Losing Oneself

low fidelity documentation

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by

Simon Ellis
in

I’ve written and presented in another context about documenting complex, rich, high fidelity human experiences with low fidelity (or resolution) forms of documentation. When we point any kind of camera at a human being improvising there is vast difference between the internal experience of the improviser and what is visible.

In Losing Oneself Katye Coe and I are doing a version of authentic movement for four cameras which more or less cover the space. Three cameras are shooting time-lapses (every 3, 4 and 7 seconds respectively) and one camera is a locked off 4K video camera. The stills are RAW files so each photograph is about 25MB, and each improvisation produces hundreds of these per camera. After 9 studio days we have nearly 3TB of data. These data are unquestionably high resolution but still they capture nothing of the complex, rich and wide open experiences that Katye and I are having.

So why bother?

The truth is I don’t know. I think I might make a film out of the timelapses/stills but I don’t for a second imagine that film will somehow register anything of what is going on in the studio.

Katye Coe, 4 cameras and a lot of light.

Comments

6 responses to “low fidelity documentation”

  1. Scott deLahunta avatar
    Scott deLahunta

    “I don’t for a second imagine that film will somehow register anything of what is going on in the studio.”

    This is where (and I think you know) I differ from your perspective here. I think more about who might be watching the film and what sort of reading/ viewing expertise they bring to that experience. How much can they understand about what is going on. I think quite a bit. They may also have to work at it some, they may have to make an effort. Not just passively sit there. So you might not like to make any claims yourself about what others might understand from watching the film, but you also can’t (I would argue) assume they won’t understand something and perhaps they understand something quite deeply about what was going on in the studio. By watching your film. So, it can’t register everything, but it might register something.

    Reply
    1. Simon Ellis avatar
      Simon Ellis

      I suspect I agree with you Scott, but what I’m not sure about is whether there is a line between art making and documentation (as you describe it). If I were playing Devil’s advocate, I’d propose that what you are describing vis-a-vis the agency of the viewer is an art object rather than documentation of a practice. And here I’m contradicting the argument I tried to make all those years ago in my PhD! Actually, my central argument was that ‘documentation’ is simply an inadequate word and I thought the term “remembering” to be much more precise.

      Reply
  2. Isaac Araujo avatar
    Isaac Araujo

    Hello Simon,
    I have a question: do you have your eyes closed during the AM sessions?
    The pictures might function as your outside witness – who does not need to know what is triggering movement by the mover, and has her own authentic viewing-experience. Through the pictures, whoever sees them is (maybe) being given the role of outside witness, for that snapshot. The pictures are maybe a blessing of technology to allow other people to take part on your AM sessions (and on the momentary phenomenological happenings).
    Like in music or painting, the viewer might not listen to/watch them through the sensitivity (inner content) of their author’s eyes; however the viewers’ life experiences empower them with their own perspective about what has been captured as a snapshot from a very specific moment of inspiration by the artist.
    Best regards from Leipzig!
    Isaac

    Reply
    1. Simon Ellis avatar
      Simon Ellis

      Thanks Isaac for your question. Yes, we are working eyes closed. Curiously, I’m perhaps more interested (or curious about) images in which the subject (the mover) are very partially in frame. These are the kinds of images that would not ordinarily be framed that way if someone was looking through the viewfinder. I guess my question remains (and to your point) is what kind of experience do these images provide someone who is not in the room? Certainly, this experience is likely very different even from the witness in the room, and certainly from the person moving. I appreciate this is quite obvious really but I think it’s important to be reminded that video (or photography) is a proxy … it is only ever the finger pointing at the moon and not the moon itself.

      Reply
      1. Isaac Araujo avatar
        Isaac Araujo

        I agree with you when you say that photography is “pointing the finger at the moon”. But what else could one do? I would argue that the only thing a witness can do, even when witnessing the moon itself (the mover in the studio) is to point a finger at the moon, because I suppose a witness’s experience will always be about her own perspective (based on her own life events).

        When I look at the moon at night, am I witnessing the moon itself or is it my filters and synapses about it? In a way, the moon I’m witnessing doesn’t even exist anymore – I see her past.

        I guess a witness could also wear someone else’s lenses; but still, it would be someone else’s approach, and not the moon itself, I suppose.

        Greatings from Leipzig!
        Isaac

        Reply
  3. shimmer – Losing Oneself

    […] mentioned before in data data data and in low fidelity documentation just how complex the ways in which some of the practical work in the studio might be documented and […]

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