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Leonardo

Full Color VideoAuthor(s): Simon PayneSource: Leonardo, Vol. 41, No. 5 (2008), pp. 534-535Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20206684 .Accessed: 12/06/2014 15:41

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Full Color Video Simon Payne, Department of English, Communication, Film and Media Studies, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, UK). E-mail:

.

The following is a short account of three related videos that I made between 2004 and 2007 [1]. These videos arose out of a

practice-led PhD project based at the

Royal College of Art in London. I began my project with the intention

of working through an investigation of the implications of structural/materialist film theory, and related practices, in the context of digital video aesthetics [2]. Initially my efforts were taken up with

thinking about how concepts relating to

representation and indexicality might be reformulated to fit what seemed to be the most pressing issue concerning digital media. This preoccupation manifested

itself in a video that I made entitled Black and White (2001) in which the difference between minimalist camera

recorded imagery and stark graphic compositions is difficult to disinter. Later I put aside my camera and began

making work that used material that was

generated wholly within the computer. Colour Bars (2004), Thirds (2006)

and New Ratio (2007) each deal with

investigations regarding the interplay between color, movement and abstract

form. Each piece draws on the same

palette of colors provided by the 'color bars' associated with the standard televi

sion test signal. In commenting on these

videos Sean Cubitt has suggested that the

equal mixture of additive and subtractive hues (derived from the color bars) could be described as 'a democratization of color' [3]. The test signal image com

prises seven stripes of equal width. From left to right these stripes are white, yel

low, cyan, green, magenta, red and blue.

This sequence runs through the seven

possible combinations that use at least

one of the three basic color components of red, green and blue: blue cycles on and off between every stripe; red cycles on and off every two stripes; and green is on for each of the first four stripes and off for the last three. The videos that I will discuss here involve a rather differ ent type of weaving.

Colour Bars Colour Bars perverts the function of the stable test signal by rapidly cutting be tween different configurations of the

image. In certain sections there are two

layers of video superimposed, which

suggests a palette of 28 colors, but the

pace of the cutting?together with the effect of visual persistence and the after

images that are induced?makes it im

possible to say how many colors one

might actually see. Besides the aesthetics of color mixing, I was also interested in the relationship between the perception of movement and form in this piece, especially in relation to 'intervals'.

Fig 1. Colour Bars (2004, video, 8 mins). (? Simon Payne)

To use an analogy from painting, the

lines along which the seven colors are

butted up could be described as intervals. Certain paintings by Gene Davis, Ells worth Kelly, Kenneth Noland and

Bridget Riley work along these lines. Some of Josef Albers' didactic studies also advocate using vertical stripes. In

this configuration the color seems 'al

most shapeless', he suggests, and hence

it is the 'interaction of color' that one attends to rather than the interaction of

form [4]. In Colour Bars there are inter

vals between the colors in each frame,

but there are also time-based intervals

between one frame and the next [5]. What one sees in the video isn't exactly the movement of the color bars, but the

interaction of color along lines that ap

parently weave between frames.

Besides some analogies with the aes

thetics of modernist painting, another reference point is early abstract cinema,

particularly the films of Walther Rutt mann and Hans Richter. The most sig nificant aspect of Ruttmann's Opus II-IV

(1922-24) and Richter's Rhythm 21

(c.1924) is that the apparent motion in these films is due to an engagement with the edge of the screen rather the anima

tion of given forms. This was key for Richter especially: 'When I say that there is no Form in Rhythm 27,1 mean that by taking the whole movie screen,

pressing it together and opening it up, top, bottom, sides, right, left, you don't

perceive form anymore but movement'

[6]. The contingent nature of form in

Rhythm 21 and Ruttmann's Opus II-IV

prompts numerous questions concerning the object of perception. In my own work I have been interested in the para doxical nature of the moving image, rather than the movement per se, which

was clearly a preoccupation for Richter.

At the same time, in problematizing the

perception of form, Rhythm 21 does also

suggest an inquiry into the way that movement is perceived: motion is usu

ally attributed to form, for example.

Thirds Thirds is a piece that I made during my involvement with the Moving Frame research group at the Royal College of Art; the project involved staff and re search students who came together to

look at the 'changing concept of the "frame" as it migrates from film through to its more abstract and even mysterious fate in video and digital media' [7]. Thirds refers to two types of frame: the frame as the edge of the projected image, and the frame as a timebase. It is a piece that was specifically made for superim

posed projection, involving two projec tors that are aligned so that their frames

overlap by a third. Each projector shows a cycle of color fields made up from the same set of primary and secondary col

ors (plus black and white) that are used in Colour Bars. A third set of colors is

mixed by the overlap of the two pro jected images. In the first cycle of color fields each image lasts 21 frames; in

subsequent cycles the duration is re

duced to 13 frames, then 8, 5, 3, 2 frames and finally 1 frame.

