[Reader-list] [Announcements] Digital Video Image Masterclass

[iram]

Call For Applications

DIGITAL  VIDEO  IMAGE  MASTERCLASS @ Sarai
Masterclass Tutor: Kabir Mohanty

Kabir  Mohanty works in film and in video. In the former as a film
director of an ensemble form shooting in 35mm, working with actors in a
tradition of filmmakers before him that thought of film as a serious art
form. In video, he works more as a solo artist, bringing to video the
hands-on, performative aspect of music or drawing.  For Kabir Mohanty,
the two are related in many ways and not mutually exclusive.

His films and videos have been shown at many festivals and art venues in
India and abroad. He has received support in the form of a number of
international grants and awards. Kabir Mohanty studied economics at
Presidency College, Calcutta and film and video at the University of
Iowa in the United States. From September 2002 till June of 2004 he was
a visiting artist in UCLA's art department. He is currently working on a
number of digital video pieces, installations, single channel works and
a feature length video essay towards two solo shows next year.

The duration of the workshop is five weeks commencing from Wednesday,
31st August 2005. The participants will meet every Wednesday and
Saturday, thereafter from 3pm to 7pm. The workshop ends on Saturday
01st October, 2005 with the submission of final works produced.

Those interested may send a short resume with a one-page note on why
they want to attend this workshop and a sample of creative work from any
of the following mediums - photography, painting or sculpture (one can
submit stills of work), a piece of music performed or composed, video,
film or a piece of prose or poetry  to :

Iram Ghufran,
Sarai Media Lab,
Sarai- CSDS,
29 Rajpur Road,
Delhi 54

iram at sarai.net

Samples of work submitted shall not be returned.

Last Date for applications: August 01, 2005
Selected participants will be informed on email by August 10, 2005
Masterclass Fee: Rs. 2000/- to be paid after confirmation of selection.

The Digital Video Image: Kabir Mohanty

The video image is almost instantly generated. You could switch on the
camera, take off the lens cap, and press auto exposure. There is an
image, press record and you are shooting video. A child when given a
pencil and a piece of paper does not hesitate to draw the first lines 
unless he is being punished.

It is this spontaneous, drawing-like gesture, this anybody-can, this
there-is-nothing-technical-about-it core of video, this pencil-like
beginning that I would like to make with this workshop. From this
child-like start, begin to connect the camera to one's imagination, to
composition.

Smaller cameras have allowed anybody to make images, the way Godard said
`When film becomes as cheap as paper and pencil, great films will be
made' To my mind, these cameras have allowed the immediacy of drawing
to be brought back. A particular kind of immediacy, and a contraction of time, a
possible creation here and now.

In this ten-week workshop I would like to go back to video's basic
parameters, exposure, focus, its horizontal axes movements, namely
panning left and right, its vertical axes movements, namely tilting up
and down. If one has a lot of prior experience in video, this workshop
does not ask you to leave anything behind. On the contrary, to bring
to the basics, all the compositional preparedness that one already has.

The workshop assumes that the practitioner is going to handle the camera
herself. At times one may become a composer for a particular work and
need an instrumentalist like Gary Hill in his beautiful 4-minute video,
Site Recite.

These weeks are also preparing sight, preparing the self. What will one
do if one is never able to raise money. Again, the eye as intuitive
knowledge in Stan Brakhage.

All the exercises or studies if you will are to be performed mos, with
the rider that the camera mic is to be left on. A level should be set
for sound for the camera mic and then not tampered with during shooting.

When one gives to an exercise it gives back. Hindustani musicians define
a practice of the sargam or doing the scales. Then, the most minor
deviations from this scale as a bend in the note towards the next note
or the meend becomes the beginning of a profound musical expression. 
It is the beginning of movement. What is the basic scale of your shot? 
Do you think about it?

Am I laying down some essential characteristics of the medium? Is this
the only way to think about the medium?

The answer to the second question is a definite ` No' The first question
is harder to answer. One would like to address it through the quarter
without being reductive. Here are certain ways of thinking about the
medium from a practitioner's point of view. These could be thought
of as a series of yoga asanas. They could remain physical or a formal
examination only or they can become artistic content, when we simply 
say yes there is something to this, this speaks, when the yoga asana 
connects mind and body and becomes simultaneously dance and self-knowledge.

This course is about attractions, and provocations, through doing.

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