The document discusses Gilles Deleuze's concept of the "interval" and how it relates to new media forms. It argues that contemporary networked media can be understood as systems that produce and maintain intervals between perception and reaction. It analyzes the video project "VideoDefunct" as an example of a system that deliberately extends these intervals to encourage affect rather than following narrative conventions. Finally, it speculates that Web 2.0 systems may function as "affect engines" by allowing open-ended combinations that maximize indeterminacy between viewer interactions.
2. outline
this is work that is developing out of a series of conference
presentations and papers that are thinking about the role of
Deleuze’s ‘interval’ in relation to a variety of forms of new
media
the interval is a zone of indetermination in relation to possible
courses of action
contemporary network based media forms can be theorised as
systems for the production and maintenance of intervals
it situates such practice within the intersection of the local and
the global
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
4. summary (Bergson & deleuze)
affect is the consequence of a sensory motor schema
the sensory motor schema produces the causal logic of
cinematic relations
in Cinema One (the movement image) these relations rely on
action and reaction
the interval is the extended gap that is produced between action
and reaction
the inability of reaction (as responsive action) to meet the
demands of action produces affect
as does the extension of the interval towards its own
indeterminancy
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
6. bergson
Bergson and the ‘sensory motor schema’
it is sensory because it is about perception
perception is made of up reception and reaction
it is motor because some perceptions produce motor responses
these can be conscious, automatic, unconscious and so on
these senses provide views between things
(there is a non motor sensory schema too which is all of the ways in which all
things present all facets to each other)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
8. facets
I think of these views between things as facets. As facets (think of a
diamond) it is easy to understand that facets are multiple
what counts as the ‘meaningful’ view for me might not be for you
let alone my view of that flu virus over there and its view of me
facets means that there are always many attitudes towards things,
many ways in which they can, and do, address each other
‘attitudes’ does not mean interpretations, it is more basic than this —
an attitude is an orientation towards possible action (interpretation is
what we then understand the realised actions to mean)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
10. interval
some actions are automatic, some are unthought, some are thought
where there is a distance or gap between reception and reaction (I see
the lion and turn to run) an interval is introduced
this interval introduces a zone of indeterminacy because a variety of
possible actions is available and a choice is required
as there are always a multiplicity of facets the interval always
subtracts from all those possible and actual facets to recognise only
those that interest it (n-1)
the interval is then the interruption of automatic action and reaction
and affect is the felt but unacted movement (reaction) or the residue
that remains where reaction is not adequate to perception
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
12. acentred
“ what happens and what can happen in this acentred universe
where everything reacts on everything else? We must not
introduce a different factor ... So what happens is this: at any
point whatever of the plane an interval appears - a gap between
action and reaction.
(C1, 61.)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
14. remainder
affect is what is left over when action (in response to
perception) does not exhaust, or expend, itself
when, for example, the actual action does not produce a
normalised economy between perception and reaction (for
instance what you would feel after fleeing the lion)
the interval ‘interrupts’ the movement between reception and
action and movement changes from being a quantity to a
quality (affect)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
16. movement & affect
“ There is therefore a relationship between affection and
movement in general which might be expressed as follows: the
movement of translation is not merely interrupted in its direct
propagation by an interval which allocates on the one hand the
received movement, and on the other the executed movement,
and which might make them in a sense incommensurable.
Between the two there is affection which re-establishes the
relation. But, it is precisely in affection that the movement
ceases to be that of translation in order to become movement of
expression, that is to say quality, simple tendency stirring up an
immobile element.
(C1, 66.)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
18. movement image
In the cinema this indeterminacy becomes filled by the three
varieties of the general ‘movement-image’
This is where you get shot, counter shot. An economy of
reactions (character looks, I cut, I see what they look at), which
in turn leads to an implicit grammar of action - chases,
slapstick comedy, dance. Cause and effect.
This is the sensory motor schema of American (and early)
cinema.
It aims to normalise the interval between perception and action,
and to ensure that action is equivalent to perception (no loose
ends, simply typologies of characters, psychology, genres and
so on).
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
19. Us as movement image
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
20. Us as movement image
“ All things considered, movement-images divide into three sorts
of images when they are related to a centre of indetermination
as to a special image: perception-images, action-images and
affection-images. And each one of us, the special image or the
contingent centre, is nothing but an assemblage of three
images, a consolidate of perception-images, action-images and
affection-images.
(C1, 66.)
