Comments

update: my friend stephen wrote a reply to the jeremy mathews article. unfortunately jeremy does not allow comments, so i have posted this reply below...

"Dear Mr Mathews,

Firstly, your reference to is Alexander irrelevant since you are comparing the hypothetical reshuffling of an already produced and published film with the open source process of providing raw, semantically neutral footage for “the commons” to develop. The deliberate ambiguity of the footage provided is not post-modern fragmentary Lynchian imagery, but does have an inherent aesthetic present, although latent, within. This aesthetic is open to interpretation by the editors, not in a linear “pick a path” type way, but in a much more creative manner. The idea of multiple artists working on the same artwork dates to prehistory when cave paintings were augmented by subsequent generations. The person who provides the initial footage does not need – indeed would not want – total control over the direction of the finished product.

Subjectivity in aesthetics is no reason for tyranny of artistic direction by one overriding director – indeed we don’t run our countries by dictatorship any longer for this very reason. The fact that one person may favour a voice over while the other thinks that voice-overs are the devils work as a global rule merely highlights the fact that diversity of opinions re aesthetics can take an art work down myriad paths – surely a desirable outcome? Not a medusa, but multifaceted diamond. Give me an independent rough diamond any day over a box office gold plated mass produced pebble.

Just as musicians often experiment with various mixes of a track in the production stages, remixing has long been common – even of others music – and is recognised as an artistic process of integrity producing an original version of the original piece of music. The mash-up culture of such subversive VJs as Coldcut exhibit the potential power and popularity of such juxtaposition methods.

An element of democracy in the production of films is a propeller rather than a brake on the creative process – and far from a “constant state of flux”, the post-production stage can be truncated at a (predetermined or spontaneous) point in order to provide some finished product and finality or closure to the efforts.

So in conclusion, you have entirely missed the point of the implications and requirements of open source film as a medium in general, and stray cinema’s own idiosyncratic, pioneering application of this ideology in particular. Conservatism in art is as dangerously backward as it is in politics.

Regards,

Stephen Allely
Wellington
New Zealand"