The Calligram and the Title Card

story © Michael Betancourt | published June 29, 2016 | permalink |  |  

The design of motion picture title sequences in 1930s Hollywood employs one of two approaches: (1) the figure-ground, where superimposed text where the background is independent of the typography, (2) the calligram, where the integration of the type and background imagery to produce a single, composite effect. The title design for the 1936 film The Big Broadcast of 1937 enables a consideration of how these two approaches intersect with the structure and role of the title sequence in relation to the main narrative that follows, and the interpretative modes employed in deciphering this exemplary title sequence.

"The Calligram and the Title Card" was published in Semiotica: Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Volume 2015, Issue 204, Pages 239-252
ISSN (Online) 1613-3692, ISSN (Print) 0037-1998

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story © Michael Betancourt | published June 25, 2016 | permalink |  |  

The "Ταξίδι στο φεγγάρι" ("Journey to the Moon") program will include my movie Contact Light. The 4th Syros International Film Festival runs July 28-August 1 on the Greek island of Syros in the Aegean.

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story © Michael Betancourt | published May 20, 2016 | permalink |  |  

My new book Glitch Art in Theory and Practice: Critical Failures and Post-Digital Aesthetics has been officially announced on the Routledge website! (152 pages | 35 B/W Illus.) Preorder on amazon.com.

Glitch Art in Theory and Practice: Critical Failures and Post-Internet Art explores the concept of "glitch" alongside contemporary digital political economy to develop a general theory of critical media using glitch as a case study and model, focusing specifically on examples of digital art and aesthetics. While prior literature on glitch practice in visual arts has been divided between historical discussions and social-political analyses, this work provides a rigorous, contemporary theoretical foundation and framework.

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story © Michael Betancourt | published April 4, 2016 | permalink |  |  

You can see The Dogs of Space at the Experiments in Cinema 11.4 Festival, screening at the Guild Cinema in Program #1 on Tuesday, April 5 at 4pm.

Guild Cinema
3405 Central Ave NE
Albuquerque, NM
Tel: 505-255-1848

story © Michael Betancourt | published April 2, 2016 | permalink |  |  

By considering how machine labor as an extension of human action--as the mechanical amplification of human labor--becomes the digital, the machine does not augment but supplant. This removal of the “human intermediary” whose importance "Taylorism" (aka "scientific management," proposed in The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911) removes from production (assembly-line labor is instrumental, not intelligent) is part of a continuous trajectory from tasks organized around repetitive action (itself an organization that implies semiotic disassembly and standardization) into the automation of actions in digital automation where computers leave only a limited role for humans. Taylor’s approach elides the individual’s expertise in performing their work, replacing it with decisions made by management--in the process eliminating their agency. This transformation renders human labor an appendage to the production process, necessary but incidental to the activity being performed—actions that are prescribed and fully delimited in advance of the work being done. It transforms the labor into an unintelligent rendering of managerial agency as the thinking required in production is no longer the domain of labor. For Taylor’s analysis the human decision is the “problem” to be removed from the production process, just as human labor (in the form of wages) is the expense that must be minimized to maintain profitability.

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