie "Evil Dead 2" (1987), this couple are good at getting the idea in multiple ways.
The main content of this 5-minutes movie was abstracted from the horror-movie element: chasing, which is regarded as the epitome of horror. The desperate man seems like being chased by someone who never appears in the frame. He runs towards, then away from, then towards his attacker and there is no way that he goes by in twice.
As an "electronic sculpture" they suggest by themselves, it leaves an unexpected impression to the viewer at the first time by using the home-brewed software to switch at random and reverse playback.
The similar points:
1. It is still a cinema based on the visual impression as the traditional film, which means the visual impression is still the main way to transfer the idea from the artist or editor;
2. The screen's form is a traditional one without multi-screen, dome projection. If I didn't notice that this is a new media object, people might think this is a part cut from a traditional horror movie;
3. Majority part of this work is based on reality.
The different points:
1. The main structure of this cinema is too simple to be suggested as a story or documentary. It makes a piece of event from a traditional film becomes the whole part of this work (no beginning, no ending; no question, no answer; no reason, no result). It is beyond the traditional definition of cinema that "telling story" in some degrees;
2. By using the unique technology and equipment designed by hemselves, these couple-artists create the immersive feeling that they want. For this reason there are something unusual that you can observe from this work, for example, the door the man had broken restored in the next second seems like the time was going backwards, is something beyond the reality. It can be suggested as a symbol of digital cinema.
Pros:
1. With the support from technology and equipment, digital cinema gives a different way to tell the story. The story we could hardly imagine to build at once. 2010 was the big coming out party for 3D. Hot on the heals of Avatar,
just about everyone was eager to offer movies, consumer electronics,
services and television content in 3D. The booming of the digital cinema increase the visual enjoyment of viewers and also extend the market for the filmmakers;
2. The showing style of digital cinema is more flexible and more portable without the limitation of the traditional projector. Just as McCoy's other work, the high-tech hardware is packed in a hard-shelled black suitcase for the convenience to travel different galleries and exhibitions. That means by taking this small case, this video work can be displayed anywhere on a screen or even on a wall.
What is more, digital cinema based on data but not the celluloid, just like the "Horror Chase" we mentioned here, gives a possibility to show the film work on internet video platform. That means more people will get the useful information of this media art for the wide-spread access. It is not hard to imagine that enjoy a digital cinema only by a PC or even your i-Phone. The IDC study presents the current forecasts for U.S. and worldwide
households that have at least one high-definition television, digital
video recorder, or 3D-capable HDTV. The development of digital movie becomes part of our life now, and that will be a good new to every filmmaker as the more efficient dissemination of cinematic culture.
Cons:
Here comes the problem:
What we mentioned here is not only the digital cinema, but also the new media art exactly. Towards history of the cinema's birth, we can find that it was stabilized as a technology for it was originally a automatic projector to show the illusion of fast-moving images. Furthermore, the digital cinema's developing was also beginning with a solution of technical problems while traditional cinematic language can't change.
As the progress and evolution of the digital cinema, new media arts face two serious problems: how to identify themselves; how to make people accept this new kind of art.
The classic definition of movie was given by French film theorist
Christian
Metz who wrote in 1970s that "Most film shot today, good or bad, original
or not, 'commercial or not, have as a common characteristic that they
tell a story; in this measure they all belong to one and the same genre,
which is , rather, a sort of ''super-genre.'" Should the new media work
break this rule or just looks for another way to tell a story?
From the point of my view, before finding a good enough way to change the original definition, the attempt can be done based on the reality, in another word, coming from our real life. That is also an important element for the solution to the second problem.
As the other kinds of arts, cinema, no matter which genre it is, needs viewers. Nowadays, artists have created many new style or way to build a new media culture, but most of people still prefer to accept the style similar to the traditional one: telling a story. For instance, the Hollywood movie with the most advanced cinema technology is a digital movie without any doubt, but the core of it, which is the basic style of telling the idea, is still a storyboard. What's more, the filmmaker will try their best to hide the trace of using the digital technology to ensure the perfect show of the story.
Art comes from life. Life makes us feel more things. That is also art should do. As a result, if we have to give the "story-mode" up to make innovation, the foundation basing on reality should be retained at least. It makes digital cinema be more acceptable for people. That will be crucial for new media art as a new object that needs more time to go further.
Quotations:
"Most film shot today, good or bad, original
or not, 'commercial or not, have as a common characteristic that they
tell a story; in this measure they all belong to one and the same genre,
which is , rather, a sort of ''super-genre.'"
------ Christian
Metz, 1970
References:
Mark Tribe,
New Media Art, 64-65;
Peter Lunenfeld
, The Digital Dialectic,
What is digital cinema, 173-192;
http://www.zkm.de/futurecinema/index_e.html
http://www.marketresearch.com/map/prod/7078276.html
http://www.marketresearch.com/DIGDIA-v3443/Digital-3D-Entertainment-Practical-Realities-7063369/
