Illustration by DANNY HONG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
By David Holmberg
Daily Bruin Contributor
Many people use the QuickTime computer application simply to
play movies, but according to Vivian Sobchack, associate dean of
the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, the program has
the potential to be used for so much more.
Today Sobchack will address this limited perception of QuickTime
in her lecture “Nostalgia for the Digital Object: Regret on
the Quickening of QuickTime.” The lecture will also focus on
metaphors and the digital medium.
“My criticism is focused on the way in which QuickTime is
used and looking at how, although it can be its own form for
artistic expression, this possibility is bypassed for the use of
“˜real,’ or feature length-type, movies,” she
said.
The UCLA Department of Design and Media Arts holds a regular
lecture series focusing on art and design found in everything from
nature to digital technology. This winter, the lecture series will
focus on investigating the use of technology as a new way to
conduct critical studies. The talks, which run through March 12,
are held in the Dickson Art Center. The aptly titled
“Streaming Culture” series will feature live streaming
online coverage of the talks.
Although the series will draw speakers from across the globe to
speak on a variety of topics, Sobchack will speak specifically
about the use of QuickTime computer software, which is essentially
equivocated to “computer movies.” The program allows
computer users to access videos, music, virtual reality and
animations.
The current trend with QuickTime is to use the application as a
tool to play movies on the personal computer. Although this is
certainly one use for the software, Sobchack believes its true
potential is not being achieved.
“Why not stop and look at the true form of the software
instead of using dominant perceptions to make it become something
else?” Sobchack said. “QuickTime is its own entity,
limited by its own construction by the computer.”
As Sobchack points out, the practice of using a metaphor to
describe a new technology is a recurring phenomenon. When TV was
first introduced, for instance, it was referred to as “radio
with pictures,” when in fact television and radio are two
very different mediums.
With QuickTime, the use of the “computer movies”
metaphor resulted in a potentially new art form being glossed
over.
“QuickTime is less a movie than a “˜memory
box,’ waiting to be filled with momentos and cultural
artifacts,” Sobchack said. “It can be a narrative not
about “˜real time,’ but more along the lines of a
dreamscape. In this way, it is more related to a collage artist.
But it became part of a larger convention, and was quickly used in
an old way.
“The (computer) database is a rational filing system for
information,” Sobchack continued. “But QuickTime is a
dreamlike unconsciousness with floating and disappearing images,
and has nothing to do with order. But they still coexist on the
same screen, order and dreams.”
While professing to have been somewhat of a
“technophobe” herself, Sobchack said that she decided
to overcome this fear by teaching a class on digital technology.
The class, “Issues and Electronic Culture,” was first
offered six years ago and is still offered today. While it deals
with computers from a cultural studies standpoint, it was the lab
component that got her thinking about these new forms of
expression.
“I started thinking about what the form was doing, that it
was not live action,” she said.
Sobchack has written numerous books, including
“Meta-Morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of
Quick-Change.” She insists that current society is rooted in
a visual culture.
“It is necessary to look at electronic culture in a broad
sense,” added Sobchack. “We have to stop and smell the
flowers instead of making (technology) only what we think it should
be.”
LECTURE: Sobchack’s lecture is part of
the “Streaming Culture” lecture series. The free event
takes place in 1473 Dickson Art Center at 5 p.m.