Describe karl / project /bioCV2 here.
Karl Baumann recently completed his B.A. in Film Studies and Cultural Anthropology at the Ohio State University. During the course of his studies, his video work evolved from narrative based productions to abstract and formalist works, focusing on the linguistic, temporal, and epistemological issues of 4d art and sound; as well as socio-political issues of military technology, social identity, and mass media meta-narratives.
His largest works though are documentary based, exploring social aspects of media, locally and abroad. The subjects range from independent cinema in Columbus, Ohio, to media and democracy in Madagascar, and film’s role in the politics of memory and representation of the last dictatorship in Argentina.
He would like to balance the progression of artistic formalism with social intervention and accessibility, adapting more interactive elements into future explorations of digital social structuring, collective archiving, and the migration of languages and symbols, especially in the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
As an artist, I seek to explore and expand upon the emergent digital landscape of personal memory, identity, and history; as well as the diachronic and synchronic semiotic practices of this medium.
Since the development of indexical and time based mediums of informational and physiological representation, our epistemological and phenomenological understanding of the world has profoundly changed. On one hand there has been an increasing sense of ‘objectively’ perceiving phenomena through such instruments, while on the other hand there has arose the possibility of representing and expressing personal (and marginalized) subjectivities, especially with the increasing availability of such technologies.
Therefore, at this socio-historical junction, I feel it absolute necessary to explore and critique the ways in which analog and digital technologies have changed our topographical definitions of reality, especially those in which are used for political coercion and hegemonic truth claims. Simultaneously though, these available technologies are allowing marginalized and exterior representations of specific politically loaded or socially traumatic phenomena, constructing a larger collective body of experiences and perceptions.
What underlines both these semiotic structures though is the levels of ‘literacy’ to which the presenters and perceivers are able to construct and receive messages, and what affect these interpretations have upon the information that is presented. Thus, I have continuously explored semiotic and linguistic discourses and analyses in relation to the developing new media or post-medium practices of contemporary communication technologies.
Not only then, do I seek to create politically relevant and socially functional pieces of art and criticism, but to also continue developing a new grammatology and semiotic reflexivity in that process; pushing the limitations of both content and form.
Especially considering the powerful potency of time based mediums at this point in history, art has an obligation to utilize such a powerful medium of communication to not merely better itself, formalistically and within the international market, but to also better those who seek to experience and understand the work without having the financial or educational resources to “fully appreciate” it. Art should not cease the expansion of a formalistic language, but it should be able to do so while retaining a sense of accessibility and socio-political relevance in its perception, utilizing its symbolic power to communicate contemporary political critiques and theoretical discourses.
For such a balance could be created and then transmitted to the general population as tools for constructing a new world of abstracted and more universal languages, communicating personal experiences and facilitating individual agency.
The materialization of my current project proposal is largely inspired within the personal and social context of my past. A past history that has been a development of increasing abstractions of the psychosocial world of symbols that constructs our worldviews and identities. Beginning as a child, I’ve become increasingly interested in cultural constructs, from geography, to language and cognition, and now history.
This cultural relativity had developed early, as I had moved from my birthplace of Princeton, NJ to a small town outside of Savannah, GA at the age of 5 and then to Atlanta, GA at the age of 12, and then again to Cincinnati, OH a year later. During each move, I learned to adapt to the new social surroundings, while gaining insight into the material nature of cultural identity and the relativity of individual or collective worldviews. The experience of living in a small marshland town in Georgia, near an army base during the Persian Gulf War, was extremely different then living near New York City in the late 80s, visiting the Natural History Museum’s sea life and dinosaur exhibits. Of course my critical separation with these places and their beliefs didn’t become apparent until later.
At Ohio State, my studies in Film History and Cultural Anthropology helped to expand my interest in the power of visual language and time based media. The absence of university structures for film production combined with increasingly abstract film courses inspired me to move away from traditional forms of narrative cinema. This initial engagement with more analytical and abstract works was coupled with a profound discovery in the studies of languages fueled by the writings and works of Sergei Eisenstein and Russian formalist filmmakers, and the Czech School of Structural Linguistics, headed by Saussure.
The discourse of Russian formalism and structural linguistic enabled a new analytical and constructivist insight into the structuring and editing of moving images, which expanded as I became more engulfed by experimental cinema, especially Stan Brakhage and then the Structural filmmakers of the early 70s. Thus, it appears only logical and intellectually satiating that I’ve continued my interest in the studies of linguistics (though the influence of Russian formalism has somewhat waned) and have opted to utilize post-structuralist analyses and breakthroughs for my current project Lebensraum. The post-structuralist discourse will enable a personal evolution as well as continued formalist investigation, highly influenced by American experimental and avant-garde cinema.
Yet, though I’ve been influenced by the formalist and analytic practices of such cinema, I felt a political and social absence in much of the later abstract American work. The most politically inspiring piece I’ve seen is La hora de los hornos or “The Hour of the Furnaces” by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino. This 6 hour radical militant documentary was produced in Argentina against the dictatorship of Oganía in 1968. This documentary, as well as an increasing moral objection to US military influence in the Americas, lead me to my most recent work, my thesis paper and documentary Mundos especulares: Filmic Reconstructions and Remedies of Historical Memory Trauma: Argentina and its Desaparecidos. This project enabled the fulfilled manifestation of my formalist and socio-political interest, as I was able to experiment with epistemological questions of memory and trauma, while thoroughly and personally exploring the complex social construction of history and identity. Therefore, it is at this point in my life, that I feel it absolutely necessary to critically and reflexively analyze our own contemporary identity and concept of western history.
Honors Film Studies, minor in Cultural Anthropology Current GPA: 3.71 (211 credit hrs) B.A. in Summer 2008, Honors Research Distinction
Buenos Aires/Santa Fe, Argentina 2008 Documentary: historical reconstruction and trauma memory. Supported by Ohio State Undergraduate Honors Research Grant
Anatanarivo/Tamatave/Ile d’Not, Madagascar 2007 Documentary: socio-economic effects of re-democratization. Independent travel through Peace Corp. contact
Columbus, OH 2007 Video collage: meta-narratives and memory in mass media. Exhibited at OSU Art and Technology Showcase
Columbus, OH 2006-2007 Documentary Feature: Meta-Analysis of Columbus independent filmmaking. Premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts on September 25, 2007
Columbus, OH 2005-2007 Student run organization: short videos and yearly trips to Sundance Film Festival.
Columbus, OH 2006 Abstract Video: experimenting with first person visual narrative and audio layering. Exhibited at NOW 2.0: Video and Dance exhibition
Columbus, OH 2004 Lead antagonist in student television series.
NYFA Summer Workshop Princeton, NJ 2003 Three short films, theory classes, and technical aspects of 35mm production.
GIC: Volunteer Buenos Aires, Argentina 2008 Volunteer in educating underprivileged children levels K-9.
Navajoland: Service Project St. Mary, NM 2005 Volunteer in housing construction on Navajo reservation.
Working America Cincinnati, OH 2004 Canvasser for lobbyist group.
Appalachian Service Project Leslie County, KY 2002 Volunteer in housing construction in Appalachian region.
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