Electronic Shadows - Digital Landscapes of the Mind

Tina Keane showed a documentary about the making of a film Dandy Dust by Hans Scheirl as a model for art practice and for learning. Below is a transcription of her introduction at the Independent Art School Conference, October 2000.

I work with film, video and video Installations and have done so for over 20 odd years. Now, a year ago, the film and video department, along with all the other departments, were closed down at Central St Martins where I teach. They were made into one Fine Art course. Film and video was quite an important department. However when we asked someone why they'd closed it down, the rather bland remark was 'It was too expensive'. This, despite all the equipment we'd built up and the possibilities for sponsorship, including the Sony sponsorship for the fine art course.

In this moment in time when things are shifting I think that it is a good time to begin to really think 'what is art school about?', 'where is it going?', 'what are people doing?', 'what are we doing teaching?' and so on. I do feel that technology, film, video etc are so important in our lives, this doesn't mean however, that sculpture and painting are redundant. What I want to do is to read the beginning of a paper and then to show you a film. The reason for showing this film, which is called The Making of Dandy Dust, is that it was made by a friend of mine who got together a studio and called it the factory and processed, lived upstairs and used the studio downstairs to make the film. There was a bit of money here, a bit of money there, but not a lot of money. It was the process of the filmmaking, which is quite important, and also the people involved. For instance, performance artists - no actors, storyboarding rather than scripts, painters and sculptors making the props and scenery, and the very old fashioned idea of prop-making animation. Then the film was also shot mainly in Hi 8 because it was cheap and a bit in 16 mm. A lot of the final process went through the computer. I think it was made on Premiere or a similar program. What was quite interesting was that it encompasses the past way of thinking, into the present and into the future in a way. It then comes out as this rather bizarre looking, extraordinary, weird film that takes you into science fiction and also questions the idea of identity and gender. Another interesting thing is that the director, Hans Scheirl from Vienna is talking to Dr Rachel Armstrong who is a scientist and to Sue Golding who is a philosopher. They have a conversation all the way through. I thought that you might get more out of this conversation than if I was to read you a paper.

COUCH. By Tina Keane.

An extend cinema allowing audiences access to new dialogues, with different possibilities to engage with subject matters. An inquisitive, entertaining, socialisation, a living metaphorical space.

Warhol...TV Chat Show...Analysts...We are seeing into the future we need to be able to learn to live in both spaces....The Virtual and the real they both feed of each other....we must relearn to push the boundaries of ourselves without having to go to war.....

.Film video and photography are challenged in the new medium........by both their format and expression... and can uniquely via the electronic networks ....span the realms of the real, virtual and surreal.

The imagination is facilitated by art and science to create virtual realities which embody structures of meaning. The new technologies (artificial intelligence, biogenetic, virtual reality and cyber space) are altering our perception of meaning. Already the digital world networks provide a venue for the re-establishment of concepts and images that encourage us to develop virtual worlds and realities, which are becoming a standard for measuring the real world.

Traditional art reflects our experience and desire through the manipulation of materials. Where as technology deconstructs and reconstructs our identities in an almost metaphysical way. We can already see how the traditional and the digital media are informing each other and are transforming the shape and scope of contemporary culture, through the increasing use of computers for education, play, research and communication.

The ultimate point of wisdom/experience is to be able to take a simultaneously inside and outside perspective of a story or world. From a material or physical perspective, these two perspectives are not possible to experience simultaneously. However using the imagination and the physical senses, the brain is able to insert and produce a continuum between these two contradictory perspectives. The mind of the viewer is therefore actively participating in the story/spectacle serving a dual purpose, to provide the conceptual framework in the imagination and supplying the physical/computational energy to decode the data coming from the body/eyes/ears and complete the life project...

The participant drifts from the virtual into the real during a movie. The movie is punctuated by image and shadow.....the frame rate....just as the real object is characterised by shadows....The shadows manifests at certain intensities of lighting and from certain angles....but always has a real object.

The grounding of the virtual into the real allows the site itself to feed from the interaction with subject matter and also to grow and take up territory that is more
real by being integrated into a cultural dialogue and consciousness.

Film Screening

Dandy Dust the Making Of... 15mins by Tina Keane

The film is a fusion of digital art, film, music, humour, and documentary. With Hans Scheirl (film-maker and artist) in conversation with Dr. Rachel Armstrong (writer and scientist ) and Dr. Sue Golding/Master Johnny Boy (philosopher); revealing the ideas, techniques and play behind the making of the feature film Dandy Dust.

"A split-personality cyborg of fluid gender zooms through time to collect H-selves in the fight against a genealogically obsessed family:"
Dandy Dust/ Hans Scheirl