On Tue, 11 Jul 1995, Mike Frank wrote: > my only concern is whether it is a better representation of THE SAME THING, > or whether the thing being represented, the signified itself, is somehow > changed in some significant way by the translation to video > > that is the issue that i believe remains unresolved > > In answer to Mike's question, I would say that film and video are two technologies which have the capacity to reproduce similar visual imagery and iconography. They simply don't represent the same thing. The question of which is a "better" represenation has everything to do with how the technology is implemented. The first time I saw Citizen Kane, it was in video on a friend's 13'' TV screen. It was not Citizen Kane. The images were there; the iconography was there. But it simply meant differently. Video could NOT reproduce the meaning of the film. At all. All the appropriate "signs" of the semiotic system of Citizen Kane were present, in theory. But in practice, the meaning-making function of Welles' deep focus, his use of vast spaces, his shots of Kane from low angles---all of these things were evacuated of their significance in the video transfer. It wasn't until I saw this film projected that I could make sense of the Kane character. He simply was not legible on a 13'' monitor. By contrast, in the first year of our local queer film festival in Eugene, the work of videomaker Sadie Benning were shown in a large auditorium using video projection technology. Benning shoots her videos using a pixelvision camera and relies on using many very tight close-ups of parts of her body and shoots small objects, such as matchbox cars, anatomy images from an encyclopedia, etc.Seeing these things projected on a big screen rendered the effect of her camera work almost as illegible as Gregg Toland's appears on a 13'' screen. By contrast, when I was able to view Benning's work on a TV monitor, it's meaning making mechanisms became much more legible. All of this is by way of saying that film and video can represent the same things but inevitably do it differently. I don't buy either the easy plurality of claiming they are or do the same thing any more than I invest in nostalgic claims which privilege one technology over and above another. There's simply no substitute for finding the right tool to do the right job, a fact which makes acknowledging the distinctions between film and video more imperative, not less. Meryem Ersoz University of Oregon ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]