Performing Language, Animating Poetry: Kinetic Text in Experimental Cinema

Abstract

LANGUAGE, BOTH WRITTEN AND SPOKEN, IS so ubiquitous within the field experimental film practice that singling out a particular thread or trajectory that would allow us to grasp, summarize, or theorize this interdisciplinary tendency at first seems like an insurmountable challenge. And this is even before we are led into the hazy definitions either or experimental. Our concern with the cinema must first all be dissociated from the ofc inema (although the two frequently, and obviously, intersect, as my discussion the work Peter Rose later this article will demonstrate). When speaking (of) the o/xinema, we are dealing first and foremost with a system signification, a way the by breaking down the image into a series semantic units. Deriving from structuralist semiotics, this association film with has long dominated the field film studies, perhaps overshadowing issues within the cinema.1 In commercial cinema, is, most cases, subordinated to the image-the of and the in are thus one and the same. But experimental, or avant-garde, practice, the dialogue between film and manitests itself as an interdisciplinary exchange that seeks to overturn this word-image hierarchy. What I am interested here is the way experimental cinema makes visible, inscribing it (sometimes literally) into the formal and conceptual fabric the film.Visible language is visible the sense that words are physically, materially present on the screen; are, Scott MacDonald's words, a literary engagement with the as a surface as well as a window.2 From this perspective, reading the screen is not simply a process understanding the visual the cinema; it can also be framed terms a complex oscillation between viewing (images) and (text). Sometimes, as the films and videos Peter Rose and Gary Hill, the spoken and the written word are brought together, emphasizing the concrete visual and acoustic properties language. Often, as seen/read the works Michael Snow and the recent Internet artists Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, the text is the image, the only visual signifier on the screen. Frequently, and most these cases, is used performatively-the filmmaker speaks through the text or inscribes him- or herself in/onto the film through the gesture writing. But the framework performance also allows us to think about the role these texts play acting out discourse, communication, and experience. Using the films American artist Peter Rose as a case study, this article discusses the origin(ality) kinetic texts experimental cinema, tracing a trajectory from the writings early narrative cinema through avant-garde films and theory the 1920s to visual and concrete poetry, ending with a discussion contemporary examples Internet poetry. In taking this approach, I hope to draw out the historical relevance experimental cinema the context word-image discourse, but also to open up the discourse itself to considerations new artistic encounters the realms the digital.Early Perspectives on Screen TextsFixed camera position on a dusty tree-lined lane receding into the background: from a distance, a horse-drawn cart appears and gradually moves into the foreground, disappearing past the camera and sending a cloud dust across its field vision. As the dust settles, another moving object emerges from the same spot the background, only this time it turns out to be a motorcar, visibly out control and veering dangerously toward the camera. When the car eventually consumes the frame, the physical collision is expressed the sudden appearance a black screen, onto which flashes, quick succession, a series words written directly onto the filmstrip: ?? / !!! / Oh! / Mother / will / be / pleased. …