annotations

Rosalind E. Krauss

clock time

Ananlyses the practice of the artist Christian Marclay through his work clock time. Elements of film history are mentioned such as his play with the silent film era. Proposing that Marclay uses synchronicity as-' the undeniable support for post-1929 film and thus for cinema itself'.the way in which the artist uses synch sound in video quartet and synch time in the clock 'underlying conditions of film' are. how the use of synch time in the clock causes interpellation which is described 'as the subject "recognises" himself as the addressee of a command, thus identifying with the commander' via Althusser's “Ideological State of the Apparatuses”which causes the viewer to become passive. Kraus also states this interpellation synchronises the audience with the 'temporal unfolding of events in the film.' the 'plot unfolds through the sights of the dials displayed on clocks and watches, and the reaction shots of horrified characters in the...clips...members of the audience glance at their watches and realise that the precise moment displayed on the screen matches the moment registered on their own wrists'.Marclays story unfolds within film clips in which characters anticipate a catastropy. These clips taken from mainstream movies with characters such as Sean Connery but kraus states unlike these movies 'the temporal arcs that produce the plots..is not synchronised with the suspense unfolding in the viewer's real time'.Parallel to this Kraus goes on to mention how Annette Michelson characterises Michael Snow's Wavelength as 'the very distillation of suspense' in the contorting of horizons to create a narrative thus a feeling of 'distended temporality' occurs and how this turns upon our cognition thus suspending our resolution. Kraus ends by stating The Clock simultaneity,enacted by the synchronous gearing of reel time into real time, flirts with Husserl's desire for the self-present instant,the revelation of self-presence in the “now-effect.”

Hal Foster

An Archival Impulse

contemplates the Artistic urge towards the 'archival impulse.' Examples are given through the works of three prominent archival artists Thomas Hirschhorn,Sam Durant,Tacita Dean. These artists foster states that 'share a notion of artistic practice as an idiosyncratic probing into particular figures,objects,and events in modern art, philosophy, and history. Foster discerns that the trend of 'archival impulse with a distinctive character of its own is once again pervasive'.'archival artists seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present.to this end they elaborate on the found image,object,and text'.some archival art can push the 'post modern complications of originality others may imply the the optimum medium for archival art is the 'mega archive of the internet'.Foster states archival artists are often drawn to unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects-in art and history.'the archives at issue here are not databases in this sense:they are recalcitrantly material, fragmentary rather than fungible, and as such they call out for human interpretation'.Although they' remain indeterminate like the contents of any archive, and often are presented in this fashion'.Some archival artists play on the collection of the museum etc. but apparently not as critique? Foster does on to state 'in this respect archival art is often more “institutive” than “destructive, more “legislative” than “transgressive.”quoted on Derrida's terms of description to describe opposing drives in archive fever:a Freudian impression. In this article Hirschorn is the recoverer of 'radical figures',Dean 'recalls lost souls' and Durant's art brings to the surface 'repressed contents (to) return disruptively'.