Cinema,

the Art of the Index

Thus far, most disctrssionsof cinema in the digital age have focusedon che
possibilitiesofinteractive narrative.It is not hard to understandwhy: since
the majority of viewersand critics equatecinemawith storytelling, cligital
media are understood as somerhing that will let cinema tell its stories in a

WhatIs DigitalGinema?

new way. Yet as exciting as the ideas of a viewer participating in a story,

choosing different paths through the narrative space,and inceracting with

LeaManouich

charactersmay be, they addressonly one aspectof cinema that is neither

unique nor, as many will argue,essentialto it: narrarive.
The challenge that digital media pose ro cinema extends far beyond
the issueo narrative. Digital media redslnetllq vqry idqtity of,ciqeqa
In a Hollywood symposiumon the digitization of the cinema,one of the
participants provocatively referred ro movies ut "flglgigg]' and to human
actors as "organics" and "goft fuzzies."rs these rerms accurately suggest,
what used to be cinema'sdefining characteristicshave becomejust the default options, with many others available. \hen one can "enrer" a virtual

p.. ?&r^
.

,lrz :,

r|," ar

, zq)

.ca.^y'o

vn 't'/zw zLi*

7,12t>\, Lq''|

three-dimensional space, viewing flat images projected on the screen is

hardly the only option. \7hen, given enough time and money,almosr everything can be simulated in a computer, @
possibilitv.
G

This "crisis" of cinema'sidentity alsoaffectsthe terms and the categories

used to theorize about cinema'spast. French film theorisr Christian lVetz
wrote in the 1970sthat "Most films shot today,good or bad,original or nor,
'commelc:ia!'e1
not, hu.rJ,;
;
t_"tnir -."rtrt. rn
a sollgftgger-gg.qr_,"''?In identiS'ing fictional films as a "supergenre" of
twentieth-centurycinema,Metz did not bocherto mention anothercharacteristic of this genre becauseat that time it was roo obvious: 6ctional films
arelaeactionfil-t,T*.q fil-r .on

ifiqd photogrupli.

age of computer simulation and digital compositing, invoking this liveaction characteristicbecomescrucial in defrning the specificity oftwentiethcentury cinema, From the perspectiveofa future historian ofvisual culture.
the diferencesbetween classicalHollywood films, Europeanart films, and
avant-gardefilms (apart from abstractones)may appearto be lesssignificant
than this common feature: thev relied on lens-basedrecordings of reality.
, ll 2
, t *

I l3

most basic gesture is to open the shutter and to start the frlm rolling,
recording whatever happens to be in front of the lens. For Tarkovsky, an
abstractcinema was thus impossible.
But what happensto cinema'sindexical identitv if it is now possible to-ggEgje-lhqqgIgellliieqes

entlrelvinasqtrpuqrh!'usiIgl-P.!g-!qpr!e'r
scenesvr*rh'ltr3-trjlg-qf g

disital paint program;to cut, bend,stretchand stitch dt.gili?".i-fi1.$r1!1&el

-:'

into,roo=sh-ing"
^rEdib,ility,,?-i!lto_y.gb:!-y.,e
rhar-has-p-erf-e-t-ph-,r-ographic
'
n9YglqlqqllY*flesdl

This essaywill addressthe meaning of thesechangesin the filmmaking

processfrom the point of view of the larger cultural history of the moving
image. Seenin this context, the manual constructionof imagesin digital
cinema representsa return to nineteenth-centuryprecinematicnractices"
when images were hand-painted and hand-animated. t the turn of the
twentieth century, cinema was to delegatethesemanual techniquesto ani-

VirtualMarilyn,the digitalsynthespian.
of ScottBillups.
Courtesy

mation and deneitself asa recordingmedium. As cinemaentersthe digital

age, thesetechniques are again becoming commonplacein the lmmaking
process.Consequently cinqra can no -longqrbe,c!g!y Cft--tftgqllkd--ft9ll1!lgll19t: I! -i9q9 lgagcraalqdxlal nqediqelrqglogvbut, rather, a sub-

This essayis concernedwith the effectofthe so-calleddigital revolutionon

cinema,asdefinedby its "supergenre"as fictional live-actionfilm.r

geug-gf.Eingnc.
This argument will be developed in three stages.I will first follow a
historical trajectoryfrom nineteenth-centrrytechniquesfor creatingmov-

During cinema'shistory,a whole repertoireof techniques(lighting, art

direction, the useofdifferent film stocksand lenses,etc.) wasdevelopedto

ing imagesto twentieth-centurycinemaand animation.Next I will arrive

ar a definition of digital cinema by abstractingthe common featuresand

modifi the basic record obtained by a film apparatus.And yet behind even
the most stylizedcinematicimageswe can discernthe bluntness,the sterility, the banality of early nineteenth-centuryphotographs-No matter how

interface metaphorsof a variety of computer softwaresand hardwaresthat

are currenclyreplacing traditional 6lm technology.Seentogether, thesefeaturesand metaphorssuggesta distinct logic of a digital moving image.This

complex its stylistic innovations,the cinemahas found its basein these

depositsof reality, thesesamplesobtained by a methodical and prosaicprocess.Cinema emergedorcof the sameimpulse that engenderednaturalism,

logic subordinatesthe photographic and checinematic to the painterly and

the graphic,destroyingcinema'sidentity asa mediaart. Finally I will exam-

courr stenography,and wax museums.Cinema is the g-"g.gft{rg-ig.d5;, it

an attempt to make art out of a footprint,
Even for Andrey TarkovskSfilm-painter par excellence,cinema'sidentiry
lay in its ability to recordreality.Once,during a public discussionin Moscow sometime in the 1970s, he was askedwhether he was interestedin
making abstract films. He replied that there can be no such thing. Cinema's

ine different production contexts that alreadyusedigital moving imagesHollywood films, music videos,CD-ROM gamesand agsv/61ks-in edg1
to seeif and how this logic has begun to manifest itself.

of MovingPictures
A BriefArchaeology
cinematograph,moving picAs testifiedby its original names(kinetoscope,
from
its
birth,
tures), cinema was understood,
@
that finally succeededin creati

ncing illusion of dynamic reality.

rl

If we approach cinema in this way (rather than as the

art of audiovisual
narrative, or the art of a projected image, or the art of
coilective sDecratorship,etc.),we canseeit supersedingprevioustechniques
for creatingand
displaying moving images.
These eadier techniques shared a number of common
characteristics.
First, rhey all relied on hand-painted or hand_drawn
images. The magic
lantern slides were painte-dat leastuntil rhe 1g50s;so.\,vere
the imagesused
in the Phenakisriscope,the Thaumatrope, the zootrope,
the praxinoscope,
the choreuroscope,and numerous orher nineteenth-century
procinematic
devices.Even Muybridge's cerebrarcd,Zoopraxiscopelectures
of the lgg0s
featured not actual photographs but corored drawings painred
afrer the
p,hotographs.a
Not only were rhe imagescrealedmanually, rhey were manually
ani_
.mated. In Robertson'sphantasmagoriu,*@
lantern operarorsmoved behind rhe screenin order to make
projected imagesappear ro advanceand withdraw.r More often, an
exhibitor used only
his hands, rarher than his whole body, to put the images
into motion. One
animariontechniqueinvorvedusing mechanicalslides
consistingof a number of layers. An exhibitor wourd slide the layers to animate
rhe image.6
Anorher technique was ro move a long slide containng
separareimages
slowly in front of a magic rantern lens. Nineteenth-century
optical roys
enjoyed in private homes also required manual acrion ro
crearemovemenr:
twiding the strings of the Thaumarrope, rotating the Zoorrope,s
cylinder,
turning the Vviscope! handle.
rt was nor until the rasr decadeof the nineteenth century
that the automatic generation of images and their automatic projection
were finaily
combined. A mechanicaleyebecamecoupled with a mechanical
heart; photography mer rhe morof. As a result,"crnsrnz-a very particular
regime of
the visible-was born. Irregulariry, nonuniformity, the accident,
and other
traces of the human body, which previously had inevitabry
accompanied
moving image exhibirions, were replaced by rhe uniformity
of machine
vision.TA machinethat, like a conveyerbert, was now spitting
our images,
all having the same appearance,ail the same size, all moving
ar rhe same
speed,like a line of marching soldiers.
cinema also eliminated the discrere characterof both space
and movement in moving images. Before cinema, the moving element
was visually
separatedfrom rhe static background, as in a mechanicalslide
show or Rev_

