The School of No-Media © Marton 2011

A free online university?!
Want to join? The universe is watching the sprouts grow…
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“Substance is what remains when everything you can think of has gone.” Eli Siegel
“Technology… the knack of so arranging the world that we don’t have to experience it.” Max Frisch
“Who is for me is against me.” Francis Picabia
“In film school one needs to study everything but film.” P.M. (at the screening of his first film at U.C.L.A.)

A PREAMBLE

ELSEWHERE
Even if I bring up the words of one of France’s most illustrious poets, Arthur Rimbaud, “La vie est ailleurs/Life is elsewhere,” it is not to imply that poetry is a solution, as Rimbaud’s life clearly proves. What is clear is that what is taught is not generally of much help.

THE INDOCTRINATION
After teaching at the university level for more than 30 years and moving from film, video, and more recently to new media, it has become clear that much media production and theory revolve around the creation of a captive audience. Most so-called “good design” and “smart thinking” are geared towards enlarging the number of viewers through the manipulation of a variety of sensory experiences – a task I like to call the colonization of our eyes/ears and what may lay behind them… the mind.

THE ABSENCE
I find myself interested now in exploring the idea of “No Media.” In other words, anything (i.e., media, etc…) can only be considered in the presence of its absence. Perception requires contrast, or to borrow from Taoist philosophy, an evolving dialectic of yin observing yang and vice versa.

NON-IMAGES
At a time when their proliferation is illimited (the image market offers the carrot, the illusion of containing reality), images prostitute themselves so as to see who, through one more software filter (like a cheap make-up kit), could attract that potential client…
It has become necessary to wonder what would constitute a “non-image.” What can we learn from such a concept, such a koan?

KINDNESS
Does kindness even fit in the picture? Most learning/teaching needs a context, why not enter the urgency of this particular one? Not academic or empirical enough? It is now or never!

A BLEEDING
Voyeurism or scopophilia is a given, but our “novophilic” environment (our endlessly bleeding love of novelty/gadgets [cf. hemophilia]) survives through the wishful thinking that “just around the corner” the solution to all of our problems will finally present itself to us.

GET LOST
In parallel to the search for a magic technological formula, most teaching revolves around the escapist principle that enough erudition may save us. Socrates, eons ago, cleared the table in a most definite way, but again our wisdom seems cluttered; in order to secure an income and a position of assumed power, a great many individuals and institutions repeat the age-old claim to know, and inadvertently provide a false and dangerous sense of security.
As terrifying as it may be not to hold onto a railing, true knowledge cannot be threatened by the idea of not knowing!

MASS DESTRUCTION
My recent brain surgery (a kind of reboot?) may have aroused a desire to to see beyond the looking-glass to perceive what lies beyond the cultural (weapons of) mass distractions.
After surviving the most brutal century on this planet with 262 million murders, it seems it would be time to look at the difficulties and the complexities straight in the face.

WHAT is not taught?!
WE HAVE TO BE WILLING TO LOOK INTO OUR BLINDNESS.
Pier Marton – 2011/2012
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Let us move closer to a free online university to save ourselves and the future generations.
Want to enroll? Much more to come…

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Want to enroll? Much more to come…

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Some preliminary pointers:
– Wabi-Sabi
– Deep Ecology
– The “Uncola” (what is not a myth)
– Non-violent media (a short draft)
– Some unusual lessons (from a recent production course)
– Beyond Belief (a tabula rasa text)
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To Be Continued
Join the imminent brainstorm…
Write to –> OMerdre AT gmail.com