When I can get beyond the dense language he uses to describe his projects, Timothy Weaver’s ideas are engaging. I am interested in his attempt to combine a background in art and science, though I have some questions about his alignment and efficacy with either/or. I am also interested in his use of data to inform his projects and to guide their output. I am a bit confused though when I try to understand his need to employ terms like “bionarrative” and “ecological memory”.
I am most encouraged by Timothy Weaver’s method for creating audio based on the visual data he collects. I am unsure which of his audio portions were created using the opensource and shareware MIDI interfaces he describes, and which were created intuitively or sonically, but in either case there were intelligent portions of audio in his various live cinema examples. What I am most interested in here is the potential for inputting data into a system and then dealing with the results. I think it is less effective however when intuitively manipulated sounds are adjusted aesthetically. The combination of systems acquired output and intuitive output for me negates the value of the system. I think it should be all or nothing if he is going to mention it, or perhaps he should allow for more distinctive clarity between the two (I am looking for a bit more translucency in the creation of this work).
With regard for his video sequences, I appreciate the use of the electron microscope and some of the other still images and high resolution scans, but found them to be a bit repetitive in the Hylaea piece without saying much about the impact of these dead and extinct birds. Of all his video work I think I was most impressed with his post-mortem collaboration with his father. This 2004 video, “Bushmeat” offered the most engaging visuals and arguably the most clear narrative of all those I saw. I came closest to feeling empathy for his subject in this piece, for in the others I was taken more by the technical production and not by whatever message was being developed.
I found that while well-intentioned, intelligently investigated and sonically if not visually interesting, these works failed to convey what must be one of the more important aspects of Timothy Weaver’s description: narrative. If there was a narrative it was cryptic, hidden by the science motivating the works, by his description of it and most importantly by his use of technical media. I found it difficult to understand if Mr. Weaver had anything critical to say in these works. Whatever message there was I feel was insufficiently delivered, and my disappointment comes from my desire to see these ideas resolved. He spoke at length about migratory patterns of Monarch butterflies and was obviously very engaged and knowledgeable about the subject, but somehow that did not seem to come through for me in the end product. There are many successful elements coming forth, but I’m not seeing cohesive works that get beyond the interesting technical developments he employs. This problem seems to be one that is patterned on the process of technical development across all art media, similar to the highly technical focus during the development of video art in the 1970’s. As he continues to develop these ideas it would be interesting to see how the technology and the science become more convincingly integrated into visually communicative works.
With regard for Weaver’s notion of these works and his presentation in general as “live cinema”, I found this statement to be misleading, not simply because the works themselves appear to be static and repeatable, but because I would never have noticed that this was being (re)mixed for this audience if I had not been told so by the artist. Perhaps his integration was so seamless, that together with my seat near the back of the facility I may have missed the point. What I did see during the show, however were a few examples of what looked like Mr. Weaver turning a few knobs to adjust something that wasn’t set up right before the show began. This to me has very little relationship to live video mixing or to any notion of performance. The idea of live cinema is potentially interesting, but there is so much of this going on in the DJ/VJ culture that I find it unnecessary to see it here by a practitioner not seemingly connected with this movement, employing it, even if effectively, in a way that remains for me an afterthought.
What I am most interested to understand about Mr. Weaver’s work is his purpose for creating it. He clearly has technological, scientific and artistic interests. He declares an interest in narrative and in lost ecologies. As ideas, these are all engaging. What I have yet to realize is what this artist intends for his work to do. Are these informational films?, explorations of a topic employed for artistry?, visual output of scientific data?, activist pieces for ecologic change? I am seriously interested to hear if Mr. Weaver would describe his intentions about this body of work.