naud's PraxinoscopeTheater (1892).8 The movement itself was limitecl in

rangeand affecredonly a cleady defined figure rather than the whole image.
Thus, typical acrions would include a bouncing ball, a raised hand or eyes,
a butterly moving back and forth over the headsoffascinated childrensimple vecrorscharted acrossstill fields.
cinema's most immediate predecessorsshare somerhing else. As the
nineteenth-centuryobsessioR
with movement intensified,devicesthat could
animate more rhan just a few images becameincreasingly popular. ll of
6hsrn-shs Zootrope, the Phonoscope,the Tachyscope,the Kinetoscope*
sequencesof images featuring complete actions that
Hb!9@Jg
could be playedrepeatedly.The Thaumatrope(1825), in which a disk with
two different images painted on each face was rapidly rotared by twirling
a strings artachedro ir, was in its essencea loop in its simplest form:
two elements replacing one another in succession.In the zootrope (rg67)
and its numerous variations, approximately a dozenimages were arranged
around the perimeter of a circle.e rhe Mutoscope, popular in America
throughout the 1890s, increasedthe duration ofthe loop by placing alarger
number of images radially on an axle.roEven Edison'sKinetoscope (rgg21896), the first modern cinematic machine to employ film, conrinued to
artangeimages in a loop.tt Fifty feet of film translated to an approximately
twenty-second-long presentation. The genre's porential development was
cut short when cinema adopteda much longer narrative form.

FromAnimation
to Cinema
once the cinema was stabilized as a technologv, it cut all referencesto ics
origins in artifice. Everything rhat characrerizedmoving pictures beforethe
twentieth century-6hs manual construction of images, loop actions, the
discretenature of spaceand movement-was delegatedto cinema'sbastard
relative, its supplement, its shadow:animation. wentieth-century animation becamea depository for nineteenth-century moving-image techniques
left behind bv cinema.

r)+

j$egularlysampryp-Jhg
sparselyand

jgf:t-

jl!L-

Godut{t d.fi.ilto! qf
pli"g of -qrio" by u frl^ .
cinema as "truth 24 ftamesper second");and spaceconstructed from separate imaqe lavers.
In contrast, cinema works hard to eraseany tracesof its own production
process,including any indication that the images we seecould have been
consrructed rather than recorded. It denies that the reality it shows often
does not exist outside of the lm image, the image that was arrived at by
photographing an already impossible space,which itself was put together
through the use of models,mirrors, and matte paintings, and which was
then combinedwith other imagesthrough optical printing. It pretendsto
be a simple recording of an aheadyexisting reality-both to a viewer and
to itself.r2Cinema'spublic image stressedthe aura of reality "captured"
on film, thus implying that cinema was about photographing what existed
'never-was"' of special
before the camea,rather than about "creating the
effects.tr Rear projection and blue screen photography, matte paintings
and glass shots,mirrors and miniatures, push development, oPtical effects,
and orher techniques that allowed filmmakers to constfuct and alter the
moving images, and thus could reveal that cinema was not really different
from animation, wefe pushedto cinema'speriphery by its practitioners, historians,and critics.ta
T-oday,wit!.-th"cblfi-Lqd-rgiga*l-pd-ia'tr!--psrcigc-lizA-rechniques
move to the center.

WhatIs DigitalGinema?
visible sign of this shift is the new role that compurer-generatedspecial
effectshavecome to play in Hollywood industry in the last few years'Many
recent blockbusters have been driven by special effecrs; feeding on rheir
popularity. Hollywood has even created a new ninigenre- "fbg-Iguki"g
are created.
.of. . ." videos and books that revealhow specialeffects
To illustrate someof the possibilitiesof digital filmmaking, I will make
referenceto the use of specialeffects in a few recent, key Hollywood films'
Until recently, Hollywood studios were the only placesthat had the money
to pay for digital tools and for the labor involved in producing digital effects. However, the shift to digital media affects not iust Hollywood but
frlmmaking as a whole. As traditional film technology is universally being
replacedby digital technology,the logic of the frlmmaking processis being

redefined.\(hat I describebelow are the new principles of digital filmmaking that are equally valid for individual or collective film productiQns, regardlessof whether they areusing the most expensiveprofessionalhardware/
softwarepackagesor their consumerequivalents.
Consider,then, the following principles of digital filmmaking:
l. Rather than filming physical reality, it is now possibleto generatelmlike scenesdirectly in a computer with the help of 3D compurer animation.
Therefore, live-action foorageis displacedfiom its role as the only possible
materialfrom which the finishedfilm is constructed.
2. orce live-action footage is digitized (or directly recorded in a cligital
format), it loses its privileged indexical relationship to pro-filmic reality.

il.-i-ig-'-o.agtlctlusccl'
Th' lgrPgl",l,-d9:'
"o-:-*'l-lg"l'"I-b--ly9:l.h: p,b-gjger-p-I-l*i-,
9 3lJgere
*l i-*lg:--'i:i:-',+
il*1"?1'-1!.Pl.o-8--'3-:

theyareTrgg fl.^T !h-.-f1-'

j.n-e-3-D-sil2bics
rynl!t-ifSd
Package,_since
gl"lglgd'
material:pixels.4-q4pftels.19edlgss'-qf-qh4ryf,sl{rr.S"Lq.bg-*:i-ly
substituted one for another,and so on. Live-action footageis reducedto iust
-

a,nother
srai+no ditrem irn4ith4iili; ;iedma;iit';"

3. If live-action footage was left intact in traditional filmmaking, now it

functions as raw material for further -Qlgpp{ging,animating, and-rlqrybretaining visual realism unique to the photographic
-*A1!r a result, while
process,film obtains the plasticity that previously was possible only in
painting or animation. To use the suggestivetitle of a popular morphing
software, digitat frlmmakers work with "elastic reality." For example, the
opening shotof ForrestGump(Robert Zemeckis, Paramount Piccures,1994;
special effects by Industrial Light and Magic) rracks an unusually long
and extremely incricate flight of a feather. To creare the shot, the real
feather was lmed against a blue background in different positions; this
marerial was rhen animated and composited against shots of a landscape.16
The result: a new kind of realism,that can be describedas"something which
is intended to look exactlyas ifir could havehappened,although it realy
could not."
l. Previously, ediring and special effecrs were strictly sepafareactivities.
An editor worked on ordering sequencesof images together; any intervention wirhin an image was handled by special-effectsspecialists.The computer collapsesthis distinction.The manipulationof individual imagesvia a
paint program or algorithmic image processingbecomesaseasyasarranging

