Faster then lightning: Precise on Paul Miller

My precise is on Paul Miller’s paper Material Memories: Time and Cinematic Image. Broken into approximately 15-20 sections, they seem to be a mix of simple contemplations of a Dj and the relationship of present-day computerized networking as it relates to music and cinematic Time. Cinematic Time utilizes short cuts of frames captured by the camera lens to expand and reconfigure time in a way that aids in a narrative. Miller points out that the interconnectedness of cybernetics within our everyday life of monitors and codes is compartmentalized into splices of reality similar to that of cinematic time.

I’m not sure who the target audience is for Miller; however, it seems be those influenced by early hip-hop culture, academics and cinematic enthusiast. Providing a historical outline that begins with Maya Deren’s use of cinematic time as a way to explore “rhythms of fragmentation and loss”, he then moves through singular synchronization, Newton’s theory in the seventeenth century, to Einstein’s 1905 theory of multiple ”asynchronous timelines”. All of which are intermixed with how these influences connect to the present states existence. Our lives have become compartmentalized into alter-persona’s that change and get re-innovated like Cher (always reinventing her career, a constant evolution), as modules of our contemporary lives are updated.

The text seems to matter as a way to put together various pieces of contemporary society of computers and Internet personas that stop and start in fragments. What is interesting is that Miller draws attention to these fragmentations that happen within our contemporary lives. He notes that he purposely switches his thinking, language and writing style. Miller creates a “self-subject synchronization”, defined as moving parts aligned in the field of view of another. It’s a marriage of “flow, rupture, and fragmentation” which happens within the contemporary lives that create this; it is not just limited to cinema.

Throughout reading the text, Miller drew me to the use of language and specifically to the actions of a Dj; however, the content of the material was dense and at moments seemed to be leading in the opposite direction of where I thought the paper was going. Miller’s use of comparison of “cinematic time” and music was to get across the point of what a montage of pieces could create in direct response to the senses. Miller is calling attention to the narrative we create within our lives through the tools we deploy. We are writing history faster than lightning.

Side: I've included the link to DJ Spooky website so you can download Free mix's. A great sum up to the the fragmentations that he speaks to within the paper.

http://www.djspooky.com/