Dictionaries and Aporias

About

This course is part of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts's 2021 programme.

Course leader

Ho Tzu Nyen, Jan Gerber and Sebastian Lütgert

Target group

open to anyone interested in fine arts

Course aim

In this course, students will develop a practical understanding of recombinatory film: database-driven audiovisual artworks that create new narratives, as well as generating lists, maps or dictionaries, by way of algorithmic retrieval and assembly of digital footage. We will take a closer look at cinematic theories and techniques of montage, images situated between images, and explore what becomes possible – both visible and imaginable – when we delegate some of the creative processes of editing to computer programs.

Throughout the course, students will engage with a variety of audiovisual archives and datasets, contribute their own selections of online materials, experiment with computer-aided image analysis, sketch out concrete projects individually and collaboratively, and develop a sense of the vocabularies and grammars that both underlie and emerge from recombinatory video works. We are also going to study a selection of "prior art" in the field, with occasional ventures into found-footage film, interactive video art and computer games. Students will, in the process, develop a critical perspective on algorithmic media art and "artificial intelligence" as an artistic trope and technological paradigm.

*If necessary, the course may be held exclusively online.

Fee info