[spectre] pyromedia presents: World Wide Table Movies by Andreas Treske

[Aras Ozgun]

pyromedia proudly presents:

"World Wide Table Movies" (Streaming Video, Video Installation & DVD)
by Andreas Treske
http://www.pyromedia.org/projects/tablemovies/index.html


Artist's Statement:

World Wide Table Movies
by Andreas Treske

Table Movies are recorded in restaurants, cafes, bars, at train 
stations, airports, hotels, maybe classrooms, studies – wherever a 
table is or can be.

Table Movies are fragments of time and view – not manipulated through 
editing, not operated during recording, not reframed; pure shots.

Table Movies are mostly spontaneously, not really setted up or framed, 
but have one general condition in common: the way they are created.

Table Movies are based on the concept of placing the camera with a 
limited cinematographic setup in the position of an “seeing” object on 
a table, wherever this table is standing.

Table Movies’ moviemaker is the initiator, selecting the view of the 
camera, the direction, and the focal length, leaving focus and aperture 
to the automatic settings of the apparatus.

Table Movies’ camera morphs in a cup of coffee, a glass, a vase full of 
flowers, a stack of books, and while recording registers a fragment of 
time and space, a limited view. It’s a point of view of an object, a 
registration and a becoming.

Table Movies lengths are random – a shot with a beginning, a middle and 
an end, with seconds and minutes only defined by the push of the record 
button by the moviemaker. The moviemaker becomes an operator, an 
recordist, an amateur taking a snapshot.

Table Movies are movies made without a tripod. While the tripod is a 
movable object, a tool for the moviemaker in creating his vision, the 
table is stable – not moved out of positioned under regular 
circumstances - and is defined by a particular place, a particular 
location. A table occupies a territory.

Table Movies are shot in accordance with the purpose of tables. You sit 
around (at, on, under) a table, you eat, you read, you discuss, you 
talk, you drink, you study, you plan, you do, you rest, ... you prepare 
yourself for the next running time, a stop, a break ... you are not 
vertical (standing, erect), not horizontal, a table is in between ...

Table Movies follow the spirit of early cinema, where movies were 
attractions of one single shot. But after more than 100 years of cinema 
history, with the development of television and video, the coming 
possibility of recording movies with mobile telephones there are no 
more attractions for film, for videograph except going back to the 
purest form of cinema – time and space. In other words, leaving the 
sphere of action to action images - as Deleuze would describe it – 
through a conscious limitation. And therefore giving back to the camera 
back its actual meaning – its character as an object.

Dziga Vertov freed the camera through the moving camera and editing. 
Table movies free the camera again through static and viewing.

Table Movies’ screening will be the assembling of all table movies in a 
linear flow best viewed from a table in a restaurant, cafe, at an 
airport, etc. While a single table movie can be only some seconds or 
even several minutes, a table movie screening can be endless.

Table Movies are “fern sehen”. While the viewer is doing whatever he 
has to do at the table, he has the chance to review not only his 
surroundings from the position of his table but also view a changing 
segment of views from other tables in other situations at other times. 
The German word “fern sehen” or far seeing, which is used for 
television, comes in this segment back to its original meaning.

Table movies are not live. They are live recorded. Also they are not 
live streamed. Only in this way table movies can become “present” 
whenever they are watched. This happened, this was recorded, it 
happens, it is actually there, the camera was there, the camera is 
there, I was there, I am there - as well as I am here.

:: Call for table movies participation ::

This is an open call for everyone with a camera to create a table movie 
and send it to me. As described before to shoot a table movie you 
simply have to place a camera without any accessoire on a table, select 
the shooting direction, maybe the focal length and start recording 
whenever you want.

  Please send the file as NTSC or PAL Quicktime DV format, so that it 
can be integrated into the table movie broadcast or the world wide 
table movie installation. For further information please contact me by 
email: treske at bilkent.edu.tr

Table Movie Installation

The table movie installation takes place at public spaces with tables 
for different purposes where people can sit. On the level of these 
tables the movies are projected on a single wall or several walls 
(variation).
  For the projection there are two options of presentation in 
development: The first one is a simple projection of a linear tape, 
which shows one table movie after another. The second option presents 
the table movies randomly from a video database stored on a standard 
computer.

Table movies can also be installed for single tables with LCD screens 
on the tables opposite of the sitting person.

If you are interested in a table movie installation at your location 
wherever you are in the world, or you know someone who might be 
interested, please contact treske at bilkent.edu.tr

Table Movie DVD

The first table movie DVD will be released in Summer 2004 and will be 
distributed through the table movie website.

Table Movie Website

The table movie website is just at its beginning. Right now there is 
only a presentation of some already-shot table movies. This site will 
be further extended with a table movie database of movies and 
participators, a table movie discussion list, a table movie 
installation database, and more features to come.

  © Copyright 2000 – 2003 Andreas Treske, KasputniK Media, Black Tie 
Affairs, Wrong Way To Hollywood Productions, and Pyromedia




Aras Ozgun  |  aries at pyromedia.org  |  http://www.pyromedia.org