Tacita Dean 'Save Celluloid' Guardian article

[Michael W]

Tacita Dean is a respected contemporary artist from the UK. She uses 16mm motion picture film in her work and is encountering the sort of difficulties that are becoming all too common. She has published an eloquent piece in the Guardian that sums up many of my thoughts about the situation. The following quoted passage encapsulates one of the key concepts -

Many of us are exhausted from grieving over the dismantling of analogue technologies. Digital is not better than analogue, but different. What we are asking for is co-existence: that analogue film might be allowed to remain an option for those who want it, and for the ascendency of one not to have to mean the extinguishing of the other.

The real crux of the difference is that artists exhibit, and so care about the final presentation and presence of the artwork in the space. Other professions have their work mediated into different formats: TV, magazines, billboards, books. It remains only in galleries and museums that the physical encounter is so critical, which is why artists, in the widest sense, are the most distressed by the obsolescence of analogue mediums.

 

[Rick A]

Think anyone who matters will listen(other than Simon Galley). Tell someone that their football must be made of foam rubber to avoid injury and watch the ruckus that ensues(bad analogy, I know)Oh, I know, lets make football a "virtual sport" altogether, and the team QB's sit down to a game console and duke it out with "Madden 2012" or some other BS game and televise that for the public. We have been relegated to "niche" status, and we'll be lucky to survive at all. Dont we have William Shattner to thank for this The whole Star Trek crap that nerds are trying to bring to life just because they saw it on a sci-fi TV show

 

[Tom Kershaw]

Well first the film base is no longer celluloid, and second as is often the case, the idiocy of the comments on the Guardian page verges on the spectacular; specifically demonstrating a total incomprehension of the integral relationship between the medium and the subject, although strongly associating film with "lo-fi" image quality to the exclusion of other possibilities (e.g. shooting in 65mm) is misguided and inaccurate. However, Tacita Dean would probably benefit from a greater understanding of the technology involved; with enough interest a cottage industry for printing 16mm might be possible.

Tom

 

[lns]

That's a heartfelt plea from a prominent artist. It's nice she's trying to reach out to the public in this way. Perhaps she can open some minds.

-Laura

 

[perkeleellinen]

as is often the case, the idiocy of the comments on the Guardian page verges on the spectacular

I've found all comment features on online news sites to be very depressing. I think there's something in human nature that makes us comment on things we have no knowledge about and to do so in really bombastic styles. Owen Hatherley said he doesn't even read the comments under his articles and Andrew Brown regularly gets (anonymous) nasty hate mail after he publishes his pieces. The BBC had to remove their 'like' feature from their comments pages because of the way it highly ranked some of the nastiest comments I've ever read. If people acted like this is real life the A&E wards would be full of people with broken noses. I've solved the problem by buying newspapers where readers' comments are filtered and the best become 'letters'.

 

[BetterSense]

I think movie film (other than imax film) is still coated on cellulose so that it will tear if it becomes jammed in the camera. I'm not sure, though.

It remains only in galleries and museums that the physical encounter is so critical, which is why artists, in the widest sense, are the most distressed by the obsolescence of analogue mediums.

Heck, just put up some LCD displays in the museums. It's only a small step from inkjet.

 

[Tom Kershaw]

To clarify my comment on film base, I should have noted that film stocks now utilize a variety of bases that have changed over time.

Tom