ACC2013 New Media

1. ACC2013New Media Week 7 Early Film and the Mediation of Cultural Memory 1 1

2. Lecture Overview Film and Cultural Memory Film and Remediation Key Concept: Dispositif Emergence of Film Early Technologies Early Australian Film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) 2

3. Lecture: Film emerged in a form very different from what we think of today. There were no theatres, no conception of a blockbuster, and certainly no Hollywood, even as an idea. Instead, it was part of a long history of images first upside-down then flickering, produced by candle-light and even séances. By the turn of the 20th C, widespread public appeal of film was underway. In 1906, Australia produced what is, arguably, the world’s first feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang. We will examine the emergence of this medium that became a global phenomenon and the ‘remediation’ of the iconic Ned Kelly. Tutorial: Analysis and discussion of the early development of film, and how this new media technology facilitated the emergence of new mass cultural practices, helping to create the modern audience. What is meant by mediation, remediation, memory dispositif and cultural memory? Essential Reading: Clee, P 2005, ‘The Rush To the Movies’, in Before Hollywood, Clarion Books, New York, pp. 111-138. Reade, E 1979, ‘The Bright Flame’, in History and Heartburn: The Saga of Australian Film 1896-1978, Harper & Row, Sydney, pp. 1-13. Screening of A History of Australian Cinema: The Pictures That Moved 1979 The Story of the Kelly Gang (film) 1906 http://aso.gov.au/titles/features/story-kelly-gang/ Further Reading: Basu, L 2009, ‘Towards a Memory Dispositif: Truth, Myth and Ned Kelly’, in A Erill & A Rigney (eds.), Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory, Walter d Gruyter, Berlin, pp. 139-155. (In Unit Reader) Week SevenEarly Film and the Mediation of Cultural Memory 3 3

4. Announcements Essays Due Next Week St Albans: Hand in during tutorials. Or into my pigeonhole before tutorials: St Albans: #75, on top floor of Building 8 Or email as attachment to me before 5pm on the day and await reply. Footscray Park: Hand in to my pigeonhole before 5pm, Friday 26th April. Footscray Park: #145, second floor corridor of Building E Or email as attachment to me before 5pm on the day and await reply. 4 4

5. Opening Clips • The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) • Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk1ZunbY7Xc • Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqbiWCjwk_Y • Ned Kelly (2003) • Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBSn7h1BQBk

6. The Medium is the Message There is a second way in which the medium is the message: Each medium has its own message (or content). The content of a new medium is always the one it succeeds. The content (‘message’) of media as: Content of speech = nonverbal thought. Content of writing = speech. Content of print = the written word. Content of the telegraph = print. 6 6

7. Film and Remediation • Mediation • Representation through a medium. • Remediation: • To mediate an existing representation through another medium. • i.e. mediation of mediation. • Remediation as the inseparability of mediation and reality. • Remediation as reform. (Bolter & Grusin, Remediation, 2000, p.55-56)

8. Cultural Memory • The knowledge and experience which is accumulated from being immersed in a culture and which defines an individual or group. • “Cultural memory preserves the store of knowledge from which a group derives an awareness of its unity and peculiarity.” • (Basu, 2009) Memory Site: • Literal • Physical or real environments. • Associated with tradition and custom. • e.g. cemeteries, memorials, museums. • Symbolic • Constructed sites of externalised memory. • e.g. media representations.

9. Key Concept: Dispositif • From French philosopher Michel Foucault. • Dispositif as a ‘heterogeneous ensemble’: • A group of different things and how they relate to each other. • Demonstrates how power and knowledge come together in a complex and non-determinant manner. • “What I’m trying to pick out with the term is, firstly, a thoroughly heterogeneous ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regulatory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements, philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions – in short the said as much as the unsaid. The dispositif itself is the system of relations that can be established between these elements.” – Foucault • A dispositif is a complex set of relations which provides a structure in which particular meaning can signify.

10. Key Concept: Dispositif Memory Dispositif • Basu uses idea of dispositif to examine cultural memory. • “Via sets of medial, political and temporal relations, particular meanings or identities are attached to particular figures, which then become sites for the transformation and proliferation of those identities.” • Different interrelated elements that constitute cultural memory. Media Dispositif • Part of a larger memory dispositif. • Instead of focusing on one medium or text in isolation, can consider the interactions between media representations. • Come together to form sense of understanding of the thing being remembered.

