The New Venue

13.April.1999 video : war : leverage You can bury a reel of film underground or dub a videotape repeatedly but how do you degrade something that is digital? This week, the New Venue presents a "digital artifact," the result of a computer virus that infected John Polizzi's ISP server on April 1, 1999. Directed by John Polizzi Stills from "video : war : leverage" The artifact, in this case a QuickTime movie, is a symptomatic by-product of the virus' attempt at manipulating and obfuscating data retrieved from the Web. Identified recently by the name "Yoohoo," the virus functions by high-jacking a random selection of data en route from any given server. The virus then conflates and distorts that information before finally downloading it to the user. Because the distortion is often rather subtle, the user, aside from noticing what may be perceived as a delay caused by network traffic, often remains oblivious to the infected status of the requested data. Except in the occasional extreme instance, such as is presented here, the loss of data integrity may go unnoticed (Polizzi would like to make note of this for those in our audience who rely heavily on time-sensitive data such as stock quotes, etc). Digital filmmaker John Polizzi supports himself and his dog through freelance web design and animation - when he's not remixing Godard. Interview with the filmmaker. New Venue: What is the appeal of digital filmmaking? Polizzi: Working digitally is fast, fluid, intuitive and compact. It mirrors my own creative process which is highly redundant, repetitive and hermetic. Formally, I've always been interested in using tightly synchronized multi-layered imagery and text, something which can be extremely difficult to accomplish using traditional means of working with film or video. When I first started using digital video I was amazed, completely blown away, by how well the tools allowed me to accomplish what I'd been struggling to do off-line. New Venue: How did the Internet shape this project and how did you re-shape it? Polizzi: I'm not sure I can answer the second part since the piece has just been finished and hasn't yet had time to circulate.... What I mean is that I don't consider the (albeit important) first step of simply posting material on the web as an intrinsically transformative act; the ensuing process of other users responding seems to be what shapes and changes the net. I'm interested in how the new conception of digital "content" - catch phrase aside - will alter older 20th century notions of production and usage in art. "video : war : leverage" is reflexive in that it uses text, imagery and sound scavenged exclusively from the web - a vast source of raw material - to comment on it's own position within that milieu. "Content," often proffered simultaneously as information, entertainment, promotion, etc., invites a multiplicity of uses. considering that the computer makes "users" of us all, what does this say about the ways in which the net alters the function of art? New Venue: How do you take into account the constraints of the Internet? Polizzi: File size and data rate, attention span, functionality and interactivity are key considerations. Art on the net should function with respect to the idea that people use it (not simply view it) in ways specific to the medium; the connected PC. A video aesthetic that functions successfully on the web is one based as much on expansive ideation as it is on the formation of material that's small, easy to manage and manipulate. It's collected on hard drives, it's traded with friends via email, it's posted simultaneously in different places around the world.... ideally, I'd like people to download, cut, paste and copy my movies, to remix and recycle them. I make videos in the hope that some nineteen year old punk rock chick in Taiwan will see it, tweak and translate it, call it her own.... New Venue: What technology did you use? Polizzi: I now use a Canon DV hooked up to a G3 with firewire and an ultra/wide RAID. Apple stock. I use Premiere 5 and Media Cleaner Pro, but work mostly in AfterEffects. My favorite combination, actually, is AfterEffects and Media100... a comfortable chair and a good deal of caffeine. New Venue: Where else can we see your work? Polizzi: http://www.number32.com View this movie. You can find out about other digital flicks in the New Venue Archives.