I +/

sequencesof images in time. Both simply involve "cut and paste.,'As this
basic corrrputer command exemplifies, modification of digital images (or
other digitized data) is not sensitiveto disrincrionsoftime and spaceor of
differencesofscale.Thus, reorderingsequencesof imagesin rime, compositing them together in space,modifring parts of an individual image, and
changing individual pixels become rhe same operarion, conceptually and
practically
J. Given the preceding principles, we can define digital film in rhis way:
digital film = live-actionmaterial* painting * imageprocessing* compositing
. * 2D computeranimation* 3D computeranimarion.

machine-recordedfootage and which were therefore delegated to cinema's

periphery throughout its history becomethe norm of digital filmmaking.
The sameapplies to the relationship between production and postproduction. Cinema traditionally involved arcanging physical reality to be
filmed through the useof sets,models,art direction, cinematography,and so
on. Occasionalmanipulation of recorded6lm (for instance,through optical
printing) was negligible comparedwith the extensivemanipulation of realiry in front of a camera.In digital filmmaking, qhot footageis no longer the
6nal point but just raw material to be manipulated in a computer, where
the real construction of a scenewill take place. In short, the production
becomesjust the first stageof postproduction.
The following examplesillustrate this shift from rearranging reality to

Live-action material can be recordedeither on film or video or directly in

a digital formar.rTPainting, image processing,and compurer animation are
the processes
of modifying alreadyexisrenrimagesaswell asof creating new
ones.In fact, the very distinction berweencrearionand modification, so clear
in film-based media (shooting versusdarkroom processesin photography,
production versusposrproduction in cinema), no longer applies to digital
cinema, sinceeachimage, regardlessof its origin, goesthrough a number of
programs beforemaking it to rhe final film.'8
Let us summarize the principles discussedthus far. Live-action foorageis
now ony raw material to be manipulated by hand: animated, combined
with 3D compurer-generatedscenes,and painted over.The final imagesare
constructed manually from different elements; and all the elementsare either createdentirely from scratchor modified by hand.
lle can finally answer rhe quesrion "\7hat is digital cinema?,'
Digital
cinema is a particular caseof animation that useslive-action footageas one

of its many elements.

This ca' be rereadin view of the history of the movin g imagesketched
earlier. Manual consrrucrion and animation of imagesgave birth ro cinema
and slipped into the margins . . . only to reappearasthe fouqdation of digital
cinema.The history of rhe moving image thus makesa full circle. Bomfrom
aninwtion, cinemapasbedanim.ationto ts boundary,only to becomc
oneparticular
caseof anination in tbe end.
The relationship between "normal" filmmaking and special effects is
similarly reversed.special effecrs,which involved human intervention inro

rearranging its images. From the analog en'. fot a scenein ZabriskiePoint
Q970), Michelangelo Antonioni, trying to achievea particulady saturated
coloE ordered a freld of gnss to be painted. From the digital era: to create
the launch sequeoce Apollt ti (Universal, 199); specialeffectsby Digital
Domain), the crew shot footageat the original location of the launch at Cape
Canaveral.The artists at Digital Domain scannedthe film and altered it
on computer workstations, removing recent buildings, adding grassto the
launch pad, and painting the skies to make them more dramatic. This
altered film was then mapped onto 3D planes to create a virtual set that
was animated to match a 1SO-degreedolly movement of a camerafollowing a rising rocket.te
The last example brings us to yet another conceptualization of digital
insma-4s painting. In his book-length study of digital photography
Tilliam J. Mitchell focusesour attention on what he calls the inherent
mutability of a digital image:
characteristic
ofdigital informationis that it canbemanipulatedeasily
Theessential
and very rapidly by computer.It is simply a matterof substitutingnewdigits for
old. . . . Computationaltoolsfor transforming,combining,altering,andanalyzing
zimages
to the digital artist asbrushesandpigmentsto a painter.2n
areasessential
As Mitchell points out, this inherent mutability erasesthe difference bea photograph ald__e-p4lnnC.Sincea film is a seriesof photographs,
t_y,reen
it is appropriate to extend Mitchell s argument to digital film. \7ith an
-

t{L

artist being able to easily manipulate digitized footageeither as a whole or

frame by kame, a film in a general sensebecomesa seriesof paintings.2t
Hand-paindng digitizd film frames, made possible by a computer, is
probably the most dramatic example of the new statusof cinema. No longer
strictly locked in the photographic, it opensitselftoward the painterly. It is
also the most obvious example of the return of cinema to its nineteenthcentury origins-in

this case, to hand-crafted images of magic lantern

slides, the Phenakistiscope,the Zootrope.

\7e usually think of computerization as automation, but here the result
is the reverse:what previously was automatically recordedby a cameranow
has to be painted one frame at a time. But not just a dozen images, as in
the nineteenth century but thousandsand thousands.\e can draw another
parallel with the practice, common in the eady days of silent cinema, of
manually tinting 6lm frames in different colors according to a scene's
mood." Today, some of the most visually sophisticated digital effects are
often achieved by using the same simple method: painstakingly altering
thousandsof frames by hand. The frames are painted over eicher to create
mattes (hand-drawn matte extraction) or to change the images directly, as
in Forest Ganp, where PresidentKennedy wasmade to speaknew sentences
by altering the shapeo his lips, one frame at a time.23In principle, given
enough time and money, one can createwhat will be the ultimate digital
lm: ninety minutes of I29,60O framescompletelypainted by hand from
scratch,but indistinguishable in appearancefrom live photography.'a

as "Primitive"DigitalGinema
Multimedia
3D animation,compositing,mapping,paint retouching:in commercialcinema, these radical new techniquesare mostly used to solve technical problems while traditional cinematic languageis preservedunchanged.Frames
from Apollo73.
faunchsequence
Composited
Studios.
Publicityphotofrom Universal

are hand-painted to removewires that supported an actor during shooting;

a flock of birds is added to a landscape;a city street is filled with crowds of
simulated extras.lthough most Hollywood releasesnow involve digitally
manipulated scenes,the useof computers is alwayscarefully hidden."
Commercial narrative cinema continuesto hold on to the classicalrealist
sryle where images function as unretouchedphotographic recordsof some
Cinema refusesto give up its
eventsthat took place in front of the camera.26
unique cinema effect,an effect that, accordingto Christian Metz's penetrat-

j3

ing analysismade in the 1970s, depends upon narrarive form, the reality
effect, and cinemai architectural arrangemenrall working rogerher.2T
Toward the end of his essay,Metz wonderswherher in the future nonnarrative films may becomemore numerous; if rhis happens,he suggeststhat
cinema will no longer need to manufacrureits reality effect. Electronic and
digital media have aheady brought about this rransformation. Since the
1980s, new cinematic forms have emerged thar are not linear narratives,

puter did not perform its new role very well. First, CD-ROMs could not
hold anything close to the length of a standard theatrical film. Second,the
computer would not smoothly play a movie larger than the size of a stamp.
Finally, the movies had to be compressed,which degradedtheir visual appearaoce.Only in the caseo still imageswas the computer able to display
photographic-type detail at full screensize.

