School of Culture and Communication - Research Publications

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Subject: digital technology × Subject: screen studies ×

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    Impact aesthetics: Back to the future in digital cinema?
    MCQUIRE, SCOTT ( 2000)
    This article engages recent debates about the future of cinema in the digital age. It seeks to broaden the rather narrow terms in which the transition to digital cinema is often understood in film theory. It also tries to assess claims about the 'demise of narrative' that are frequently associated with the digital threshold. I argue that a more dialectical understanding of the relation between terms such as 'narrative' and 'spectacle' is needed to advance current debates. In place of the technological determinism which aligns digital technology with 'blockbuster'films, an understanding based on the politics of spectacle and the ambivalence of distracted spectatorship is advanced.
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    The frenzy of the visible: spectacle and motion in the era of the digital
    NDALIANIS, ANGELA ( 2000-02)
    During my first viewing of The Matrix (Wachowski Brothers, 1999) I found my vision bombarded by imagery and sensations more akin to theme park rides like the Spiderman attraction at Universal Studios' Islands of Adventure in Florida. My visual and aural faculties were plunged into a state of disorientation that constituted a physical assault on my senses. Not only was an array of framing effects and camera movements employed - from high velocity pans, tracks and fast paced edits, to 360° camera somersaults - but there was motion and there was lots of it! Bodies, cameras, sound and visual effects - everything moved and it moved fast, even when 'bullet-time' speed was visualised through slow motion techniques. Here's a film that's dictated above all by the speed of the image: within the filmic space (with its economically ordered narrative and fast paced action); within the production space (with its special effects and high velocity stylistic techniques); and within the audience's space (in the capacity the film has in affecting us on a highly charged sensory level).