Angela Ferraiolo: Three Hollywood Grammars: Conversation, Chase, Shootout

Title:

Three Hollywood Grammars: Conversation, Chase, Shootout

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Creation Year:

2015

Medium:

Video

Artist Statement:

Three Hollywood Grammars is a computational video made by deconstructing three classic scenes from Hollywood cinema: the A/B walk-and-talk conversation essential to police procedurals, the “mano à mano” shootout of neo-noir thrillers, and the gritty urban chase scene of 70s Hollywood realism. Each of these iconic cinematic patterns was deconstructed, edited, color graded, and exported as single frames. For exhibition, these frames are then reconfigured through the use of sequencing grammars and computer algorithms to generate a disrupted video montage that emphasizes pattern over story. Sound is distorted through the use of granular synthesis. The result is a portrait of the structures and routines that form the basis of American movie montage. Viewers engage the deep structure of Hollywood cinema rather than any forward progression of story. The results feel both familiar and startling, informative of the visual patterns residing as archetypes in popular cinema. Beyond this, the repetitions and pattern making revealed by algorithmic recombination make these experiments arresting visual statements in their own right.