Abstract:
The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation.
The presentation of the thesis comprises the Dissertation component (66%) along with the Practice Component and the Practice Report (33%). The Practice Report documents the nature and development of the research undertaken during the course of the study. The culmination of the Practice Component takes the form of an exhibition and archiving of video works from June 2003 to the date of submission, January 2005.
The Practice Component has been based in the following locations and used resources from Central Queensland University (Bundaberg campus), and The Australian National University, Centre for New Media Arts in Canberra. The practice has examined the topic through the production of the audio-video installation Sugartown and three video works The Hazzards, Nodal Dialectics 1 and boomsplatbangwhack. While these video works exist as discrete media artworks, they also operate as a type of practice process diary for working through the ideas explored in the written dissertation. Even though the video works are not meant to literally 'illustrate' those ideas, they nevertheless explore ways of integrating the theoretical concepts into my own research practice. In this Video Chaos dissertation, through an examination of current video practices, I note an emerging trend towards disseminating audio-visual content simultaneously in the form of poly-sequential narrative structures. I argue that this is a significant development within the video medium, and that this is an effect of video new media artist-practitioners' engagement with the relationships between art and technology. Two extensive case studies are investigated and, whilst a number of issues come to the fore in this research, exploring the issue of narrative structuration is the primary focus and exploration of this dissertation.