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
22. A networked post–cinema
a project such as VideoDefunct moves towards the deliberate
production of intervals
this is not the same as Deleuze’s time image because the
viewer/user in systems such as VideoDefunct, by definition,
participates in a sensory motor schema
however in such systems (unlike the movement image) the
interval is not normalised via realist, narrative or other
strategies
however perception and reaction is modified along two distinct
axes
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
32. videodefunct — technical axis
traditional forms take parts and produce closed wholes
this is a consequence of their material form — they are bounded
objects (so many minutes, so many pages) and as they have an
end they encourage teleological narrative forms
VideoDefunct consists of discrete works but each is made up of
discrete parts so the publication is only realised by the selection
and exploration of a variety of constrained relations between
these parts
technically this form keeps the parts as parts and so actively
produces open wholes
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
34. videodefunct — poesis
VideoDefunct also creates intervals poetically through the use of
the triptych and its tagging taxonomy
the triptych allows for what Manovich has described as ‘spatial
montage’ so that new visual relations are able to be established
simultaneously between otherwise sequential shots
the tags provide a combinatory mechanism for the production
of relations between parts (we take it as given that projects such
as this are precisely about relations between parts)
by making partly visible these relations, and sharing some
agency with the user, the interval is explicitly enlarged between
perception and reaction
the effort to understand the relations between the terms, the
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
36. intervals & affect
in VideoDefunct we have a system that only ever produces
intervals
where the relation between perception and reaction is literal,
instrumental or realist affect is minimised (for example
YouTube)
where the relation between perception and reaction is
figurative, ludic and metaphoric affect is encouraged
systems such as flickr (and even blogs) appear to be following
the latter model, YouTube is currently following the first (this is
one way to theorise the relation of Web 1 to Web 2), while
VideoDefunct provides one way to imagine and develop a
network based post cinematic practice
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
37. web 2 & affect
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
38. web 2 & affect
this is currently speculation on my behalf (wtbd) however:
‣ web 2 systems appear to be about the production of affect
engines
‣ they are not primarily narrative engines or systems
‣ their rules of combination are open, emergent and informal
‣ they allow for the enlargement of the interval between
perception (“this is a ...”) and action (“I include this here”, “I
join this to this”)
they are closer to ambient media forms
they are musical rather than literary or narratological
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
40. intersections
dominant media are a media of narrativisation
narrative is a centralising discourse
there are numerous forms in popular and high art that are not
such forms generate and provide for affect (inspite of industry’s
colonisation and efforts to control these events) where affect is
always local
affect engines appear to treat this as their logic: global systems
consisting of ‘global’ objects that always provide an interval
between
they are therefore non narrative systems that allow local
practices (where local means individual, personal, communities
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
42. references
Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. Trans. Nancy Margaret Paul and W. Scott Palmer.
New York: Zone Books, 1991
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema One: The Movement–Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara
Habberjam. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
Deleuze, Gilles. Cinema Two: The Time–Image. Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Robert
Galeta. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.
Keen, Seth, Keith Deverell, and David Wolf. "Video Defunct". 2007. Online Video Blog.
October 1, 2007. <http://www.videodefunct.net/>.
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press, 2001.
Miles, Adrian. "Facetted Video: Crystalline Architectures." VideoVortex. Brussels: Argos,
2007.
Miles, Adrian. "Pragmatic Statements For a Facetted Videography." VideoVortex Reader.
Amsterdam, forthcoming.
Miles, Adrian. "Virtual Actual: Hypertext as Material Writing." Studies in Material Thinking.
Vol 1. No. 2. 2008. Forthcoming.
adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au iapl RMIT 2008
OPEN WHOLES: works still have endings, though now this resides between the work as system and the user, new material can be added, new relations found by rereading or adding new material, or adding new tags and relations. \n
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NARRATIVISATION: they turn everything into a story and the stories seem to have missed poststructuralism: they cling very firmly to a sense of being real, true and grounded in simple natural values.\nDOMINANT: these seem to be the ones we turn to, in media it is the press, but in high art it might be literature, or the art cinema. We seem to insist that story telling is at the pointy end of an imaginary pyramid. \nGLOBALISING: teleological, naturalised sense. \nOTHER FORMS: music, poetry, even popular music. other economies come to the fore here rather than telling a story\nLOCAL: this happens at all levels or scale, for example in commercial music there is no guarantee of what will be a &#x2018;hit&#x2019; so the recipe is a combination of venture capitalism and Fordism (publishing follows the same model). Right down to how a song makes me feel. \nINTERVAL: As we saw with videodefunct and flickr the objects that make up the library stay as parts, they always exist as current and future points of connection which are determined locally and individually. the system&#x2019;s role is to enable this. Narrative models are closed, they require an internal wholeness that is integral to their operation and function. These are then non narrative systems. \n\n
