*/The image as a kinetic moment


german fernandez
September 5, 2021
var screens;
*/ Screens: The world of our days is full of screens, from the mobiles to our TV sets at home to our desktop at the office.
Screens might be our exclusive access to connections between each other.
But the nature of the screen made it necessary to make visual every aspect of what was implicit in games or stories built before.

A plot is underlying its structure, yet the game is formed, like any other plot, linear or not, by micro-moments, just in the same manner a stand-up comedian divides its act into small parts, pulsating each joke by the interaction with the public.
From the many elements this situation gave birth to, I only want to focus on the micro-moments.
They keep the thread of the story, keeping us connected through the passing of time in the very same screen, although there are probably many elements that can be pointed out as a product of this, such as the progress bars, avatars and companions, I want to focus here on the interstices of these experiences, the transitional moments that disappear so quickly, we get bewitched by the purpose they are designed for; to maintain our attention while the machines are crunching number behind them. The micro-moments, maybe and at first, are all. Your interaction with your apps is made as well, of micro sessions held along the day. and that, that is another perception of the image. Your app is made from micro-moments, a chain of questions for you to answer with a swap, a click, a slide. */Also: a - b = c , where a is the moving image as developed according to the conventions of films, movies, and video; b is formed by such conventions as storytelling, the literary charge of the artworks; and c is what is left when the latter is subtracted from the former: pure movement.
Keep in mind that, certainly, this might seen as nothing more than recycled futurism, a " "Marinetti goes to Silicon Valley" approach.
But, as Heraclitus Ethereum said: "think before sync". /*
*/ GIF: Metaphorically, the GIF is also a mental space. Nowadays this kind of image, -perpetual, cyclical - is more present than ever, thanks to the GIF format that allows looped images to be sent via mobile applications (short looping videos also make the trick). But also because the devices that we use every day have that kind of sequence, the same animations of elements activated now and then in a rather static image, which is the interface itself. Within a static context, a lengthy evolution. Some of the art we make in the future will appear maybe from these elements. A moment, frozen. Such is the nature of the looping GIF, made of pure movement but trapped in the repetition, like a captured piece of time in the hands of the image, a cage of light, shape and colour, and a fleeting meaning. A moment detained in time, frozen, for eternal consumption and contemplation, mental space for visual poetry. A new symphony, a sequence, a narrative, no explicit, a musical approach to stories, ethereal, vague, non-direct, so non-linear tales or narratives. Maybe a new door to express ourselves in the new times. ///
Notes
_________________________________ 1) Aguerre, Enrique. Bit Bang: ruido en la interfaz. Bit Bang exhibition catalogue, Centro Cultural de Espana,2001. 2) Betancur, Patricia. El territorio incierto. Bit Bang exhibition catalogue, Centro Cultural de Espana,2001. 3) Gregory, Bill. William Kentridge: Telegrams from the Nose, exhibition catalogue. Annandale Galleries, 2008. 4) Bazin, Andre. The ontology of the photographic image. In: What is cinema? Hugh Gray, trans. University of California Press. 5) Ray Smith, Alvy. Pixel: a biography . August 2021. https://aeon.co/essays/a-biography-of-the-pixel-the-elementary-particle-of-pictures. 6) Tzara, Tristan. Dada manifesto. 1918