Vintage Paint

Welcome...

2009-05-01T05:01:00.001-07:00

... to Vintage Paint, a website taking an electronic look at the Panoptic, CCTV & Surveillance and globalis(z)ation. Throughout the site you'll find links to various sites and articles that examine these themes (be sure to check out the 'hidden' links in some of the images), whilst studying films like Red Road and Koyaanisqatsi, noting how they configure within these tropes.

Also on display are some videos I have filmed for the University course, Panoptic Digitial Visual Culture, which this site also forms a part of. We were instructed to choose one spot in the city, film it from various different vantage points and the edit this footage with fellow students' work to form a thirty minute piece on Panoptic Aberdeen.

Roy Tanck's Flickr Widget requires Flash Player 9 or better.

Get this widget at roytanck.com

Koyaanisqatsi

2009-05-01T04:28:00.001-07:00

During our screenings in class, we were treated to Koyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1982). In the grid above you'll find some essays and articles pertaining to the issues raised in the film such as globalisation and modernity.

Videos

2009-04-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

In this section you'll find a number of short films I have made for the Panoptic course; ranging from minute shorts to nine minute 'epics.' Most of the footage comes from my filming around Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen.

Rear Window

2009-04-30T01:25:00.000-07:00

"Jefferies apartment resembles the panopticon both in its prison-like visual depiction and through the practise of the gaze"

As part of our regular screenings, Rear Window (Hitchcock, 1954) was shown, demonstrating a very direct look at surveillance - L. B. Jefferies is, in essence, an early version of a CCTV camera. In the picture above you'll find some essays and articles concerning the Hitchcock thriller and how the themes are still revelevant today.

Short Film - "Play This Again?"

2009-04-23T13:19:00.001-07:00

The main project for our Digital Culture course was a thirty~minute film incorporating various bits of footage from the students in the class. We were asked to choose one spot in Aberdeen and film it form at least eight different perspectives - exploring the notion of the 'panoptic.' We were then to prepare eight~minute versions featuring only our clips and post them on our respective sites. Due to the fact I filmed so much (about four hours), there was some footage not used in the film, which was called ABZ. I decided to create two films from the unused footage and this is the second, Play This Again? It is named after the text that appears once you watch a football game on the BBC website (featured at the end of this film too) and also features some recorded audio from Radio Scotland's coverage of the actual game. Slighty deviating from the "one minute" clip brief we were given, the opening seconds of this piece incorporate, in a very panoptic style, my footage of the game edited alongside the BBC footage of the game - so we get five different perspectives of one event. Click on the HQ button for a 'higher quality' version of the film.

To see the first part, The Feeling Begins, click HERE.

Globalisation with a 'Z'

2009-04-22T02:17:00.001-07:00

"MC Milkshake" by Ron English

Globalisation is a term often used pejoratively, normally in reference to corporations, but is it such a bad thing? To paraphrase the television show South Park: if globalisation means that I can get a good cup of coffee at a decent price, then I'm all for it. Glib, perhaps, yet it does highlight a valid point, competition is not necessarily a bad thing. You can find some articles and essays in the picture below.

Within the context of this course, Panoptic Digital Visual Culture, the notion of globalisation rears its worldwide head in films like Koyaanisqatsi (Reggio, 1982) where we witness the symbolic birth of urbanisation and Playtime (Tati, 1964) in which Tati created a glass hetereotopia before the world started to look the same.

"American Depress" by Ron English

Ridley Scott lent his opinion to the look of the future city in his 1982 film, Blade Runner. In his vision of 2019 Los Angeles disparate and anachronistic architecture exists in a society of differing races whose language has been amalgamated to form a new one. A world where global brands such as Budweiser and Atari still exist.
the people of the world are unified into
a single society and function together
As the internet continues its worldwide domination it's interesting to note how globalization affects the digital realm. It is indeed a 'single society' and in a podcast Stephen Fry recently referred to the internet as a 'city' where both good and bad things happen but where all are welcome. Ironically this podcast was recorded in an Apple Store, an 'individual' brand that wants everyone in the world to have an iPod and use iTunes. The notion of a 'unified' world can be seen in social networking sites such as Twitter, FaceBook and MySpace but also, from a more financial sense, in the online behemoth, Amazon.

Panoptic Pictures

2009-04-22T01:45:00.001-07:00

Roy Tanck's Flickr Widget requires Flash Player 9 or better.

Get this widget at roytanck.com

Do CCTV cameras prevent crime?

2009-04-17T00:51:00.000-07:00

Paris Prefecture control room
©REUTERS/Charles Platiau

Whilst scanning the news stories that come in regarding CCTV and surveillance (look down to the bottom right), I came across THIS article called, How good are CCTV cameras at preventing crime?

"People always expect that CCTV is going to do more than it's actually designed for" - Dave Brooks, CCTV expert

There's a lot of interesting, not to mention pertinent, information in the article examining the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the security measures currently in place whilst also casting a panoptic eye to the future for solutions.

