Video Truth with all the hallmarks of the False.
Through a life time of moving images we, as viewers, have developed an extrodinary perception and comprehension of what 'truth' is. or at the very least what we expect the cinematic representations of 'truth' look like.
imagine a thing of beauty that as absorbed all the energy of the ugly: thats fashion
Imagine the true that has absorbed all the energy of the false: there you have simulation. Baudrillard. Fatal Strategies p9.
This is and idea I have explored in a number of forms, such as an essay for BraintrustDV called '
Mechanical I'.
And, in particular its an idea that might well be considered in the light of the visual artifacts of contemporary media distribution pixilation, compression, chromatic noise. Those artifacts that are part and parcel of a diffused notion of 'truth'. Phone cameras, satellite phone reporting, internet delivery, home DV production - Pixilation and compression artifacts in video media have all the hallmarks of the falsity of the image and yet, because of these flaws present to viewer sensibilities as more truthful than a true image.
In the movement of seduction it is as if the false were resplendent in all the power of truth. p 52 Fatal Strategies
This idea has been expertly articulated in a
review essay of the 'Mockumentary', Death of a President. by Michael Pick. Complete with numerous video examples taken from the film, the essay daws a number of facinating connections between our perceptions of 'truth' and the construction of 'truth' by popular media and how filmmakers can exploit those visual language constructs.
"Shaky, hand-held footage from numerous video sources, with lapses in
focus, and sudden 'whip' pans to the center of the action. The cross
cutting of street level action with talking-head eye witnesses, the
careful use of ominous, incidental music and loaded voice over
narration that adds a specific context and tone to the images. All of
these familiar visual signals place us in the realms of the apparently
real - the realms of the documentary, with its claims to veracity."
Posted at 01:00AM Jul 09, 2007
by Mike Jones in moving image theory |