that areexhibiredon a reievisionor a computerscreenrarherrhan in a movie

Becauseof these particular hardware limitations, the designersof CDROMs had to invent a differt kind of cinematic languagein which a targe

thsagsl-and that simultaneouslygive up cinematic realism.

of strategies, such as discrete motion, loops, and superimposition, pre-

YT_!"9._g$q_fq:sr?EigfslLhq_r$b_e_lqqqqyiqgg.Probablynor
by accident,the qenre of music video came into exisrenceat exactlv the
-.
..
-1
.tT. *h." .I..tqoni
yi,9were ellellg =9-dit1g.studio1.
Importantly, just as music videos ofren incorporate narrativeswithin rhem,

viously usedin nineteenth-centurymoving-image presentations,in twenti-

but are not linear narrarivesfrom start to finish, so they rely on film (or
video) images,but changethem beyond rhe norms of traditional cinematic
realism.The manipulation of imagesthrough hand-painting and image processing,hidden in Hollywood cinema,is brought into the open on a televi-

eth-century animation, and in the avant-gardetradition of graphic cinema,

were applied to photographic or synthetic images. !!is Qpgggg;yr_e=
sizedcinematic illusionism and the aestheticsof graphic collage,with its
- -

cba'Tj1ilt'.:--l.I':g:lg',y ^4 dilgg!,ir"it

jg[ays,
graphic,
divorced when cine@qrat
---:..- -.-.-*.g9-3ggq 9q qgTlgryI$
The graphic also met the cinematic. The designersof CD-ROMs were

sion screen.Similady, the consrruction of an image from heterogeneous

sourcesis not subordinated to the goal ofphotorealism but funcrions as an

awareof the techniquesof twentieth-century cinematographyand film edit-

aesthetic
stratesy.
r!gSgl9._9f!g*Igd:f !:tFTl ilglg14gqryfor-e4plsing ntllelo*u!.new-possibilities-_oj-manipulatjn&phograshicimaermadc
possibleby eoolpu-@:!*t
slilr_rgjhe-lpes_beqwee-gghe_2_Daadrhe{D_.c1191t!ggf
qptry1tCpelsulc,pheraerapb!.Lrel-

and to hardware limitations. s a result, the techniquesomodern cinema

rjlry$gUgg:_In

shorr, it is a living and constantly expanding rexrbook

for digital cinema.

A detailed analysis of the evolution of music video imagery (or, more
generally,broadcastgraphics in rhe electronic age)deservesa separarerrearment, and I will not try to take it"up here.Insread,I will discussanorher
new cinematic nonnamativeform, CD-ROM games,which, in contrast to
music videos, relied on the computer for storageand distribution from the
very beginning. And, unlike music video designerswho were consciously

ing, but they had to adapt these techniques both to an interactive format
and of nineteenth-century moving image have merged in a {rgf.byb;:id
languagg.
'W'e
can trace the developmentof this languageby analyzing a few wellknown CD-ROM titles. The best-selling gameMyst (Broderbund, 1993)
unfolds its narrative strictly through still images, a practice that takes us
back to magic lantern shows(and to Chris Wtatker's!:algt_.28But in other
ways Myst relies on the techniques of twentieth-century cinema. For instance,the CD-ROM usessimulated cameraturns to switch from one image
ro the next. It also mploys the basic technique of film editing to subjectively speedup or slow down time. In the courseof the game, the user
movesaround a fictional island by clicking on a mouse.Eachclick advances

pushing traditional film or video images into something new, the designers
of CD-ROMs arrived at a new visual language unintenrionally, while at-

a virtual cameraforward, revealinga new view of a3D environment. \hen

tempting to emulatetraditional cinema.

tance between the points of view of each two consecutiveviews decreases

sharply.If earlier the user was able to crossa whole island with just a few
clicks, now ir takesa dozenclicks to get to the bottom of the stairsl In other

In the late 1980s,

{pgle beeanto promore the conceptof computer multimedia; and in 1991 it released
*ftware to enablean ordinary
e"t.kft-.
personalcomputer to play movies. HoweveE for the nexr few yearsrhe com-

the user begins to descendinto the underground chambers,the spatial dis-

lEs-

words, just asin traditional cinema,Myst slowsdown time to createsuspense

and tension.
rn Myo, miniature animationsaresomerimesembeddedwithin the still
images.In the next best-sellingCD-ROM, 7th Guat(yirgin Games,1993),
the user is presentedwith video clips of live acrorssuperimposedover static
backgroundscreatedwith 3D compurer graphics. The clips are looped, and
the moving human figures clearly stand our against the backgrounds.Both
of these features connect ihe visual language of Ttlt Guestto nineteenthcentury procinematic devices and rwentieth-century carroonsrather than
to cinematic verisimilirude. But like Myst, 7th Gaestalsoevokesdistinctly
modern cinematic codes.The environment where all action takes place (an
interior of a house)is renderedby using a wide-angle lens; ro move from one
view to rhe next, a cametafollows a complex curve, as though mounted on
a virtual dolly.
Next, considerthe CD-ROM
UruUryry(
_(SonyImagesoft, I99J),
Produced to complement rhe fiction film of theiame title, marketed nor
as a "game" bur as an "interactive movie," and featuring full-screen video
throughout, it comes closer ro cinemaric realism than the previous cDRoMs-yet it is still quite distinct from it. $fith all action shot againsta
greenscreenand then compositedwirh graphic backgrounds,its visual style
exists within a spaceberweencinema and collage.
Ir would not be entirely inappropriate to read this short history of rhe
digital moving image as a releological developmenr thar replays the emergenceof cinemaa centuryeadier.Indeed,ascomputers'speedkeepsincreasing, the cD-RoM designershave beenable ro go from a slide show format
to rhe superimposition of small moving elemenrsover sraric backgrounds,
an<Jfinally to full-frame moving images. This evorurion repeatsthe nineteenth-cenrury progression:from sequencesof srill images (magic lantern
slide presentations)ro characrersmoving over staric backgrounds (for instance,in Reynaud'sPraxinoscopeTheater) to full motion (the Lumires'
cinematograph).Moreover, rhe introduction of euickTime in 1991 can be
cornparedwith the introducrionof the Kinetoscopein 1g92: both wereused
to presenr shorr loops, both featured images approximately two by three
inches in size, borh called for private viewing rather than collective exhibition. Finally, the Lumires' first film screeningsof 1895, which shocked
their audienceswith huge moving images, found their parallel in recent
titles in which the moving image-here full-screen,full-motion video-

finally6llstheentirecomputerscfeeo.Th'',.@
But this is only one reading. r7.e
no ronger think of the history of cinema
as a linear march roward only one possible language, or as a progression
toward more and more accurateverisimilitude. Rather, we havecome ro see
its history as a successionofdistinct and equally expressivelanguages,each
with its own aesrheticvariables,eachnew languageclosing off some of rhe
possibilities of the previous one-a cultural logic not dissimilar to Thomas
Kuhni analysis of scientific paradigms.2eSimilarly, instead of dismissing
visual strategiesofearly mulrimedia ritles asa result of technological limitations, we may want ro think of them as an alternative ro traditional cinematic illusionism, asa beginning of digital cinema'snew language.
For the computer/entertainment industry, thesesrrategiesrepresentonly
a temporary limitation, an annoying drawback that needsto be overcome.
This is one imporrant difference between rhe siruation at the end of rhe
nineteenrhand the end of the twentieth centuries:if cinema was developing
toward the still open horizon of many possibilities, the developmenrof
commercial multimedia, and of correspondingcompurer hardware(compression
boards,storageformats such as Digital video Disc), is driven bv a clearlv
defined goal: the exact duplication of cinemaric realism. So
de+qAqpgl{
an accident