11. Media Dispositif and Ned Kelly Multiple Meanings: • Positive: • Anti-imperialist, working class hero. • Negative: • Whiteness, hyper-heterosexual masculinity and glorification of violence. • Facilitate consumption e.g. Kelly armour used in ads to sell products. • Political Right: • Denounced as murderous outlaw, terrorist. • Political Left: • Hero of the people. • Media Interplay • Basu compares Last of the Bushrangers (1891) to Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) • Insistence of texts on authenticity and authority. Media Representations of Ned Kelly: • Newspaper / Press • Theatre: The Kelly Gang (1890) • Literature: • True History of the Kelly Gang (2000) • Ned Kelly: Being His Own Story of His Life and Crimes (1942) • Visual Art: Sidney Nolan Paintings • Television: • The Last Outlaw (1980) • TV Ads (eg Coca Cola, Bushell’s Tea, Nurofen) • Film: • The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) • The Glenrowan Affair (1951) • Ned Kelly (1970) • Ned Kelly (2003) • Music: • Johnny Cash – “Ned Kelly” • Midnight Oil – “If Ned Kelly was King”

12. “It is terrifying to see this grey movement of grey shadows, noiseless, silent. A wide use can be predicted for this invention in view of its tremendous originality.” • Maxim Gorki (1896) • “Young man, our invention is not for sale. And besides, it would ruin you. It may be exploited for a while as a scientific curiosity. But apart from that, it has no commercial future.” • Louis Lumière to Georges Méliès (1895) 12 12

13. Media Archaeology: History of Film Technologies • Media Archaeology • Sets out to recover lost traces of our mediated past. • Examines how media were used, designed, written about, and, typically, discarded. • The study of ‘old’ and ‘dead’ media. • Comprehensive listing of 19th c. Victorian motion picture technology • http://www.victorian-cinema.net/machines.htm

14. ‘Motion Pictures’ as Science • Early efforts in the filming of moving images were focused on science not entertainment. • Scientific studies of motion. • Étienne-Jules Marey (1882) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtRJHS7ynyI • Eadweard Muybridge (1877) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEqccPhsqgA • Science and History of High Speed Photography • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqW6k_sQS3A

15. History of Film Technologies • At issue was developing a camera that could capture motion. • Kinesigraph (1876) • Wordsworth Donisthorpe. • Patent in 1876 for stop-motion camera. • Praxinoscope (1877) • Émile Reynaud • http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TxYP1nOSVJY • Bioskop (1895) • Max Skladanowsky

16. ‘Motions Pictures’ as Entertainment • By the late 1880s, motion pictures were increasingly becoming novelties. • “These films were of a different order than Marey's careful scientific studies. They were casual pictures of everyday life, closer to the films shown by the Lumiere brothers in 1895, and they foreshadowed a new direction in visual entertainment.” (Clee, 2005, p.115) • Kinetoscope (1894) • Thomas Edison • Travelled to France in 1889 for the Exposition Universelle and saw the work of Marey. • Marketed as the 'Nickel-in-the-Slot Kinetoscope’. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRIjUYh3MEs • Success led other promoters to think of ways to make even more money from this new technology. • Projection Technologies • Eidoloscope • Phantoscope a.k.a. Vitascope

17. History of Film Technologies • Lumiere Brothers’ Cinematographe (1894) • Major technological breakthrough. • Both camera and projector. • First commercial screening in 1895 in Paris. • Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory (1895) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HI63PUXnVMw • These early films were called actualities • Short documentary pictures. • Featuring scenes of everyday life, well-known personalities, parades and sporting events. • Other political economic factors: • Railway executives sponsored Edison's Kinetoscope department to promote the railways. • Coverage of the Spanish-American War in 1898 (use as propaganda). • Modern narrative (story-based) films emerge at end of 1890s.

18. Early Australian Film • Screening of: A History of Australian Cinema: The Pictures That Moved (1979) • First moving picture: Melbourne Cup (1896) • Salvation Army Production (1910) • The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906) • World’s first feature length film (60 mins). • Inscribed in 2007 on UNESCO Memory of the World Register. • Success of Kelly film created early trend: Bushranger films. • Amalgamated Pictures (1911) • Australia’s first film monopoly. • Proved detrimental to Australian film. • Hoyts Pictures (1909) • Established theatre chain. • Controlling interest bought by Americans. • Guaranteed Hollywood access and priority to Australia.

19. Lecture Summary Mediation and Remediation Representation through a medium. Representation of a representation. Dispositif: Memory Dispositif Set of different things that make up cultural memory & the relationship between them. Forms sense of understanding for the event/thing being remembered. Media Dispositif Part of memory dispositif. Set of different media representations & the relationship between them. Emergence of moving pictures as a new medium. Early film technologies and uses. Early Australian film industry. 19