HYPERLINK CINEMA x RESTART, REWIND

I want to begin this post by sharing a thought I had in 2014 surrounding new media as networks:

“So while networks are systems, it is their past reputation that can be seen as limiting their potential; being viewed as ‘objects of pure structure whose properties are fixed in time.’ This is not the case, especially with hypertext and literacy. Networks are constantly evolving and changing with time, adapting to decisions and driven by activity. Things happen depending on the hows and whys, integrating segments and expanding in multiple directions.”

Underpinned in my own understanding, I realised I was looking at the frame in the container of what it is physically. Alike Wasson, I wanted to continue looking at films and the frame as software: deepening the frame as a ‘flow of images and sounds that can be reconfigured and merchandised’ (pp.70). If media – particularly film – was only a surface of a directed reality, then how do blogs, folksonomies (or tagging systems, read here) and individual frames acknowledge the viewer? As I began working on my SERIES, I found myself asking:

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1.) Where does the viewer enter the frame?

2.) Where does the viewer leave the frame?

3.) Where are the viewers in the frame?

 

From here I decided to revisit Watts and what he called Six Degrees: The Science of The Connected Age (2002). Luckily for me, I’ve hoarded all my highlighted readings over the past two years from university.  Looking at the idea of a frame, video and blog as networks, it’s important to acknowledge that while all these parts have relationships. Understanding these parts on their own is pivotal to notice their malleability and nature online. As Watts’ simply put, “All these systems are networks, but all are completely distinct in one sense or another“,  just like each frame in a film or video.

While hyperlink cinema can be understood as a system of networks, they are also mediums to which go beyond being objects fixed by time, form, shape and screen. Just like a network, hyperlink cinema is constantly evolving and changing; reduced, molded, transferred and viewed in different sizes, formats, qualities, shapes, times and spaces. They adapt, adhere and adhere to the viewer, driven by decisions and drive by activity of their network. They are emergent and demand interactivity. A frame, through hyperlink cinema, can integrate or reduce segments and expand in multiple directions through hyperlink. And what better way to show this malleability in a breakdown of frames on a blog?

 

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