The Digital Dilemma of Experimental Cinema

And so, now we find ourselves at a crossroads.  The few of us that have wondered our brains into the forest of Experimental Cinema have found a wall.  The box that we are outside of and originally left behind has become stifling.  The new world that we have imagined has a limitation.  A roadblock upon aesthetics has barred many from being open-minded in their open-mindedness.  Technology has forced us to take sides in a foolish battle.  Experimental Cinema has become the last battleground for celluloid film.

There has been much speculation over the decades upon the end of film in which video will succeed the throne of the field.  It has become an endless dialogue how analog film will end.  Because of this and because video shares some fundamental qualities that are different from film many filmmakers, curators and fans of Experimental Cinema (and all cinema) have rejected video.  It is a radical change to put upon a system that is over 100 years old.  So many have devoted their lives in order to understand it perfectly and now it is completely deconstructed by a different medium.  A medium!  And nothing more.

Virtually all other areas of cinema have accepted this new form in which to use the same techniques.  Large production narrative, television and advertisement (aka Hollywood) have been behind funding this development.  It has made previously difficult processes become significantly easier – and at the same time they had added more expectations and workload to the productions.  Documentary, world and “independent” cinema use it as a means to cut the budget and shift funding.  Home movies became significantly less hassle with equipment easier to understand.

Digital has become the standard and it is almost because of this that the culture of Experimental Cinema is unwilling to unclench its fist from the 16mm reel.  The question then becomes – is it rigger mortise? 

Will this last stand for celluloid cinema kill the world of Experimental Cinema?  But I need to stop for a moment.  Surely there is a whole chorus of voices now who are angry because I am saying that digital is better then analog.  Do not be mistaken, dear friend!  My love for celluloid will never be extinguished!  However, you cannot deny the strong generalized rejection of digital “filmmaking” in the Experimental Cinema culture.  It is very similar to a certain artist by the name of R. Mutt who in the first half of the 20^th Centruy caused a tornado of kerfuffle when many declared his found art piece, “The Fountain,” not to be art.

Rejection to such an unnecessary extent as this is what I like to call “The Aesthetics of Rejection.”  It comes when an individual rejects a certain artwork or medium as “not being art”.  Certainly, this can be applied to more then just the world of art and cinema.  Indeed, a colleague of mine, a very intelligent individual who had strong passion for Socialism and the films of Godard and Eisenstein actually told me once that video games are not art.  I was appalled.  However, most people have learned much since the days of R. Mutt, however.  People usually do not reject something outright as “not art”.  Most use a disgusting categorization in which the culture of Experimental Cinema was invented by breaking – “good” or “bad” (also known as “high” or “low” art).

Anyone who is familiar with Experimental Cinema is familiar with the standpoint that video/digital is “not good” or “low quality” or some how displeasing.  I implore you not to follow in this path.  It is segregation!  One is not better then the other.  They are merely two different tools and each possesses different qualities.  I can only imagine the day when a pupil came to his teacher with a sponge instead of a brush in which to paint with and the lashing the pupil received for such an offence.

There is also the other even more revolting argument.  No, assumption!  The assumption that working in film is significantly more difficult then working digitally.  This somehow gives merit or validation to considering one form of cinema “good” and the other “bad”.  This is often an argument made by critics who have never used a movie camera in their lives.  I assert once again that the tools are merely different and some things are easier in film and others digital.  Anyone who has spent nights rendering 1000 frames in Autodesk Maya with 4 layers per frame each at 30 seconds rendering time per layer only to realize that you had one thing slightly off and it ruined your whole scene knows what I am talking about.  Anyone who has used Mental Ray would never say that digital is easier then film.  Even now with the dieing businesses of film development laboratories, it can be faster to send a roll of film to be processed and get it returned to you than to have a scene rendered from a CGI animation package.

Therefore, it is absolutely preposterous to make any judgment call about which is better or which is worse.  The only thing that the aesthetics of rejection reveal is what forms of art people don’t like.  A story can be poorly written.  An image can be badly composed, but a medium cannot in its entirety be bad.  If you do not like digital filmmaking then just state that.  That is at least a respectable stance.  I do not particularly care for Heavy Metal.  By no means would I consider Heavy Metal not to be music.  How absurd; I wouldn’t even consider it to be bad.  I just don’t like it.  And even within that I subject myself to live performances of such music because I enjoy music; I want to be persuaded to like Heavy Metal; I enjoy the atmosphere of a music event; it opens my mind as to the possibilities of our world.  (In fact, the films that I learn the most from are the films that I do not like - they teach me what I never want to do in my work.)

Yet, you can see everywhere in our current culture of Experimental Cinema that film is virtually the only accepted method of making our form of art.  Young artists who come to fruition are only accepted if they work in film.  Certainly, those who only work in film and are successful are likely to be very good filmmakers, but there are an equal number of filmmakers artists who work digitally whose pieces you might significantly enjoy, but since the Experimental Cinema world looks down upon digital works you will never be exposed to them.  Most often these individuals turn to a different world where they are more accepted – "interdisciplinary art", "multimedia art", "new media", etc.

“But there are many filmmakers who work in digital video that we will always watch.”

Who? Jonas Mekas? Su Fredrich? Ken Jacobs? The Kuchar Brothers?  This is only because they were already accepted as filmmakers before they picked up a video camera.  They were already infallible and therefore did not receive the wrath of the aesthetics of rejection.

How many who consider themselves to be studious and wellsprings of knowledge of Experimental Filmmakers even know the names Miwa Matreyek or Dr. Strangeloop (David Wexler)?  Certainly, there will be some.  However, both artists have become world-renowned and both attribute more influence to filmmakers who are generally accepted under the umbrella of “Experimental Cinema” then other artists, but both are rarely discussed in our culture.  Why?

If we let these authoritative rules hinder us our field will become stagnant and we will let it die.  Experimental Cinema will end with the final filmmaker who became known with their films.  By no means am I making a case for filmmakers to stop working with film.  I hope celluloid sees many more years, but critics and fans who really and truly love “Experimental Cinema” must accept digital if it is to continue.  For if we are actually the expansive thinkers who can see meaning amongst the abstracted shadows on the walls of the cave then we must have a perception that is expansive enough to accept digital.  Let no boundaries stop us!  Let us re-radicalize “Experimental Cinema”!