Minor Histories: A Conversation with Melvin Moti

As film slips into obsolescence, it has increasingly found a home in the visual arts. By ‘film' I don't mean the general culture, but the actual thing: 8 through 70 millimeters, that slow, expensive medium wound in tight magazines and processed overnight. Since the early European avant-garde, artists have made obscure shorts seen mostly by enthusiasts and historians, but once HD made its game-changing appearance, more and more artists have paradoxically turned to celluloid. In many cases the choice is aesthetic: except 4K digital cameras, film still offers a more detailed image and a color spectrum unmatched by zeros-and-ones. But the decision is ideological as well. Film represents a stubborn refusal: It is harder to show, harder t… Read More