Fig. 2. Thirds (2006, two-screen video

projection, 9 mins). (? Simon Payne)

At first the color fields are rectangles that fill the full 4:3 dimensions of each

534 LEONARDO, Vol. 41, No. 5, pp. 534-535,2008 ?2008ISAST


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of the two projections. They begin to contract and then expand again in a con

certina-like fashion, alternating between

full frame, two-thirds size and one-third

size. By the end of the piece it is only the central superimposed section that re

mains. The overlapping projections and

the effect of visual persistence both make for a form of color mixing that is

'additional', but it's as if one occurs on

the surface of the screen and the other in

the eye. As the pace of the color cycles

increases, the overlapping region of the

screen becomes progressively brighter, and by the end of the piece, when it's

nearly white, it seems to stand out as if

raised from the rest of the picture plane. The nature of the movement that's

perceived in Thirds changes over the

course of the work's duration. The tim

ing of the left and right channels is

slightly offset, and it is this discrepancy that effects the first sense of movement.

In the opening passage of the piece, a

domino effect sweeps across the screen

from one side to the other, by way of the

two edges that define the superimposed section. (As in Colour Bars, the motion

seems to be attached to edges rather than

the shapes that contain the color). In the

later phases of the piece, the illusions of

lateral movement also begin to incorpo rate depth: the darting movements across

the surface of the screen, which become

increasingly frenzied, sometimes appear to circle the central region of the screen.

It doesn't seem possible to adequately account for the apparent motion that one

sees in Thirds, but it is the uncertainty surrounding what one perceives that is

most interesting to me [8]. The characteristics of Thirds that re

late to color, shape and duration are all

reliant on calculated (digital) structures:

each color is derived from a palette where hue, brightness and saturation

have a specific value; the shape of the

color fields are rectangles measured in

pixels; and the overall structure of the

work involves the counting and sequenc

ing of frames. All this is evident when

watching the piece. But as it unfolds, the

color fields cease to be discrete in value

or shape, and the separate cycles give rise to illusions of movement that the

viewer isn't able to fully grasp. What's

apparent, therefore, is a tension between

the structure of the work and its efects?

a tension that induces a reflexive form of

spectatorship. The expanded frame that the two pro

jectors describe, at the beginning of the

piece, approaches 'wide-screen' propor tions that incorporate the viewer to some

degree. In addition, the color that is re

flected from the screen affects the space in which it's projected. But rather than

reproducing the conditions and environ

ment of an immersive encounter, which

is a characteristic of mainstream cinema,

the edges of the image are reinforced by the centripetal and concentrated dynamic of the work. This is another characteris

tic of the piece that implicates a reflexive

relationship between the viewer and the

screen, and it is a strategy that I reused in

my next video, New Ratio.

New Ratio New Ratio is the first piece that I've

made that explicitly explores the move

from the 4:3 screen ratio to 16:9, which

is now effectively the standard for

broadcast television and video. The

color fields that comprise the work in

volve a tense relationship with the edge of the screen. Each color is on-screen for

2 frames and its dimensions are in the

ratio of either 16:9 or 4:3. They either fill the screen, or are scaled down, as in

the diagram below.

Fig. 3. New Ratio (2007, video, stereo

sound, 2 mins). (? Simon Payne)

Each color was also assigned a par ticular tone: white was attributed a stan

dard lKHz test tone; the pitch of the tone attributed to blue was half that of the test tone; and each of the colors in between

(in the color bars spectrum) were attrib

uted tones at intervals between these

values. There is also a 'pip' in the sound

track every time there is a cut. This

sound was the result of a glitch, but it

has become an integral part of the sound

track. The video comprises two simple

repeating sequences, which are funda

mentally the same duration. However, one sequence includes one extra frame of

black, which throws them out of synch,

causing a phasing that effects different

mixtures of color, a range of tone com

binations, and various pulsations in the

soundtrack as well as within the frame.

New Ratio has much in common with

the preceding video pieces that I've dis

cussed: the relationship between form

and framing is interdependent; the ap

parent expansion and contraction of the

color fields is akin to the motion effects evident with Colour Bars and Thirds', and eight colors are used to generate a

multitude of hues via quick cutting. The

key additional element in New Ratio is the sound. What's crucial in this video is

the fundamental structure of the sound

track. The pattern of the soundtrack cor

relates with the structure of the colour

field sequences, but it works as a coun

terpoint, rather than as an illustration.

