----------------------------Original message---------------------------- >>Frequently experimental cinema reaches a level of imagistic complexity >>-figuration, abstraction- not found elsewhere. For me this is one of the >>most rewarding parts of experimental cinema. Unfortunately this aspect of >>the work appears to be frequently ignored by viewers and by those individuals >>writing about the work. I wonder about the idea of visual competence. As I >>think we will agree cinema study has been dominated by narrative and thematic >>forms of analysis such as psychoanalysis, semeiotics, feminist theory, autre, >>genre, and cultural theory etc. It appears to me that methods of analyzing >>the cinema that emphasize visual competence, over narrative competence and >>that work on the level of the image, specifically the abstract image, do not >>exist. Is there a mode of analysis that I am not aware of? If so please >>suggest references. Further, for those who teach how do you present filmic >>abstraction to your students, what modes of analysis do you think are proper >>or useful? >> >>any thoughts? >>-Douglas Hunter Try Jim Peterson's _Dreams of Order, Visions of Chaos_. -PB Ramaeker