Research Proposal: A Film Grammar for the Internet
Margot McEwen - AFMI - 09/10/23
Fully Connected Topology
Bus Topology
Star Topology
Ring Topology
Tree Topology
Mesh Topology
Hybrid Topology
Dual Ring Topology
Linear Topology
Peer-to-Peer Topology
How the Internet Moves
Network Topology is a way of defining or describing the arrangement of the links and nodes in a communication network, showing how information will pass from machine to machine. Any network of computers can be mapped out this way.
The scale makes it impossible, but the entire internet could theoretically be mapped out this way.
— 'Level Five' (Chris Marker, 1997)
When Chris Marker made 'Level Five' the internet was still a place you would go, somewhere other, cyberspace as in William Gibson's 'Neuromancer'. I'm not sure if this is really the case any longer. The internet is everywhere, and everyone is connected at all times.
— 'Le Pont du Nord' (Jacques Rivette, 1981)
I think the reality now is closer to Rivette's 'Le Pont du Nord', in which two women draw a board game (the rules of which they don't really know) over a map of Paris. The game mediates their relationship to their environment and to those around them.
— 'The Film Sense' (Sergei Eisenstein, 1942)
This diagram of the interrelation between picture and sound is what first made me look at these network topologies as something that could be filmed. As Eisenstein says:
>> We shall see that a similar superimposition occurs even at the highest stage of montage development — audio-visual montage. The "double-exposed" image is just as inherently characteristic of audio-visual montage as it is for all other cinematic phenomena.
I am not interested in how the internet looks, but in how it moves.
Reference Points
Superimpositions
Previously technically difficult and time consuming, these techniques can now be done quickly, cheaply, and live, using a computer and digital camera(s).
'Six fois duex — 5a' (Godard-Miéville, 1976)
'La Roue' (Abel Gance, 1923)
'Superdyke meets Mme. X' (Barbara Hammer, 1975)
'Mulholland Drive' (David Lynch, 2001)
'Global Groove' (Nam Juin Paik, 1973)
Revelations
Films that reveal themselves are essential to this project. The audience should be given the pieces they need to understand what is being done. Hopefully this will expand to the networks also.
'La Région centrale' (Michael Snow, 1971)
'Switch! Monitor! Drift!' (The Vasulkas, 1976)
Emotions
Whilst the technology through which our communication is mediated has changed the thing we want is still the same: to connect with one another. These images exemplify that to me.
'Go Go Second Time Virgin' (Kōji Wakamatsu, 1969)
'Le Pont du Nord' (Jacques Rivette, 1981)
'Four Nights of a Dreamer' (Robert Bresson, 1971)
'Toute une nuit' (Chantal Akerman, 1982)
'One Day Pina Asked…' (Chantal Akerman, 1983)
Examples
Dual Ring Topology
Take for example of a ‘dual ring topology’, the flow of information in opposite directions between nodes (inner-ring and outer-ring) in a closed loop.
It strikes me that the way to transpose this into film is clear, a sequence of shots, looped and cycled through forwards and backwards at the same time, both superimposed over a feedback loop.
Here this is demonstrated in a test using shots of fish in an aquarium. This can be pre-recorded or tweaked live using a MIDI controller.
As much as I love my fish, I don't think these can be much more than neat experiments until the images being mediated through these topologies contain emotional content and coherent montage.
More Videos…
Stills
I'm not really much of a cinematographer, but MiniDV is at least quite forgiving. These are some stills from a test-shoot.
Structure
How This All Fits Together
Start with a handful of simple sequences of basic interaction between two people (passing in the street, talking, eyes meeting, hugging, etc.), tiny narratives equivalent to a linear topology.
Repeat these sequences so the audience is able to recognise them.
Mediate these sequences through the different network topologies, as with the above example of a dual ring topology.
Repeat these sequences so the audience is able to recognise them.
Take the resultant sequences and pass them again through different network topologies. This will create hybrid topologies that are abstracted even further away from the original sequences.
At some point it will likely become too difficult to see exactly what is happening in these sequence. There will, however, still be recognisable traces of the original sequences. If I have done my job right the audience should have a sense of how these very complex sequences were arrived at.
End by returning to the one of the most basic and fundamental parts of film grammar, the shot‑reverse‑shot, equivalent to the most basic peer‑to‑peer topology.
Linear Topology
Star Topology
Hybrid Topology
Peer-to-Peer Topology
'Notre musique' (Jean-Luc Godard, 2004)
Reasoning
Why I Want To Do All This
Almost all of my most meaningful friendships and relationships started on the internet. The first trans women I knew were people I met through the internet. I don't think I would have had the courage to come out without them. In lots of ways I owe my life to these friends. I still haven't met most of them in person.
I do not think I am romantic about the internet. There is certainly a strange dissonance in the fact that the formation of these relationships was dependant on services run by large corporations, and that these relationships are mediated by platform capitalism. Some of my most important and intimate conversations have probably been tracked and logged.
As alienating as the internet can be, the thing we want from it is the same thing we have always wanted, to be seen and understood by others.
The internet is too impossibly large a thing to fully understand, but if we can at least understand its basic building blocks we might better see how it mediates our interaction with others.
>> I remember my daughter's happy eyes when I told her she could type on the bright green display I used at home to send and receive messages from friends and associates all over the country. But I asked her to wait until the telephone connection was no longer in use, because I didn't want to pay communication and computer rates while she learned the keyboard. She was very disappointed, and with all the authority of her five years, she told me she didn't want just to type on the pretty screen. "I WANT TO TYPE AT SOMEBODY!" she insisted. She had already associated the idea of the terminal with that of a window on the outside world, a window through which she could see her friends and exchange bright, joyful greetings.
