Woodman, 'PLUNDER SQUAD', Postmodern Culture v6n1
URL = http://infomotions.com/serials/pmc/pmc-v6n1-woodman-plunder.txt

Archive PMC-LIST, file woodman.995.
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	   	    P L U N D E R   S Q U A D

	 PLUNDER SQUAD is a twenty-minute video program by 
	       Charles Woodman and Scott Davenport
                         woodman@tmn.com
 	      Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 16:59:49 -0400

	    Postmodern Culture v.6 n.1 (September, 1995)
	         pmc@jefferson.village.virginia.edu

     Copyright (c) 1995 by Charles Woodman and Scott Davenport, 
     all rights reserved.  This text may be used and shared in 
     accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright 
     law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic 
     form, provided that the editors are notified and no fee is 
     charged for access.  Archiving, redistribution, or 
     republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, 
     requires the consent of the author and the notification of 
     the publisher, Oxford University Press.

     [This is a hypermedia project, containing both images and 
     video clips.  Both can be viewed through ftp, through
     jefferson.village.virginia.edu by ftp, in:
     /pub/pubs/pmc/issue.995/images or /video. (see Contents for 
     further instructions)]

A SELF DEFINING OBJECT

     "Plunder Squad" is entirely constructed of appropriated 
     elements from TV cop shows in rerun, reality-based police 
     dramas and pulp novels. Within "Plunder Squad," multiple 
     parallel streams of text and image, each containing widely 
     disparate narrative elements, compete for the viewer's 
     attention. These elements, designed to move the viewer/reader 
     through a narrative to its conclusion, provoke in us a desire 
     to resolve these unstable layers into a congruous story . In 
     this case, however, there is no story. Instead the resolution 
     of narrative is replaced by an accumulation of elements 
     deprived of their structure.  The impulse to complete a 
     narrative string is thwarted by both the disjunction of those 
     elements and the sheer volume of visual information. The 
     horizontal left to right movement of text across the screen 
     mimics the reading process and the reader's rush to 
     narrative closure while the shifting fields of video image 
     and aural noise mock this attempt at coherence. Accidentally, 
     images and texts combine, inform and comment on each other. 
     Pulled from the stream of mass culture, these reclaimed 
     narrative moments reveal the mechanics of their effect even as 
     they shed the burden of content. As our focus shifts between 
     the moving layers we may chose to drift within the video -- we 
     may overload -- we may find ourselves watching only a glowing 
     object moving across our screens.

     Thanks to Rick Provine for technical assistance

NO STORY
NO CONTEXT
NO MESSAGE

NO RESOLUTION
NO MORAL

If you would like to see this program in its entirety please contact 
     the artists.






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