TheLoop
A number of artists, however,haveapproachedthesesrrategiesnot aslimirations but as a sourceof new cinematicpossibiliries.s an example,I will
discussthe use of the loop in Jean-LouisBoissier'sFrorapetrinsutaris(L993)
and Natalie Bookchin's TlteDatabankof tbeEaeryday(1996).ro
As already mentioned, all nineteenth-cenruryprocinematic devices,up
to Edison'sKinetoscope, were basedon shorr loops. As ,,the sevenrh art"
began to marure, it banishedthe loop to the low-art realms of the ins*uctional film, the pornographic peepshow,and the animated carroon. In
contrast, narrarive cinema has avoided repetitions; like modern \(/esrern
fictional forms in general, it put forward a notion of human exisrence
as a
linear progressionthrough numerousunique evenrs.
cinema's birth from a loop form was reenactedat leasr once during its
history. In one of the sequencesof the revorutionary sovier monrage film,

/ 8t-

Man witlt a MoueCanaa (I929),DzlgaYertov shoqlsus a cameramanstanding in the back of a moving automobile. s he is being carried forward by
the automobile, he cranks the handle of his camera.A loop, a repetirion
createdby the circular movemenr of the handle, gives birth to a progression
ef svsnl5-4 ysry basicnarrative that is alsoquintessenriallymodern:.a cam-

readasa comment on cinematic realism.\flhatare the minimum conditions

necessaryto createthe impression of reality? As Boissier demgnstrates,in
the caseof a eld of grass,or a close-up of a plant or a stream, just a few
looped framesbecomesufficient to produce the illusion of life and of linear
time.

era moving through spacerecording whatever is in its parh. In whar seems

to be a referenceto cinema'sprimql scene,theseshots are intercut with the

StevenNeale describeshow eady film demonstratedits authenticity by

representingmoving nature: "\(hat was lacking [in photographsJwas the

shots of a moving train. Vertov even restagesthe terror that the Lumires'
film supposedly provoked in its audience; he positions his camera right

wind, the very index of rcaI, natural movement. Hence the obsessivecontemporary ascination,not just with movement, not just with scale,but also

along the train track so the rrain runs over our point of view a number of
times, crushing us again and again.

with wavesand seaspray,with smoke and spray."3l\(/hat for eady cinema

was its biggest pride and a6hisysrnsnl-a faithful documentation of na-

Early digital movies sharethe samelimitations of storageas nineteenthcentury procinematic devices.This is probably why rhe loop playback func-

ture's movemsnl-[ssrnss

tion was built into the QuickTime inrerface,thus giving it the sameweight
asthe VCR-style "play forward" function. So, in conrrastto films and video-

shifting slightly back and forth, rhythmically responding to the blowing of

tapes,QuickTime movies are supposedto be played forward, backward, or

looped. Flora petrnsalarisrealizessome.ofthe possibilities contained in the

reading data from a CD-ROM.

loop form, suggesting a new temporal aestheticsfor digital cinema.

The CD-ROM, which is basedon Rousseau'sConfessons,
opens with a
white screencontaining a numbered list. Clicking on eachitem leadsus ro

s you watch the CD-ROM, the computer periodically staggers,unable to

a screenc()ntaining two frames,positioned side by side. Both frames show

the same video loop but are slightly offser from eachother in time. Thus,
the image:;appearing in the left frame reappearin a moment on the right
and vice versa,as though an invisible wave is running through the screen.
This wave soon becomesmaterialized: when we click on one of the frames,
we are taken to a new screenshowing a loop o a rhythmically vibraring
water surface.As eachmouseclick revealsanorherloop, the viewer becomes
an editor, trut not in a traditional sense.Rather rhan constructing a singular
narrative sequenceand discarding material that is not used,here the viewer
brings to the forefront, one by one, numerous layersoflooped acrions rhat

for Boissiera subject of ironic and melancholic

simulation. As the few framesarelooped overand over,we seebladesofgrass

nonexistent wind that is almost approximated by the noise of a computer
Something elseis being simulated here aswell, perhapsunintentionally.
maintain a consistentdata rate. s a result, the imageson the screenmove
in uneven bursts, slowing and speedingup with humanlike irregularity. It
is asthough they arebrought to life not by a digital machine but by a human
operator cranking the handle of the Zootrope a century and ahalf ago. . . .
If Florapetrnwlars usesthe loop to comment on cinema'svisual realism,
Tbe Databank of tbe Euerydaysuggeststhat the loop can be a new narrative
form appropriate for the computer age.ln an ironic manifesto that parodies
their avant-gardeprecursorsfrom the earlier part ofthe century, Bookchin
reminds us that the loop gavebirth not only to cinema but also to comprrer
programming. Programming involves altering the linear flow of data
through control stmctures,suchas "iflchen"and "repeat/while";rhe loop is
the most elementaryof thesecontrol structures.Bookchin writes:

seemto be taking place all at once, a multitude ofseparate but coexisting

temporalities. The viewer is not cutting but reshuffling. In a reversalof

As digital mediareplaces
it is only logicalthat the com[ricJfilm andphotography,

Vertov's sequencewhere a loop generateda narrative, the viewer's attempt

puter program'sloop should replacephotography's

frozenmoment and cinema's

to create a story in Flora petrinsularis leads to a loop.

The loop that structuresFlorapetrinsularison a number of levels becomes

linearnarrative.TheDatabankchampions
theloopasa newformofdigital storytell-

a metaphor for human desirethat can neverachieveresolurion.It can be also

repetitions,haltedby a user'sselectionor a pov',ershortage.32

ing; thereis no true beginningor end,only a seriesofthe loopswith rheir endless

tfl

'!1

The computer program's loop makes its first "screenclebut" in one particularly effective image from The Databank of tbe Eueryday.The screenis

I.

divided into two frames,one showing a video loop of a woman shaving her
leg, the other a loop ofa compurer program in execution. Program statements repeating over and over mirror the woman's arm methodically
moving back and fonh. This image represenrsone of the first attempts in
computer art to apply a Brechtian strategy; rhat is, to show rhe mechanisms
by which the computer produces its illusions as a parr of the artwork.
Stripped of its usual inrerface,the computer turns our to be another version
of Ford's factory,with a loop as its conveyerbelt.
Like Boissier,Bookchin exploresalternativesro cinemaric montage,in
her casereplacing its traditional sequential mode with a spatial one. Ford's
assemblyline relied on rhe separarionof the production processinto a set

tnmbercier
Mademniselle
' :' "
,1?33

of repetitive, sequential, and simple activiries. The same principle made

computer programming possible:a compurer program breaks a task inte a
seriesof elemental operationsro be executedone ar a rime. Cinema followed
this principle aswell: ir replacedall orher modesof narration with a sequential narrative, an assemblyline ofshors that appear on rhe screenone at a
time. A sequentialnarrativerurned our to be particularly incompatible with
a spatializednarrative that played a prominent role in Europeanvisual culture for centuries.From Giottot frescocycle ar rhe ScrovegniChapel ( I 30t-

