CONTENTS

 
   about
   MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS
   movies: AESTHETICS
   movies: NEWS & REVIEWS
   movies: SHOWS & SCREENINGS
   random art notes
   random how-tos
   research: AVANT-GARDE MOVIES
   research: MOTION GRAPHICS
   research: VISUAL MUSIC
   theory: CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS
   theory: DIGITAL CAPITALISM
   theory: GLITCH & POSTDIGITAL
   theory: working notes

 

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Glitch Theory: Art and Semiotics by Michael Betancourt
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SEARCH ARCHIVES

archives begin in 1996

  

Turn Up the Bass, the Saul Bass! (sticker)

story © Michael Betancourt | published September 6, 2018 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS





 
Harmonia: Glitch, Movies and Visual Music - Now Available!

story © Michael Betancourt | published January 9, 2018 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS

Harmonia, harmonies, analyzes the connections between glitch art, visual music, abstraction, and motion pictures. This collection is a chronological survey of glitch art pioneer Michael Betancourts artistic research into, around, and with digital motion pictures that theorizes and critiques visual music. This anthology is directly connected to his critical engagement with the socio-cultural meaning of visionary art that builds on the work of Umberto Eco and Michel Foucault to engage with the historical films of John Whitney, Mary Ellen Bute, Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, and Stan Brakhage (among others) connecting them with contemporary glitch movies. Included in this collection is his taxonomy of abstract forms based on synaesthesia, a discussion of the historical foundations and connections between color music/color organs, synaesthesia and the visual music instruments and films of the twentieth century, and an analysis of the fundamental connections between visual music and realism that reveals an ideological reification created by the synchronization of sound and image. This analysis goes beyond a historical recounting of artists and their works to propose an understanding of synaesthetic media in aesthetic as well as critical, ideological terms. Included are the essays The Aura of the Digital, The Invention of Glitch Video, Semiotics of the Moon as Fantasy and Destination, and Welcome to Cyberia along with many other talks, publications, and analyses of glitch art and visual music.

Harmonia: Glitch, Movies and Visual Music is an anthology of my writing on glitch and visual music. It's available in hardcover and paperback, 240 pages.






 
Title Sequences as Paratexts - Now Available!

story © Michael Betancourt | published November 2, 2017 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS

You can now order my new book Title Sequences as Paratexts: Narrative Anticipation and Recapitulation!

It's part of the Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice series, and offers an analysis of the relationship between the title sequence and its primary textthe narrative whose production the titles credit. Using a wealth of examples drawn from across film historyranging from White Zombie (1931), Citizen Kane (1940) and Bullitt (1968) to Prince of Darkness (1987), Mission: Impossible (1996), Sucker Punch (2011) and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)Betancourt develops an understanding of how the audience interprets title sequences as instances of paranarrative, simultaneously engaging them as both narrative exposition and as credits for the production. This theory of cinematic paratexts, while focused on the title sequence, has application to trailers, commercials, and other media as well.






 
Synchronization and Title Sequences - Now Available!

story © Michael Betancourt | published May 17, 2017 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS

You can now order my new book Synchronization and Title Sequences: Audio-Visual Semiosis in Motion Graphics!

It's part of the Routledge Studies in Media Theory and Practice series, and proposes a semiotic analysis of the synchronization of image and sound in motion pictures using title sequences as its focus. It is the second volume in Michael Betancourt's study of semiotics and cinema using the title sequence as a critical focus, allowing for a consideration of fundamental theoretical issues apart from both the issues of narrative and realism common to commercial media. Through detailed historical close readings of title designs that use either voice-over, an instrumental opening, or title song to organize their visuals--from Vertigo (1958) to The Player (1990) and X-Men: First Class (2011)--author Michael Betancourt develops a foundational framework for the critique and discussion of motion graphics' use of synchronization and sound, as well as a theoretical description of how sound-image relationships develop on-screen. The resulting study of synchronization is both a critical analysis and a theory of visual music in cinema.






 
Semiotics and Title Sequences - Now Available!

story © Michael Betancourt | published January 25, 2017 | permalink | TwitThis Digg Facebook StumbleUpon  |  Print



MICHAEL BETANCOURT NEWS

My new book, Semiotics and Title Sequences: Text-Image Composites in Motion Graphics is now in print! You can order a copy from the publisher's website today!

Title sequences are the most obvious place where photography and typography combine on-screen, yet they are also a commonly neglected part of film studies. Semiotics and Title Sequences presents the first theoretical model and historical consideration of how text and image combine to create meaning in title sequences for film and television, before extending its analysis to include subtitles, intertitles, and the narrative role for typography. Detailed close readings of classic films starting with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and including To Kill A Mockingbird, Dr. Strangelove, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, along with designs from television programs such as Magnum P.I., Castle, and Vikings present a critical assessment of title sequences as both an independent art form and an introduction to the film that follows.