Laconia: 1,200 Tweets on Film

by Masha Tupitsyn

If the sound bite is the new order, then how do we make every word count? In today's surplus world of communication overload and cultural clutter, writer and cultural critic Masha Tupitsyn turns to the media matrix of Twitter to explore the changing ways that we construct and consume narrative. Loosely applying the discerning aphorism--a compressed genre in itself--to a 21st century context, 1,200 TWEETS ON FILM offers meditations on film and popular culture that resonant with laconic meaning and personal insight while getting to the heart of the matter. Inspired by Chris Marker's free-associative film impressions in La Jetee and Sans Soleil, LACONIA is part film diary, part cultural inventory, and part mashup. Pulling from an array of film, popular culture, books, and mainstream news, it offers penetrating critical commentary on an increasingly muddled virtual world. LACONIA consists of brick by brick prose, as Tupitsyn thinks in sentences and lines that culminate in an architecture of thinking.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

197 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2011

About the author

MASHA TUPITSYN is a writer, critic, and multi-media artist. She is the author of the forthcoming 2-part study, Time Tells, (Hard Wait Press, 2023), Like Someone In Love: An Addendum to Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Love Dog (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film (ZerO Books, 2011), Beauty Talk & Monsters, a collection of film-based stories (Semiotext(e) Press, 2007), Picture Cycle (Semiotexte/MIT, 2019), and co-editor of the anthology Life As We Show It: Writing on Film (City Lights, 2009).

In 2015, she made the 24-hour film, Love Sounds, an audio-essay and history of love in English-speaking cinema, which concluded an immaterial trilogy. The film was accompanied by a catalogue, published in 2015 by Penny-Ante Editions, and has been exhibited and screened in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Tarot Diaries , 2016, is an audio essay, diary, and mixtape about fate and future in late capitalism.

In 2017, she started her ongoing durational film series, DECADES. So far, she has completed two installments, the 1970s and the 1980s . DECADES composes a history of cinematic sound and score for each 20th century decade. The next installment will be the 1990s.

Her newest films are BULK COLLECTION and the ongoing music series The Musicians .

Her writing on film, feminism, culture, and art has been featured in numerous anthologies, journals, and art catalogues such as Bookforum, Artforum, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Believer, BOMB, LitHub, Fence, Frieze, The New Inquiry, Berfrois, IndieWire, The White Review, Fireflies,The Rumpus, Performa 11, and Pace Gallery. She has taught film, media, literature, and gender studies at The New School, Pratt, and NYU.

Her new series of books, Time Tells, will be published by Hard Wait Press in November, 2022.

Her introduction to Paul Schrader's First Reformed will be published by Archway Editions/Simon & Schuster in 2023.

Reviews

[Dearwassily · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting even for a person like me who views film as more form over function. Again, I'd give this 3.5 stars if I could.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically venting about the isms of film- isms that just don’t happen as frequently or as intensely as everyone says they do, but can’t be told nothing about it.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books illustrates the mostly unlocked interest that Twitter carries: as a platform for aphorism. Some really beautiful stuff here. I enjoyed the insight into Tupitsyn's consistent perspective on film as she went through a year of viewing. The best way to evade being pushed into a other-created critical box is to show your depth of perspective and talent of perception. Thank God someone finally acquitted social media.