serial consign

Last November the Department of Image Science at the Danube University Krems (Lower Austria) hosted the fourth installment of their TeleLecture Series. The event was entitled Remixing Cinema: Future and Past of Moving images and featured presentations by media theorists Lev Manovich (pictured above) and Sean Cubitt. These lectures were recorded and the video from these proceedings was just archived online.

The writing of Lev Manovich is often referenced or at least invoked here on Serial Consign. He is a key voice in contemporary thinking about cinema and digital culture and in this talk he catalogs an "inventory of effects" of the widespread adoption of digital technology in the image arts in the mid-90s. The discussion draws connections between various facets of contemporary media production including splash screens, broadcast graphics, photographic conventions, film title sequences and motion graphics. He weaves together observations on each of these paradigms to outline what he describes as a pervasive moving image aesthetic that is hybridized, remixable and transcends distinction between "commercial" and "avant garde".

[jeremy blake / sodium fox / 2005]

Manovich's talk is not only accessible and packed with insight, but it also contains some choice eye candy and provocative commentary. Some of the projects discussed during the presentation are animated TBS station IDs, the visual effects of the film 300, a (very) close reading of the video for Common's 2005 single Go (authored by mk12) and a nod of respect to the late American artist Jeremy Blake.

Check the lecture out for yourself! I'm looking forward to watching Sean Cubitt's presentation sometime over the course of the weekend.