Exposition

If film is a language, can birds make movies? An essay and two heretical descriptive systems (2017)

Tim Ridlen
open exposition

About this exposition

The work presented here uses the analogy of artists as talking birds and draws on research from cognitive ethology, linguistics, and film studies to ask, what kind of knowledge does art produce? Drawn diagrams and short structural videos illustrate but perhaps complicate or even obfuscate various parts of the text. The starting point is a 1966 film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, 'The Hawks and the Sparrows', alongside his essay published with the script, 'The Cinema of Poetry'. That text made a compelling argument about the nature of cinematic language, while his film imagined a world in which birds could speak. This essay – made up of text, drawn diagrams, and short video loops – takes the next logical step and asks, can birds make movies? The question is left unanswered, at least explicitly, and remains a figure or stand in for artistic forms of knowledge, research, and thought. This essay may not be of interest to those studying linguistics, cognitive ethology, or film history in earnest, but rather to those interested in visual forms of knowledge production and communication, humanistic explorations of the natural sciences, and the history of ideas. This presentation is the first of a three-part series titled 'The Artist’s Field Library', an arrangement of essays and source materials that explore the mutually transformative relationship between art and the university. The second essay in the series deals with academic institutions as the site of artistic and political practices, as well as what stands to be won or lost, and the third deals with critical pedagogy.
typeresearch exposition
keywordsVIDEO, epistemology, ethology, linguistics, cinema
date27/04/2017
published27/04/2017
last modified27/04/2017
statuspublished
share statusprivate
affiliationUniversity of California San Diego
licenseAll rights reserved
urlhttps://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/147814/147815
doihttps://doi.org/10.22501/jar.147814
published inJournal for Artistic Research
portal issue13.


Copyrights

nameDr_Credits
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Birds Make Movies Audience Effect
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Color into Shape
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Absent Sign
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Moderate to Radical Invention
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Semantic Field
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Three Articulations
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
nameDr_Logical Syllogisms
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagespicture
namePasolini's Crow Clip De-Interlaced
copyrightPier Paolo Pasolini, Arco Film
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
nameNewman Quote Full De-Interlaced
copyrightEmile de Antonio
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
nameStorehouse of Language_Deinterlaced no titles
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name01_The Storehouse of Language copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameBirds Make Movies (Audience Effect)
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name07_Birds Make Movies (Audience Effect) copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameColor into Shape De-Interlaced
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name06_Color Into Shape copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameAbsent Sign DeInterlaced
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name05_The Absent Sign copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameinvention of lang De-Interlaced
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name04_Moderate to Radical Invention copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameSemantic Field De-Interlaced
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name03_The Semantic Field copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage
nameThree Articulations De-Interlaced
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesvideo
name02_Three Articulations copy
copyrightTim Ridlen
licenseAll rights reserved
usagesimage

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