 | | $14.95, 140 pages. ISBN 0-8095-1117-7 WildsidePress.com |
Michael Betancourt, an avant-garde movie maker, is one of the artists working in the experiment film movement in South Florida. He has been making movies for the past 15 years and has exhibited in places such as Tampa's Ybor Film Festival; Plugged-In: New & Electronic Media at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood; Miami Beach Cinematheque's Views from the Underground.
This book presents a new approach to the conceptual basis of all visual art derived from his work, and while it is about making moviesthe catch-all for video, film, computer graphics and anything else that may appear to movethe thrust of this book is a radical redefinition of all visual media, including traditional standards like painting.
The framework these notes propose is a way of thinking about visual art that eliminates all former media in favor of a division based on our ability to see movement or change in a work of art. While most movies change and move rapidly, this understanding is equally concerned with the very slow, or apparently immobile.
Produced as a result of his own experimental movies, Structuring Time draws on more than a decades worth of direct, practical applications of these ideas. The way Betancourt presents his understanding of media makes this book a useful guide for the beginner, and a fascinating approach for the established artist. The series of topics proceed from the very simple, almost obvious aspect of movies, and gradually elaborate a logical framework able to include everything from Hollywood and commercial TV to Bill Viola's slow-motion installations, and even LED signs. This conception of media art also presents possibilities for new developments that exceed anything that exists now.
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