--r m]$vt n ' lSwhir I

.-0! lg
- - l st il* !'lrlllr 1tlt+ n ii rha
--' $i tlE vrluros{|d I to 5
- -' $i {ra yl*ltli f trritt {a $ tla
--landttla{l
--r rooaivlth
. ld/n b I
- - r st tl* vldbl rDrlt r to INI*
-.rtlLwlutr$uM
I i050
- -' st tl|t rlth o rDrik {? l0.1.
--r iltl vti n r I gittr if I
- - >st tl vidlc 0 tfrlt [ l0 lrl
'.r $l tt rl{n*orod I i 5}
- - l lGt lG vlsii'h o rtrlb 4e b .ls
-., trd

the repetitiveimage.
Flora petrnsulas:
andthe ZKM.
Boissier
Jean-Louis
The Databankof the Everyday:the loopas actionandas code.
of NatalieBookchin.
Courtesy

1306) in Padua to Gusrave Courbet's Bural at 1mans (1850), artists

presenteda multitude of separareevents(which sometimeswere even separatedby time) within a singlecomposition.In contrastto cinema'snarrarive,
hereall the "shots" were accessibleto a viewer at once.
Cinema haselaboratedcomplex techniquesof montage berweendifferent
images replacing each other in time, but rhe possibility of what can be
called "spatial montage" betweensimultaneouslycoexisting imagesvr'asnor
explored. TbeDatabankof tbeEuerydaybegins to explore this direction, thus
opening up again the tradition ofsparialized narrative suppressedby cinema. In one section we are presentedwith a sequenceof pairs of shom clips
of everydayactions that function as antonyms-for instance, opening and
closing a door, or pressingUp and Down buttons in an elevator.In another
section the user can choreographa number of miniature acrions appearing
in small windows positioned rhroughour rhe screen.

!L

to Kino'Brush
FromKino-Eye
Gonclusion:
a media
In the twentieth century, cinema has played two roles at once. s
dif6culty
The
reality'
visible
technology,its role was ro caprureand to store
gavecinema
of modifring imagesoncethey were recordedwas exactly what
of the 6lm
rigidity
The
its value as a document, assuring its authenticity.
is to
image has deflned the limirs of cinema as I defined it earlier-that
within
includes
it
say, rhe super-genreof live-action narrative. lthough
designitself a variety of styles-the result of the efforts of many directors,
resemblance'
family
a
strong
ers, and cinematographsl5-ths5s styles share
samThey are all children of the recording processthat useslenses,regular
machine
a
of
all
children
are
pling of time, and photographic media' They
vision.
Themutabilityofdigitaldataimpairsthevalueofcinemarecordingsas
cinedocuments of reality. In retrospect,we can seethat twentieth-century
rel
vis
recording
automarically
ma's regime of visual realism, the result of
visual
rcality,was only an exception, an isolated accident in the history of
the
involves'
again
now
representation, which has always involved, and
of
manual construction of images. Cinema becomesa particular branch
kino-brush'r3
a
but
painting-painting in time' No longer a kino-eye,
cinThe privileged role of the manual construction of images in digital
movingpre-cinematic
ema is one example of a Largertrend: the return of
of
images techniques. Marginalized by the twentieth-century institution
animation
of
realms
the
live-action narrative cinema that relegatedthem to
and special effects, these techniques reemerSeas the foundadon ofdigital
'w'hat
was supplemenral to cinema becomesits norm; what
filmmaking.
us the
was at its boundariescomesinto the center. Digital media return to
of the cinema.
repressed
A, th. examplesdiscussedin this essaysuggest,the directions that were
closed off at the turn of the century when cinema came to dominate
the modern moving-image culture, ate agait beginning to be explored'
is
Moving-image culture is being redefined once more; cinematic realism
option
being displaced from its dominant mode to become only one
among many.ta

l-t z

technology to cultute and rught, I would recommend

\lilliam M' Ivi
intsand Visaal Commuicatiox
as especially useful:

tion to occur in our century" (84). And ro move one srep farther back, I have to

the relation oinformation

thank my daughter Shoshana for having given me the Foster volume to read some

the following

years ago. lthough I had briefly touched upon collage and montage as an analogy

(NewYork: DaCapo,1969);Alvin Kenat,Pri

n Hypertext: The Conuergence

of ContemporaryCriticalTheory andTuhnologr (Baltimore:

soz(Princeton: Princeton University

Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), it was PierreJoris's CollageBetueen'Writing

ic
Galaxy: TheMaking of TYPograPb
and
OralitY
Ong,
Ialter J.
uen, 1982).

and Painting, s'hich

he posted on the discussion group Gchnoculture,

that

prompted me to produce the rwo webs from which this es./ay derives. I7ithout

LettertO SamwlJohnTechnology,
Marshall Mcluhan, T heG uenbetg

to: UniversityofTorontoPress,1962);
The Tecbnologizixgof the lYorl (London: Meth-

\illiam

S. Shipp, Norman Meyrowitz, and the ream thr

Intermedia at
$lvetoped
Brown University's now-closed Institute for"Research in |lrformation and Scholar-

ship, I would haveneverhad the opportunity to have

6nest hypertext and hypermediasystemthus far

with what remaios the

and withoutJ.

H. !7. Janson'
Janson(New York:
t.

David

Bolter,MichaelJoyce,John Smith, and Mark .

developers of Storyspace,

6.

distributed by EastgateSystems,I would not

the opportunity

Lanestedt

to have

Shelley

tems, I

2.

's

I have discussedthe 6rst vear of

Word: Text-Bated Compatng, George P. Lando{and

MA: MIT Press,

1993),pp.237-249.

of Vorld Art,3rd ed., rev.and enl. by Anthony F.

N. brams,1936),PP.6$-684.

existence in "Electronic Con-

Paul Delaney, eds. (Cambridge,

from many of the standardwrit3. The ideasof hypertext herepresentedr'erive

ings on the subiect, which readerscan frD in the bibliography of my Hypertext.I
wouldcite in particularVannevarBush'swritings on the memex,mostconveniently

is PatchuorAGii (1991) an The "In Manoriam" Veb' John

George P. Iandow, eds. (1992), are availablefrom EastgateSys-

above' Those by
Main St., W'atertown, M, as are othe webs discussed

(1995)' also
Marsh and JoshuaRappaport appear n Vriting at the Edge

Eastgate.
Is Digital Cinema?
and criticisms ofNatalie BookThis essayhas geatly benefrted from the suggestions
Chapter 9: Vhat

chin'PeterLuneneld,NormanKlein,andVivianSobchack.Ialsowouldliketo
on the connections between
acknowledge the pioneering work of Erkki Huhtamo
my own interest in this topic'
early cinema and digital media, which stimulated

baum, 1991); and Nicole Yankelovih, Norman Meyrowitz, and Andries van Dam,
'Reading
and $riting the E
Book," IEEE Comp*ter18 (Ocrober 1981):

"Casting from Forest Lawn (Future ofPerScott Billups, presentation during

'961'
Los
Symposium
ormers)" panel at "The rtists Rights Digital Technology
frgure
major
was
a
Billups
1996'
16'
February
Angeles, Directots Gld of merica,
by way of the merican Film
in bringing Hollywood and Silicon Valley together
Programs in the late 1980s
Instirute's pple Laboratory and Advanced Technologies
"The
New Hollywood silicon stars," wred )
and early 1990s. see Paula Parisi,

Lr-30.