My work does correspond to certain

principles associated with constructivist

aesthetics (as did the films of Richter and Ruttmann) but what I have been interested to investigate are perceptual conundrums rather than the derivation

and manipulation of underlying techno

logical characteristics [9]. I work with, and foreground, certain aspects associ

ated with the technology: the ratio of the screen; a timebase of 25 fps; and the

palette of six colors plus black and

white. At the same time, I'm keen for my work to set up an experience that leads

the viewer to question what they per

ceive, and hence their interaction with

the screen, making for a distanciated and

reflexive form of spectatorship. In this

respect the ethos of Peter Gidal's "The

ory and Definition of Structural/ Materi

alist Film" and the related writings of Malcolm Le Grice have always been an

important point of reference for me. The

three videos that I have discussed here,

however, represent an attempt to think

through strategies that are appropriate and specific to digital abstraction.

References and Notes

1. There are clips of these videos on my website

.

2. Peter Gidal's "Theory and Definition of Struc tural/Materialist Film," which has had a significant influence on debates concerning experimental film and video, was originally published in Studio Inter national 190, No. 978 (Nov. 1975) pp. 189-196.

3. In conversation with the author.

4. Josef Albers Interaction of Color Revised Ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) p. 49.

5. The 'theory of the interval' is attributable to the Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov. Given the differ ence between film and video technology, the con

cept of the interval in video needs nuancing.

6. Hans Richter, Hans Richter by Hans Richter, Cleve Grey ed. (New York: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 1971) p. 132.

7. A.L. Rees, Moving Frame, exh. cat. (London, U.K.: Royal College of Art, 2006).

8. Apparent motion is often defined as either 'phi' or 'beta', but neither model is sufficient to describe the illusions of movement this video gives rise to.

9. In contrast, Norbert Pfaffenbichler's video 36 (2001 ) is characteristic of a branch of contemporary video art that is very much about plotting the forms and patterns that digital video has given rise to.

Transactions ODD


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Article Contentsp. 534p. 535

Issue Table of ContentsLeonardo, Vol. 41, No. 5 (2008), pp. 427-548Front MatterEditorial: Artists and Scientists: Open and Hidden Connections [pp. 428-428]Leonardo on the Web [pp. 430-430]Artist's ArticleFrom the Kinesphere to the Kinesfield: Three Choreographic Interactive Artworks [pp. 431-437, 453]

Artist's NoteThe Return of Images: Photographic Inquiries into the Interaction of Light [pp. 438-445, 449]

Color Plates [pp. 447-453]The Media-Art Exhibition "Ten YearsAfter"_v4.0_OuterSpace [pp. 454-459]Landscapes of Feeling, Arenas of Action: Information Visualization as Art Practice [pp. 460-467, 451]Artistic Research on Life Forms: Exploring the Intersections of Science, Art and Life in the Context of Globalization [pp. 468-477, 448]When Is Information Visualization Art? Determining the Critical Criteria [pp. 479-482, 450]Special Section: Nanotechnology, Nanoscale Science and ArtNanotech, Blur and Tragedy in Recent Artworks by Gerhard Richter [pp. 484-492, 452]

Theoretical PerspectiveReconsidering Pictorial Representation by Reconsidering Visual Experience [pp. 493-497]

Special Section: "Leonardo" Celebrates Leonardo da VinciResurrecting Leonardo's "Great Lady": A Collaboration [pp. 500-505]

Extended AbstractA Bird in the Microcosm: An Environment of Found Objects Constructed to Create Arbitrary Preferences in Starlings [pp. 506-507]

Special Section: From the Leonardo ArchiveIntroduction: From the Leonardo Archive [pp. 510-510]Sky, Scale and Technology in Art [pp. 511-518, 447]

Leonardo ReviewsFilmsReview: untitled [pp. 519-520]

BooksReview: untitled [pp. 520-521]Review: untitled [pp. 521-522]Review: untitled [pp. 522-524]Review: untitled [pp. 524-525]Review: untitled [pp. 525-527]Review: untitled [pp. 527-528]Review: untitled [pp. 528-529]Review: untitled [pp. 529-530]Review: untitled [pp. 530-531]

JournalReview: untitled [pp. 531-531]

Leonardo Reviews On-Line [pp. 531-532]

Special Section: TransactionsFull Color Video [pp. 534-535]Who's Afraid of Picasso's Tie, or Do You See the Catch in Hypothetical Art? [pp. 536-537]World of Female Avatars: An Artistic Online Survey on the Female Body in Times of Virtual Reality [pp. 538-539]

Leonardo Network News [pp. 540-541]EndnoteThe Other Side of Digital Art [pp. 543-547]

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