Living Cinema by Bob Ostertag: LEA Multimedia Performances Gallery

Rather, we see it as a reflection in art of the uneasiness of the meeting of machine and body throughout culture today, which can be seen in every human activity: war, work, play, reproduction, and so on. How machines and bodies will co-exist is thus not a problem to be "solved," but the central tension of our time in human history. Thus, it is a compelling terrain in which to locate art.

We believe that if art in this terrain is to be anything deeper than mere advertising for technology, the tensions and difficulties of the body/machine relationship must not be ignored, swept under the rug, glossed over, or hidden by tricks and gadgets, but brought to front and center, highlighted, magnified, and investigated.

Finally, we believe that the uneasy relationship between human bodies and machines is merely one instance of a much bigger uneasiness between machines and life on our planet. This too must not be hidden in the shadows, but illuminated. For example, the exponentially increasing power of computers is something we find extraordinary and we choose to explore this in our art. However, exponentially accumulating piles of garbage are a necessary and integral part of constantly increasing power of computers. They are two sides of the same coin. Art that investigates the bright side and not the dark side ultimately can only become yet more props for an increasingly oppressive technological culture we wish to challenge.

Related URLs
http://detritus.net/ostertag/LivingCinema.html
http://detritus.net/ostertag/home.html

			Multimedia Performances Gallery

Curatorial Statement	Sounds of a Community	Music Prosthesis	Gridjam	Desktop Sound	Phonic Bodies	Living Cinema	“Following ‘The Man of the Crowd’”

	Robert J Gluck	Pedro Rebelo	Jack Ox	Amnon Wolman	Benoit Maubrey	Bob Ostertag	Christina Ray and Lee Walton

Living Cinema By Bob Ostertag and Pierre Hébert

Bob Ostertag 737 Capp Street San Francisco, CA 94110 USA 415-206-0131 Pierre Hébert C.P.492 Hemmingford, QC J0L 1H0 Canada ph@mlink.net We insist that for a "performance" to be meaningful, it must involve the human body. We all live in human bodies, all day, every day of our lives. We struggle to make them do the things we want them to do. We have aches and pains. We all know the joy of using our bodies in an expressive and wonderful way, the frustrations of failing, and what it was like to learn whatever physical skills we have: swimming, dancing, riding bike, playing a sport, anything.		Frame from Between Science and Garbage, a cinematic performance by Living Cinema Copyright © Bob Ostertag and Pierre Hébert

Living Cinema in performance Copyright © Bob Ostertag and Pierre Hébert		It is one thing absolutely every person has in common. The body is the fundamental bond between the performer and the audience, and the basis for "performance." Since we are interested in technology, our performances always involve putting technology and bodies together. We believe that the meeting of the machine and the body is an uneasy one. In the realm of performance, this uneasiness is reflected in the fact that, as technology has grown more and more sophisticated, the successful design of "instruments" that can be manipulated during performance with anything like the fluidity and intuition of conventional musical instruments has remained elusive. We do not attribute this failure, however, to a lack of imagination on the part of artists.
Rather, we see it as a reflection in art of the uneasiness of the meeting of machine and body throughout culture today, which can be seen in every human activity: war, work, play, reproduction, and so on. How machines and bodies will co-exist is thus not a problem to be "solved," but the central tension of our time in human history. Thus, it is a compelling terrain in which to locate art. We believe that if art in this terrain is to be anything deeper than mere advertising for technology, the tensions and difficulties of the body/machine relationship must not be ignored, swept under the rug, glossed over, or hidden by tricks and gadgets, but brought to front and center, highlighted, magnified, and investigated. Finally, we believe that the uneasy relationship between human bodies and machines is merely one instance of a much bigger uneasiness between machines and life on our planet. This too must not be hidden in the shadows, but illuminated. For example, the exponentially increasing power of computers is something we find extraordinary and we choose to explore this in our art. However, exponentially accumulating piles of garbage are a necessary and integral part of constantly increasing power of computers. They are two sides of the same coin. Art that investigates the bright side and not the dark side ultimately can only become yet more props for an increasingly oppressive technological culture we wish to challenge. *Related URLs* http://detritus.net/ostertag/LivingCinema.html http://detritus.net/ostertag/home.html

Artists Biographies Bob Ostertag Composer, performer, instrument builder, journalist, activist, historian, kayak instructor -- Bob Ostertag's work cannot easily be summarized or pigeon-holed. As a composer, he has released 21 CDs of music, and appeared at music, film, and multi-media festivals around the globe. As a journalist, his writings on contemporary politics have been published on every continent and many languages. Electronic instruments of his own design are at the cutting edge of both music and video performance technology. His radically diverse collaborators include the Kronos Quartet, avant garders John Zorn and Fred Frith, heavy metal star Mike Patton, jazz great Anthony Braxton, dyke punk rocker Lynn Breedlove, drag diva Justin Bond, film maker Pierre Hébert, and other s. He is rumored to have connections to the shadowy media guerrilla group The Yes Men . Ostertag is an Associate Professor of Technocultural Studies at the University of California at Davis. Pierre Hébert Pierre Hébert was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1944. After studying anthropology, he worked at the National Film board of Canada as a film director and a producer for 34 years until 1999. Since then, he in an independent film maker and multidisciplinary artist. He directed more than 20 short animation films and one feature length film. He took part in many multidisciplinary projects with choreographers and musicians. He won many awards among which the best feature in Quebec in 1996 for his feature La Plante humaine and the Quebec Government Award for cinema in 2004 for his life time work. Currently, his main project is Living Cinema, a live animation performance that he has been pursuing with musician and composer Bob Ostertag since 2001 and which was presented more than 50 times in North America, Europe and Asia.

Disclaimer Advertise Copyright © 1993 - 2005 Leonardo Electronic Almanac