(December 199

found in From Mtmex to Hypertext: Van*fuar Bub and tbe Minls

Nyce and Paul Kahn, eds. (Boston:

Maebine, James M.

ic Press,1991);TheodorH. Nelson,

CompzterLib/Drean Machnes (Seattle/ Microsoft Press, 1987); Jay David Bolter,

Vrtng Space:Tbe Comptterin tbe Hiltory of Lterucy(Hitlsdale, NJ: LawrenceErl-

{.
Those interested in the
pill want to consult Bolter's
ference Harpold,
:ext," in Hypet'media and

Cambridge,M: MIT
I PhilsopbicalStady of
IyperlText/Tbnry,
)ress,1994);and Ri
be Artt (Chicago:

ocontemporary

crigical theory and hypertext

my books cited in note 3, as well as the following:

Psychoanalytic Digressions on the Subject ofHyper-

1.

142-l4i'

202-2lo'

2...Super-genre',isatranslationoftheFtench'']r-genre.ChristianMetz,..The
Apparatas' Theresa
Fiction Film and Its Spectator: Metapsychological Study"'in
Hak Kyung Cha, ed. (New York: Tnam Press,1980): )7)409'

Studiu, Paul Delany and George P. Landow, eds.

199 1), pp. 103-1 18; Mich aelHeim, Elurie Langaage:

Procesing(New Haven: Yale Universiry Press,1987);
P. .andow, ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
A. Lanham, TheElqtronic Vord: Demoraey,Technology,
and
rsity ofCh.icago Press, 1994). For general issues involving

Notesto Pages
151-155

.,Cinema,asdefioedbyits.'super-genre''offictionallive-action6Im,belongsto
recordings ofreality as their
media arts, which, in contmst to traditional arts, rely on
"media arts," but Perhaps is more
basis. nother rerm rhar is not as popular as
seeJames Monaco' Hou to Read
term'
this
of
use
the
For
arts."
"recording
precise, is
1981)' p' 7'
Press,
University
(New
Oxford
York:
a Flm, rev.ed.

155-174
Notesto Pages

4.

Chatles{usser,TbeEmergence
of Cinana:TheAmericanScreen
to 1907 (Berkeley:
Universicyof CaliforniaPress,1990),pp.49-)0.
,.

I b i d . ,p . 2 ) .

6. C. !. Ceram,Archeology
of tbeCinema(New York: Harcourt, Brace& Iodd,
1965),pp.444J.
7.

The birth of cinemairi the 1890swasaccompanied

by an inrerestingrransformation:while the bodyasthe generatorof movingpicturesdisappeared,
it simultaneouslybecametheir new subiect.Indeed,oneofrhe key themesofthe earlyfilms
producedby dison.isa humanbody in motion: a man sneezing,the famousbodybuilder Sandowflexing his muscles,an athlete performing a somersaulr,a woman
dancing.Films of boxing matchesplayeda key role in the commercialdevelopment
of the Kinetoscope.SeeMusser,The Emergence
of Cinntz, pp.72-79; David Robinson, From PeepSbou to Palace:Tbe Brtb of Anerican Filz (New York: Columbia
llniversity Press,1996),pp. 448.
8.

Robinson,FromPeep
Shouto Palace,p. 12.

9. This arrangementwaspreviouslyusedin magic lanternprojections;it is describedin the secondeditionof lthanasiusKircher'sAn magna(1671).SeeMusser,

TbeEmagence
of Cintma,pp.2l-22.
10. Ceram,Arcbeology
of tteCinnna,p. 740.
11. Musser,TheEnergenceof
Cinena,p.78.
12. The extent of rhis lie is made clearby the 6lms of ndy \?'arholfrom the
6rst part of the 1960s-perhaps the only real attempt ro createcinemawithout
a language.
13. Ihaveborrowedthisde6nitionofrf,..i"leffectsfromDavidSamuelson,Morion
Pi ct*rc CameruTec
bxi qua (London: FocalPress,I 978).
14. The follow.ing examplesillustrate this disavowalof specialeffects;otherscan
be easilyfound. The 6rst exampleis from popular discourseon cinema. section
entitled "Making the Movies" in Kenneth Jf. Leish'sCnema(New York: Newsweek
Books, 1974) containsshort storiesfrom the history of the movie industry.The

Notesto Pages
176-178

heroesofthese storiesare actors,directors,and producers;specialeffectsartisrs are

mentionedonly once.
The secondexampleis from an academicsource:
JacquesAumonr, lain Bergara,
Michel Marie, and Marc vernet, in their Aeshetcs
of Film, uans. Richard Neupert
(ustin: University of TexasPress,1992), srarethat ,.the goa of our book is
to summarize from a synthetic and didacric perspecrivethe diverse theoretical
atremprsat examining theseempirical notions[terms from the lexiconof 6lm techniciansl,including ideaslike ramevs. shot,rermsfrom producion crews,vocabularies, the notion of identification producedby critical vocabulary etc.',(p. 7). The
fact that the text nevermenrionsspecial-effects
techniquesreflectsthe generallack
ofany historicalor theoreticalinterestin the topic by 6lm scholars.David Bordwell
and Kristin Thompson'sFiln Art: An Introdwion (4th ed.; New york: McGraw_
Hill, 199r, which is usedasa standardtextbook in undergraduate6lm classes,is a
little better: it devotes3 out ofits 500 pagesto specialeffects.
Finally,a relevantstatistic:universityofcalifornia,sanDiego'slibrary conrains
4,273 ritlescatalogedunderthe subject"motionpictures"and only 16 under'.special effectscinematography."
Two important works addressingthe largercultural signifrcanceofspecialeffects
by 6lm theoreticians,arevvian sobchack,,lcreaa
ingspace:TheAmerican
scinceFiction
Fln,2nd ed. (New York: Ungar, 1987);and ScottBukatman,..Thertificial In6nite," in Vinal Ditplay, Lynne Cooke and peter 'S'ollen,eds. (Seattle:Bay press,
1995).Norman Klein is working on a history of specialeffectsto be published
by Verso.
lJ. For a discussionof the subsumptiono[ the photographicto the graphic,see
PeterLunenfeld,"rt Post-History:Digital photography& Electronicsemiotics,"
in the catalog Photograpby
Aftn Pltotograplry:Mtmory and Repruetatilnn tlte Digital
ge,Hubertus von Amelunxen,StefanInglhaut, and Florian Rtzer,eds.(Sydney:
G*B rts, 1996), pp. 92-98.
16' For a completelist of peopleat ILM who worked on this 6lm, seesIGGRApH
'94Visul Proceedingt
(New York: CM SIGGRPH,1994),p. 19.
17. In this respec 1995 can be calledthe last yearofdigital media.t the r99)
National ssociationof Broadcasrers
convenrion,vid showeda working model of
a digital video camerathat recordsnor on a videocassette
but directly onto a hard
drive' once digital camerasbecomewidely used,we will no longer haveany reason
to talk aboutdigital mediabeca'sethe process
of digitizationwill be eliminated.

