RANDOM ACCESS: 5x5 DATABASE

Your assignment is to create a database of 20 or more clips. The concept/narrative structor is up to you. How does each clip relate to one another? Instead of creating a linear piece you are developing a web of associations connected by chance. The Data Blender application takes a folder of videos and randomly plays each clip. Every item in your database should be 5 seconds long. You can make the edits shorter by changing the editing speed. Due Nov. 13th. 50points.

DOWNLOAD: DATA BLENDER Application <With Audio file

DOWNLOAD: DATA BLENDER SOURCE

STUDENT EXAMPLE:

Such Surroundings from Alexandria Lechlitner on Vimeo.

In the hustle of our busy lives we are becoming less involved with our surroundings. Getting caught in the motion of life without giving it the time to be seen or heard. "Such Surroundings" reinvites the audience back into their lives and gives them the chance to see what they have been taking for granted.

DATABASE NARRATIVE

"As a cultural form, database represents the world as a list of items and it refuses to order this list. In contrast, a narrative creates a cause-and-effect trajectory of seemingly unordered items (events). Therefore, database and narrative are natural enemies. Competing for the same territory of human culture, each claims an exclusive right to make meaning out of the world." - Lev Manovich

Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" never arrives at anything like a well-defined language. Rather, it proposes an untamed, and apparently endless unwinding of cinematic techniques, or, to use contemporary language, 'effects', as cinema's new way of speaking."

How Effective is this form of engagement, really, in terms of its ability to reorient our thinking?

How does this effectiveness compare with more traditional narrative and argumentative forms?

• Narrative: Develops Thematically, formally, or otherwise
• Database: "collections of individual items, where each item has the same significance as any other.