How It's Made - Movie Machine
Thoughts On: How It's Made (2001-19)
A consideration of the value of spectating moving picture machinery.
What is the greatest T.V show of all time? You may have your answers, but there is only one correct response: How It's Made. The show is so good because it not only reveals the manufacturing process of everything from eggs to disc brakes to tequila, but it captures a strange dance of construction; it makes engrossingly explicit the state of something's existence. There are many ways one may define art, and many feel very similar. A definition I have always clung to concerns communication; all other definitions I have found use of complexify, and thus reduce back down to, this basic idea. This is true of the definition of art as a process of making engrossingly explicit the state of something's existence.
Perceived a certain way, How It's Made is a meta-work, one that overtly discusses the being of aspects of nature - or rather, technological artefacts. Yet it operates on a fundamental level much like a movie. Replacing the technological artefact - a can, balloon or spring - in a narrative is the abstract concept of a theme. A theme is that element of nature that a narrative (inherently mimetic) requires to exist; it is that which is dramatised, given mode, logic and style. In respect to this, movies can be considered machines of sorts that not only make explicit, but engrossing, some element of being - a theme. That said, 'explicit' as a descriptive term must be used with caution. In regards to cinema, a theme is no simple entity; difficult to define, maybe impossible to perceive in its truly fundamental form, a theme cannot be explicit like the construction process of a basketball. Or maybe it can? How It's Made reveals how a basketball is contrived, but it does not attempt to explain he game of basketball or even the significance of the ball, culturally, historically or existentially. Furthermore, it does not make explicit the chemical composition of various polymers nor answer and solve questions concerning the relationship between science, reality and human. Why do these elements - science, reality, humanity - in tandem produce the technological artefacts we are so interesting in seeing made?
With consideration, one can suggest that the explicitness of that which engrosses in art is never quite fully lucid. Yet, the documentary has a greater sense of lucidity in regards to its thematic content or item of interest than a cinematic narrative. So, again: themes are never made explicit in that they are bared and understood as a process wholly and fundamentally. Alas, a good narrative is an affective one. Affect demarcates the reception of theme; when one feels touched, it is because they understand; photogénie and lyrosophy cycle; theme is made explicit to the senses, to the unconscious and corporeal intelligence. It is this output that is produced by the movie machine via the process of making a theme engrossingly explicit. That said, it must be mentioned that art forms differentiate in various ways, and one key manner in which one can separate, say, cinema and music, is considering the haptic function of thematic revelation, of affect, explicitness and, indeed, ambiguity. Put simply, theme is received and transmitted along unique systems between art forms. Comparing the book to performance to cinema to music makes this obvious. A book holds its themes in syntax, performance in the language of the body, cinema, in visual communication systems and music along sonic planes and vibration. Each transmission-reception system effectively produces affect, but the character of thematic processing is wildly different. To exemplify: all art forms can produce a feeling of joy. Alas, to perform joy, to narrativise joy in a novel or on a screen, or to make music out of joy, are emphatically different processes. Music, on one hand, will teach one's body and senses joy, but provide little to consciousness. A book, a scientific textbook or even a novel, can make far more tangible a description of joy as a theme, subject or topic.
I find myself writing about this as I have struggled of late to find a reason as to why films should be written and spoken of. Despite the struggle I remain in love with movies as machines. It only makes sense that they be spoken of as machines that make explicit theme via affect. Abruptly, then, I will end, leaving a loose definition of the movie machine among the above lines.
A consideration of the value of spectating moving picture machinery.
What is the greatest T.V show of all time? You may have your answers, but there is only one correct response: How It's Made. The show is so good because it not only reveals the manufacturing process of everything from eggs to disc brakes to tequila, but it captures a strange dance of construction; it makes engrossingly explicit the state of something's existence. There are many ways one may define art, and many feel very similar. A definition I have always clung to concerns communication; all other definitions I have found use of complexify, and thus reduce back down to, this basic idea. This is true of the definition of art as a process of making engrossingly explicit the state of something's existence.
Perceived a certain way, How It's Made is a meta-work, one that overtly discusses the being of aspects of nature - or rather, technological artefacts. Yet it operates on a fundamental level much like a movie. Replacing the technological artefact - a can, balloon or spring - in a narrative is the abstract concept of a theme. A theme is that element of nature that a narrative (inherently mimetic) requires to exist; it is that which is dramatised, given mode, logic and style. In respect to this, movies can be considered machines of sorts that not only make explicit, but engrossing, some element of being - a theme. That said, 'explicit' as a descriptive term must be used with caution. In regards to cinema, a theme is no simple entity; difficult to define, maybe impossible to perceive in its truly fundamental form, a theme cannot be explicit like the construction process of a basketball. Or maybe it can? How It's Made reveals how a basketball is contrived, but it does not attempt to explain he game of basketball or even the significance of the ball, culturally, historically or existentially. Furthermore, it does not make explicit the chemical composition of various polymers nor answer and solve questions concerning the relationship between science, reality and human. Why do these elements - science, reality, humanity - in tandem produce the technological artefacts we are so interesting in seeing made?
With consideration, one can suggest that the explicitness of that which engrosses in art is never quite fully lucid. Yet, the documentary has a greater sense of lucidity in regards to its thematic content or item of interest than a cinematic narrative. So, again: themes are never made explicit in that they are bared and understood as a process wholly and fundamentally. Alas, a good narrative is an affective one. Affect demarcates the reception of theme; when one feels touched, it is because they understand; photogénie and lyrosophy cycle; theme is made explicit to the senses, to the unconscious and corporeal intelligence. It is this output that is produced by the movie machine via the process of making a theme engrossingly explicit. That said, it must be mentioned that art forms differentiate in various ways, and one key manner in which one can separate, say, cinema and music, is considering the haptic function of thematic revelation, of affect, explicitness and, indeed, ambiguity. Put simply, theme is received and transmitted along unique systems between art forms. Comparing the book to performance to cinema to music makes this obvious. A book holds its themes in syntax, performance in the language of the body, cinema, in visual communication systems and music along sonic planes and vibration. Each transmission-reception system effectively produces affect, but the character of thematic processing is wildly different. To exemplify: all art forms can produce a feeling of joy. Alas, to perform joy, to narrativise joy in a novel or on a screen, or to make music out of joy, are emphatically different processes. Music, on one hand, will teach one's body and senses joy, but provide little to consciousness. A book, a scientific textbook or even a novel, can make far more tangible a description of joy as a theme, subject or topic.
I find myself writing about this as I have struggled of late to find a reason as to why films should be written and spoken of. Despite the struggle I remain in love with movies as machines. It only makes sense that they be spoken of as machines that make explicit theme via affect. Abruptly, then, I will end, leaving a loose definition of the movie machine among the above lines.