New York City camera
©REUTERS/Joshua Lott

By coincidence I watched a piece by broadcaster Charlie Brooker on his Newswipe television programme (which casts a weekly eye at the atrocious way in which the media handle "stories") regarding this very topic. During the G20 "riots" last week a man died yet, despite all the cameras present, the act went unnoticed for some time until actual journalism took place. You can see a clip below of this piece which demonstrates the needless way that the media covers events looking for a 'story' (and I use the term quite wrongly); note the scene where the window of a bank is smashed open - there seems to be more cameras present than people.

Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, BBC Four (April 15, 2009)

Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. The news has been manipulated for many years now and I was reminded of the documentary The World is Watching (Raymont, 1988) that we watched in the first week of our Digital Culture course where we witnessed various journalists all looking for the "story" in Nicaragua whilst missing the actual event as it took place after the main news programmes aired. One journalist even says, referring to the audience, "We fooled them again" after their work is broadcast.

Short Film - "The Feeling Begins"

2009-04-16T05:14:00.000-07:00

The main project for our Digital Culture course was a thirty~minute film incorporating various bits of footage from the students in the class. We were asked to choose one spot in Aberdeen and film it form at least eight different perspectives - exploring the notion of the 'panoptic.' We were then to prepare eight~minute versions featuring only our clips and post them on our respective sites. Due to the fact I filmed so much (about four hours), there was some footage not used in the film, which was called ABZ. I decided to create two films from the unused footage and this is the first, The Feeling Begins. It is named after the title of the music that accompanies (composed by Peter Gabriel) and also features some recorded audio from Radio Scotland's coverage of the actual game. The music track has been edited to fit the various cuts (I hope Peter doesn't mind!) and various parts are repeated. You'll also hear plenty of diegetic sounds in there too. Click on the HQ button for a 'higher quality' version of the film.

To see the second part, Play This Again?, click HERE.

Links

2009-04-11T08:26:00.001-07:00

Included here are some links to fellow students' websites on Panoptic Aberdeen. The first one is the original version of Vintage Paint.

Vintage Paint (1st Version)

Panoptic Digital Culture

In the posts below you'll find some other sites that I've discovered that are either concerned with the Panoptic or are just of interest in a visual or thematic sense.

Tate Gallery Online

2009-04-05T08:31:00.001-07:00

A computer generated image of the Tate Modern 2

Though not strictly dealing with the 'panoptic' (though I am sure it does from time to time), my eye was caught by THIS piece of news from the BBC site stating that the Tate Modern was now available on your iPod through iTunes. Technically, you don't need either as you can download podcasts and 'multimedia tours' from their own site HERE and play them however you like. Also worth checking out are the images on THIS page on the Tate blog.

Short Film - "Buckfast Picnic"

2009-04-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

Shot on a Saturday morning, just before I went off to film some footage from Pittodrie Stadium in Aberdeen, these two guys just outside my flat caught my interest. The film was shot on a Sony HD cam (though not in HD mode I hasten to add) and one scene forms part of the thirty minute film ABZ I made for the Digitial Culture course at university with some fellow students. For those who don't know, Buckfast is a "Tonic Wine" favoured by the ill~informed. Please note, the video is available in the HQ format - just click on the button!

The Kaleidoscopic Eye

2009-04-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

"Y" by Carsten Holler

We've been looking at the "Panoptic view" but here's a selection of installations from The Kaleidoscopic Eye exhibition currently in Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum. The pic above is a piece of work Y by Carsten Höller. and the image below is of an installation by Los Carpinteros called Frozen Study of a Disaster.

"Frío estudio del desastre" by Los Carpinteros

Red Road

2009-04-04T04:12:00.000-07:00

To complement the screening of Rear Window for our Digital Cultures course, we also took in Red Road. Above, of you click on the different tower blocks, you'll find some interesting articles on the buildings themselves as well as some discourse on how the film fits in with surveillance culture. Ultimately the film looks at the moral question raised about CCTV continuously: who surveills the surveyors?

The CCTV Eye Of God

2009-03-03T14:31:00.000-08:00

The Helix Nebula, Space

By odd coincidence, Dr Alan Marcus told us to look for "God" in our work. The next day this image blasted its way onto my screen. Now where's the other eye...?

CCTV as Religion

In the footage I shot for the thirty minute film ABZ, some of which is available in the video section of this site, the idea of 'worshiping' the CCTV camera arose. The populace in this increasingly secular world seem to treat the surveillance culture as a religion; the moral eye that governs our streets is not ++INSERT YOUR DEITY OF CHOICE HERE++ but, in fact, the CCTV camera. Our behaviour is regulated by some anonymous person sitting at a bank of screens who watches all. Instead of respecting religion or an organic thought process, we bow to the 'heartless' technology of the camera. We attune our senses to a piece of machinery that may well have no humanity behind it whatsoever. British culture has gone, in the space of less than a hundred years, from God~fearing to the Eye Of God~fearing.

