V-v-Vertov R-r-Re-Made

• Authors: Peter Ole Pedersen , Jan Løhmann Stephensen
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The seminal work of pioneering avant-garde filmmaker Dziga Vertov, The Man with the Movie Camera (Chevolek s kino-apparatom, 1929) has given rise to a number of discussions about the documentary film genre and new digital media. By way of comparison with American artist Perry Bard’s online movie project entitled Man With a Movie Camera: The Global Remake (2007), this article investigates the historical perspective of this visionary depiction of reality and its impact on the heralded participatory culture of contemporary digital media, which can be traced back to Russian Constructivism. Through critical analysis of the relation between Vertov’s manifest declarations about the film medium and his resulting cinematic vision, Bard’s project and the work of her chief theoretical inspiration Lev Manovich are examined in the perspective of ‘remake culture,’ participatory authorship and the development a documentary film language. In addition to this, possible trajectories from Vertov and his contemporary Constructivists to recent theories of ‘new materialism’ and the notion of Man/Machine-co-operation is discussed in length.

Keywords

EN

online documentary; participatory culture; digital culture; Russian Constructivism; film history; new materialism

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Film and Media Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 77-106

Dates

published

2014-12-01

online

2015-03-17

Contributors

author

Peter Ole Pedersen

• Aarhus University (Denmark)

author

Jan Løhmann Stephensen

• Aarhus University (Denmark)

References

• Alifragkis, Stavros. 2009. Power Structures and Digital Media: 2008 Man with the Movie Camera The Global Remake: interview with Perry Bard. Scroope: Cambridge Architecture Journal no. 19 (June): 154-159.
• Andrews, Richard and Milena Kalinovska, eds. 1975. Art Into Life: Russian Constructivism, 1914-1932. New York: Rizzoli.
• Arvatov, Boris. 1997 [1925]. Everyday Life and the Culture of the Thing (Toward the Formulation of the Question). October vol. 81: 119-128.
• Bann, Stephen, ed. 1974. The Tradition of Constructivism. New York: Da Capo Press.
• Barnouw. Erik. 1993 [1974]. Documentary - A History of the Non-fiction Film. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Barthes, Roland. 1972. Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press.
• Barthes, Roland. 1977. From Work to Text. In Image Music Text, trans. Stephen Heath. London: Fontana Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1998 [1936]. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (first version) https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm. Last accessed at 21. 09. 2014.
• Benjamin, Walter. 2008a [1936]. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, eds. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, 19-55. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard.
• Benjamin, Walter. 2008b [1934]. The Author as Producer. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, eds. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, 79-95. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard.
• Benjamin, Walter. 2008c [1936]. The Newspaper. In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, eds. Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, 359-360. Cambridge: Belknap Harvard.
• Bogdanov, Aleksandr. 2003 [1910-13]. The Historical Necessity and the Scientific Feasibility of Tektology. In Systems Thinking: Volume I: General Systems Theory, Cybernetics and Complexity, ed. Gerald Midgley, 1-35. London: Sage.
• Bolter, Jay David and Richard Grusin. 2001. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
• Bruns, Axel, 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. New York: Peter Lang.
• Delanda, Manuel. 2004. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London: Continuum.
• Drobashenko, Sergei, ed. 1966. Articles, Diaries, Projects (Dziga Vertov, Stat'i, Dnevniki, Zamysly). Moscow: Iskusstvo.
• Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Elsaesser, Thomas. 2008. ‘Constructive Instability,’ or: The Life of Things as Cinema’s Afterlife?. In Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube, eds. Geert Lovink and Sabine Niederer, 13-33. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
• Feldman, Seth. 2007. Vertov after Manovich. Canadian Journal of Film Studies vol. 16 no. 1: 39-50.
• Feldman, Seth. 2010. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a constructivist: Perry Bard’s The Man With the Movie Camera: The Global Remake. Jump Cut: a Review of Contemporary Media no. 52 http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc52.2010/FeldmanVertov/. Last accessed at 21. 09. 2014.
• Fer, Briony. 1989. Metaphor and Modernity. Oxford Art Journal vol. 12 no. 1: 14-30.
• Fiske, John. 1987. Television Culture. London: Routledge.
• Fore, Devin. 2006a. Introduction to Sergei Tretjakov’s “Art in the Revolution and the Revolution in Art (Aesthetic Consumption and Production).” October vol. 118: 11-12.
• Fore, Devin. 2006b. The Operative Word in Soviet Factography. October vol. 118: 95-131.
• Fore, Devin. 2010. Dziga Vertov, The First Shoemaker of Russian Cinema. Configurations vol. 18 no. 3: 363-382.
• Gan, Alexei. 1974 [1922]. Constructivism. In The Tradition of Constructivism, ed. Stephen Bann, 32-42. New York: Da Capo Press.
• Gere, Charlie. 2008. Digital Culture. London: Reaktion Books.
• Gough, Maria. 2005. The Artist as Producer: Russian Constructivism in Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Groys, Boris. 2010. Comrades of Time. In What Is Contemporary Art?, eds. Julieta Aranda, Brian Kuan Wood, and Anton Vidokle, 23-39. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
• Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York & London: New York University Press.
• Kiaer, Christina. 2005. Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects of Russian Constructivism. Cambridge, Mass. & London: MIT Press.
• Latour, Bruno. 1996. On Actor Network Theory: A Few Clarifications. Soziale Welt vol. 47: 369-381.
• Lodder, Christina. 1983. Russian Constructivism. New Haven & London: Yale University Press.
• Manovich, Lev. 1999. Avant-garde as Software. http://www.uoc.edu/artnodes/espai/eng/art/manovich1002/manovich1002.html. Last accessed at 21. 09. 2014.
• Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA. & London: MIT Press.
• Manovich, Lev. 2008. Software Takes Command. http://softwarestudies.com/softbook/manovich_softbook_11_20_2008.pdf. Last accessed at 21. 09. 2014.
• Manovich, Lev. 2013. Software Takes Command. London, New Delhi, New York, Sydney: Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Margolin, Victor. 1997. The Struggle for Utopia. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Meyrowitz, Joshua. 1998. Multiple Media Literacies. Journal of Communication vol. 1: 96-108.
• Michelson, Annette, ed. 1984. Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Nichols, Bill. 2001. Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
• Norman, Donald A. 1999. Affordances, conventions and design. Interactions vol. 6 no. 3: 38-43.
• Petrić, Vlada. 1987. Constructivism in Film - The Man with the Movie Camera A Cinematic Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Saveri, Andrea, Howard Rheingold, and Kathi Vian. 2005. Technologies of Cooperation. Palo Alto: Institute for the Future.
• Schaeffer, Jean-Marie. 2000. Art of the Modern Age: Philosophy of Art from Kant to Heidegger, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Taylor, Brandon. 2006. “Into Production!” Oxford Art Journal vol. 29 no. 3: 453-455.
• Trotsky, Leon. 1973 [1924]. Problems of Everyday Life: Creating the Foundations for a New Society in Revolutionary Russia. New York: Pathfinder Press.

Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/ausfm-2015-0004