Notesto Pages178-180

18. Here is another,evenmoreradicaldefinition:digiral film = f(x,y,t).This de6nition would begreetedwith joy by the proponentsofabstractanimation.Sincethe
computer breaksdown everyframe into pixels, a complete6lm can be deGnedasa
fi:nctionthat, giventhe horizontal,vertical,and time locationofeachpixel,returns
its color.This is actuallyhow a computer representsa 6lm, a representationthat has
a surprising affinity with certain well-known practicesin the avant-gardevision of
cinema! For a computer, a lm is an abstract rrangementof colors and sounds
changingin time, ratherthansomethingstructuedby "shots,""narrative,""actors,"
and soon.
Voily'v.
19. SeeBarbaraRobertson,"Digital Magic:Apollo l)," ConputerGralbct
18,no.8 (Augustl)95):2;0.
20. Villiam J. Mitchell, Tbe ReconfgurdEye:Visual Trath in tbePost-photograpbic
Era(Cambdge,MA: MIT Press,1992),p. 7.
21. The full advantage
of mappingtime into 2D space,alreadypresentin Edison's
first cinema apparatus,is now realized:one can modifr eventsin time by literally
painting on a sequence
offrames,treatingthem asa singleimage.

I explore the notion that the avant-garde anticipated digitar aesthetics in my

work, Tlte Engineering of Vilion fron Clnt*rcrairm to Virtaal Realty (Austin: The
university ofTexas Press, forthcoming); here I would like to bring up one point
particularly relevanr for this essay.shen the avant-garde filmmakers collaged
multiple images within a single frame, or painted and scratched 6lm, or revolted against
the indexical identity of cinema in other ways, they were working againsr "normal"
filmmaking procedures and the intended uses o 6lm technology. Film stock, for
example, wrs not designed to be painted on. Thus, they operated on the periphery
of commercial cinema not only aesthetically but also technically.
one general effect of the digital revolution is that avanr-garde aesthetic srrategies became embedded in the commands and interface metaphors of computer software. In short, tbe aaant-garde becamematerialzcd in a clmprlter. Digital cinema
technology is a casein point. The avant-garde strategy ofcollage reemerged as a "cut
and paste" command, the most basic operation one can perform on digital data. The
idea ofpainting on 6lm became embedded in painr firncrions offilm-editing software' The avant-garde move to combine animation, printed texts, and live-action
footage is repeated in the convergence ofanimarion, title generation, pa.int, compositing, and editing systems into single all-in-one packages.Finally, another move ro

22. SeeRobinson,Fron Peep

Sbowto Palace,p. 165.

combine a number of 6lm images within one frame (for instance, in r*ger's L924
Balht Mitbaniqre or in Vertov's 1929 A Man uith a Mwie Camaa) also become
legitimized by technology, since all editing software, including photoshop, pre-

23. See"IndustrialLight & Magic Alters History with MTDOR," promotion

material by ParallaxSoftware,SIGGRAPH 95 Conference,Los Angeles,August

miere, Ater Effects, Flame, and cineon, by default assumesthat a digitat image
consists of a number of separate image layers. ll in all, what used to be exceptions
for traditional cinema became the normal, intended techniques of digital 6lmmak-

1995.

ing, embedded in technology design itself.

24. The readerwho followedmy analysisof the new possibilitiesof digital cinema
the parallelsbetweendigital cinemaand the premay wonderwhy I havestressed
cinematicrechniquesof the nineteenthcentury but did not mention twentiethcentury avant-gatde6lmmaking. Did not the avant-garde6lmmakersexplotemany
ofthesenewpossibilities?
To takethe notion ofcinemaaspainting,Len Lye,oneof
the pioneersofabstractanimation,waspaintingdirectlyon frlm asearlyas1915;he
was followed by Norman Mclaren and Stan Brackage, the latter extensively

For the experiments in painting on film by Lye, Mclaren, and Brackage, see
Robert Russett and cecile starc, Expdmental Aninurion (New york: van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1976), pp. 6t-71, tt7-t28;
and p. Adams SitneS Visionary Filn, 2nd
ed. (Oxford: Oxford Universiry Press),pp. 130, 136-227.
25. Paula Parisi reported: " decade ago, only an intrepid few, led by George Lucas'sIndustrial Light and Magic, were doing high-quality digital work. Now computer imaging is consideredan indispensableproduction rool for all films, from the

coveringshot lootagewith dots,scratches,

splatteredpaint, smears,and linesin an
painting.More
attempt to turn his films into equivalentsof bstractExpressionst
generally,oneof the major impulsesin all of avant-gardefilmmaking, from Legerto

smallest drama to the largesr visual extravaganza." parisi, ,,The Neq, Hollvwood
Silicon Stars,"p. 144.

Godard,wasto combinethe cinematic,the painterly,and the graphic-by using

live-actionfootageand animationwithin one 6lm or evena singleframe,by altering this footagein a varietyof ways,or by juxtaposingprinted texts and 6lmed

26. Thereore, one way in which the fantastic is justified in contemporary Hollywood cinema is through the.introduction of var.iousnonhuman characterssuch as
aliens, mutants, and robots. \7e never notice the pure arbitrariness oftheir colorful

images.

and mutating bodies, the beamsof energy emanating from their eyes,the whirlpools

Notesto Pages180-183

Notesto Page1 8 3

Eil

ofpatticles spinning from theit wings, becausethey are madeperceptuallyconsistent with the set,that is, they look like somerhingthat could haveexistedin a threedimensionalspaceand thereforecould havebeenphotographed.
27. Metz, "The Fiction Film and Its Spectator."
28. This twenty-eight-minute 6lm, madein 1962, is composedof still framesnarrativized in time, with one very brief live-action sequence.For documentarion,see
Chris Market, I^aJetz: Cn-roman(New York: Zone Books, 1992).
29. ThomasS. Kuhn,Tbe Strxctttre
ofSciextifuRewlations,2nd ed.(Chicago:University ofChicagoPress,1970).
30. Florapetrinstlarjr is included in the compilation CD-ROM, ftintac, 1 (K^ilsrune, Germany:ZKMlCenter for Art and Media, 1994).
31. StevenNeile, Cinemaand Tubnolop (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1981),p.)2.
artist'sstatement(1996), pub32. Natalie Bookchin, TheDatabankof theEaeryday,
lished by the author. Although I was the videographeron this project, I feet that
Bookchin'spiece is so fully esonantwith the aguments I make here that I am
willing to acceptthe risk of commentingon it at length.
33. It wasDziga Vertovwho coinedthe term "kino-eye"in the lp20s to describe
the cinematicapparatus'sability "to recordand organizethe individual characteristics of life's phenomenainto a whole, an essence,a conclusion."For Vertov, it was
the presentationof 6lm "facts," basedas they were on materialist evidence,rhat
defined the very nature of the cinema. SeeKno-Eye:Tbe'Vrtng of Dziga Vertn,
nnette Michelson,ed., Kevin O'Brien, trans.(Berkeley:Universityof California
Press,1984).The quotationis from "rtistic DramaandKino-Eye"(originallypubr
lishedin 1924),p.47.
34. This is the third in a series of essayson digital cinema. See "Cinema and Digital
Media," in Pa:pektiaen der MedienznstlPerspatiaa of Mdia
Hans Peter Schwarz, eds. (Cantz Verlag Ostfildern,1996);

Art, Jeffrey Shav and

and "To Lie and to ct:

Potemkins Villages, Cinema and Telepresence)' in Mythos laformation-'V'elcome to

tbe lVird

Vorld. Ars Elutmnica 95, by Ka Gebel and Peter W'eibel, eds. (Venna:

Springler-Verlag,

1995), pp. )43-348.

See also Erkki

Huhtamo,

"Encapsulated

Bodies in Motion: Simulators and the Quest for Total Immersion," in Critical lssues
in Ehctronc Media, Simon Penny, ed. (Albany: STINY Press, 1991), pp. lt9-186.

Notesto Pages183-192