Surveillance In The City [Part 2]

2009-02-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

This week in the Digital Culture course we've been looking at surveillance and CCTV with particular reference to the film Red Road. The effectiveness of our surveillance culture has been brought into question along with the ethics of it. But here the images are slightly more light~hearted - taking a satirical swipe at the objects so coveted by consumers. The retail items are so desirable that even the cameras cannot help but look on; disavowing themselves of their actual function. Is there someone behind the lens? In a control room? Or have these weapons of mass consumerism transcended into the digital realm? Do robot cameras dream of Gucci bags? Click on the pictures, detailing shop windows from various Louis Vuitton stores from around the world, below for bigger versions. To see Part 1, click HERE.

CCTV: Up Close & Personal

2009-02-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

This is a short film examining one minute if the 'life' of a CCTV camera situated in Pittodrie Stadium, here in Aberdeen. Well, actually, it's placed on a wall and it spends most of its time looking outwards, so 'inside' is perhaps the wrong word to use. The film has been taken from footage shot with a SONY HD digital video camera on Tuesday February 17, 2009. Most of the sounds are diegetic but some sounds have been sourced from elsewhere. Our task has been to film one specific place in the city, from eight different perspectives (each lasting one minute), with no movement. This one may, or may not, make the 'final cut' but I liked the idea of the CCTV camera (as we've been looking at surveillance this week) looking on in the dark at nothing while thousands of people roar and cheer but metres away in the bright light of the floodlit stadium.

Surveillance In The City [Part 1]

2009-02-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

Interesting Site #2

2009-02-21T03:24:00.000-08:00

Light City 1, Michael Bosanko

Thirty-nine-year-old photographic artist Michael Bosanko has made these pictures, which have not been Photoshopped, using coloured torches at night in the same way that an artist uses a paintbrush. His digital camera stays on a long exposure, ranging from 10 seconds to one hour to create the images against the backdrop of Cardiff, Newport and the Brecon Beacons in south Wales. Visit his website HERE.

Under the Pier, Michael Bosanko

About "Vintage Paint"

2009-02-18T06:07:00.001-08:00

The Presidio Modelo, Cuba

This site is all about the "Panoptic" and "surveillance society" and runs in tandem with my Digital Culture course at the University of Aberdeen. This website will address some of the issues involved whilst also demonstrating some practical examples through video footage, images and various other sites. Vintage Paint acts as a companion piece to a thirty minute film I made with my other colleagues on the course, some of which will be available here. Throughout these pages you can find links embeded in each post whilst you can find an easy to navigate menu at the top covering the different aspects of this site.

"F house" in Stateville Prison, Illinois, USA.

The name of this site comes from the first film we watched on the course, Vantage Point - where numerous different viewpoints were seen, all covering one moment in time. This trope comes from the Panopticon (pictures of which you can see above), devised by Jeremy Bentham and can still be seen today through CCTV cameras - another major feature of our film work. We were asked to film one place in Aberdeen for one minute with no movement - as if we were the proverbial CCTV camera. As a starter, you can see my short film One Minute In The Life Of A CCTV Camera below.

'Panoptic' Filming - Day Two

2009-02-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

This is a montage of footage (fontage?) that I shot with my digital 'still' camera (in video mode) from my bedroom window. It was inspired by an idea that Raúl Ruiz had proffered in the practical course I took at Aberdeen University last term. He suggested we take various scenes from our shoot and splice them together, all starting with same length but then varying them as time goes on. The footage here is my 'stab' at this experiment. Also included are some non~diegetic sounds of the city and music.

Though this footage is not intended for the Pantoptic Digital Visual Culture course I am currently taking (and which this blog forms a part of), I wanted to capture the city snowscape. and include it purely for reference purposes. The scene was filmed on Thursday 5 February and was edited using iMovie.

Interesting Site #1

2009-02-12T11:34:00.000-08:00

As part of our ongoing work for the Pantoptic Digital Visual Culture course, we have been encouraged to seek out websites of interest that may be pertinent to the ideas and themes discussed or may simply be visually noteworthy. The first one I have chosen is the website for Ron English - the "celebrated prankster father of agit-pop."

Ron English, Cartoon Colored Creationism

After being shown the website for Banksy in Week One of the course, I felt it appropriate to highlight the work of English as both artists "vandalise" with some style. Click HERE to visit his website.

Ron English, Poker Kids

'Panoptic' Filming - Day One & Two

2009-02-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of footage that I shot with my digital 'still' camera (in video mode) over two days in Aberdeen. Although I haven't settled on my final idea for the Pantoptic Digital Visual Culture course at Aberdeen University, I decided to take advantage of the snow that had been falling fairly heavily (in case I go with this idea). The scene overlooks Pittodrie Stadium and was filmed on Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 February. It has been edited together using iMovie.