Professor Peter Haratonik
Understanding Media studies
November 16, 2009
Introduction: History into Expanded Cinema
The focus of this paper is to research what has digital technology in film helped to already enhance and where is it going in the future? This discussion lead to the film genre known as Expanded Cinema. Expanded Cinema artists are at the cutting edge in digital technologies, including artificial intelligence, color and mastering abstraction. This genre of experimental film was initially a reaction against mainstream narrative film. Where this genre has been and is going will be discussed. Further research needs to be done with the use of two defining books on the topic, Cinema in the Digital Age, and Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema, which will both be reviewed and added to this literature review shortly.
Expanded Cinema:
The notion of Expanded Cinema began in the mid 1960’s, which was a reaction to the new digital media technologies of the day. Artists such as John and Jay Whitney and Frank Stella were influential in the development of redefining how we watch film. Expanded Cinema was a movement in the art community to explore interdisciplinary media unions, and to challenge the constraints of existing art discussions. Expanded Cinema opened up the art of cinema and created a sub-genre of Experimental Film (Grice 273). The overwhelming majority of artistes who started experimenting with digital film, had a visual arts background, namely sculpture or painting. Many artists, such a Peter Gidal, turned to Expanded Cinema and developed theoretical viewpoints that were clearly in opposition to mainstream narrative film. Theses viewpoints took a more modernist art approach than a film theory approach (Grice 267). Although Expanded Cinema is still considered in the avant-garde realm, and thus usually only shown in art galleries and other art spaces, analyzing early Expanded Cinema using a film theory approach could be beneficial.
Gene Youngblood, in his book, Expanded Cinema, defined Expanded Cinema as an exploration of new techniques and technologies in the broad field of experiment with image and sound (5). He recognizes the radical influence of an artist like Stan Brakhage, who made very few technological innovations in film, but was innovative in that he used existing technology and used it in an innovative way. In the wake of digital systems, artists began using the opportunities offered with digital technologies (Grice 260). Malcolm Le Grice states, “The greatest difficulty posed by digital media is the idea of basing an artistic language on the ‘material’ conditions of a new medium- the notions of media specificity”. This statement harks back to Marshall McLuhan infamous proclamation, “The medium is the message”. However, is Grice stating that because a new medium is still developing that one should not prematurely create an artistic language for the material?
The other conflicting definition of Expanded Cinema is a European interpretation , and is characterized by a concern to bring the cinematic experience into the space of the spectator through performed action and installation (Grice 319). This type of platform thus requires a certain amount of interactivity between audience and medium that is inherently lost in mainstream narrative cinema. This interactivity is explored through the visage of the Internet, video, and the space of virtual reality. More and more film is relying on computer based technologies to assist in production processes, including editing. Computer based technologies and cinema are also connecting via virtuality. Here, the Internet is seen as a new and expanding medium for artists to work in and to connect with other forms, of media, including film. The active interplay between artist, work, and user, shifting the work closer to the user’s life experience, is consistent with one major aspect of Expanded Cinema.
Immersive Cinematic Environments
Christiane Paul, in her article Expanding Cinema: The Moving Image in Digital Art summarizes a wide-range of new formats of Expanded Cinema. The first use of digital technologies in Expanded Cinema, is with immersive cinematic environments. Artists create a space where the audience can participate in a virtual environment that is not unlike film. This is unlike interactive narrative cinema, because you create the meaning and the story though your interaction with the moving image. Paul gives the example of Michael Naimarks’s installation Be Here Now. Be Here Now consisted of a projection screen and rotating floor, where the audience views the images (136). The viewer is surrounded by images of UNESCO World Heritage sites, while wearing 3-D glasses. Users then choose time and place by means of an input interface on a pedestal (Paul 136). Through the interactivity and immersion of the digital, 3-D, moving images, Naimark creates a piece that combines, “expanded representation with traditional notions of landscape photography as well as non-narrative cultural activism” (Paul, 137).
Interactive Narrative Cinema
Contrasted with immersive digital space, Interactive narrative cinema, allows the audience to influence the story that is being shown. Considered to be the very first interactive film, Kinoatomat. was conceived by Radúz Činčera for the Czechoslovak Pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal. During the film, the action stops, and a moderator appears on stage to ask the audience to choose between two scenes; following an audience vote, the chosen scene is played (Wikipedia).
The challenge with this type of medium is that visuals tend to characterize the story more than the text (Paul, p. 138). One of the many issues that arise in Interactive Narrative Cinema is the relationship from film viewer and observer to participant and interactor. In Nitzan Ben Shawl’s book, Hyper Narrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions, he outlines three major problems in designing substantial and engaging interactive cinema. First, there is the interactor as film protagonist fallacy. This has to do with an identification issue, where the interactor is so immersed with the medium that they are living vicariously though the protagonist character (39-40). Secondly, the presumption that an audience member’s cognitive activity is a seamless transition from observer to interactor can is an issue that should be researched further. And lastly, the third presumption is that the computer game’s interactivity can be fused with hyper-narrative (Shawl, 60). The idea is that the visualization of the text is subject to a more diverse interpretation than the actual text, which goes back to Christiane Paul’s viewpoint.
Database Cinema
Further discussion of Expanded Cinema leads to the evolving field of Database Cinema. In this type of cinema, media elements are selected from a large database to construct a potentially unlimited number of different narrative films, or different versions of the same film (Paul 139). One of the principal features defining traditional cinema is a fixed and linear narrative structure. In Database Cinema however, the story develops by selecting scenes from a given collection. Non-linearity and interactivity are two of the defining concepts of the new digital experimental film. Grice in his article, A Non-Linear Tradition- Experimental Film and Digital Cinema, described some concerns over the current hype in using non-linear formats in digital cinema. Grice asks if linearity is synonymous with narrative and if there are forms of sequential structure, which are linear but not narrative. These are some of the conceptual dilemmas that new media artists within this field face. However, many artists are finding great success with the interplay between database cinema, linearity, and other media.
Lev Manovich, is considered one of the definitive artists in within Database Cinema. Manovich states four criteria to define Soft Cinema in his research:
“1. Following the standard convention of the human-computer interface, the display area is always divided into multiple frames.
2. Using a set of rules defined by the authors, the Soft Cinema software controls both the layout of the screen (number and position of frames) and the sequences of media elements that appear in these frames.
3. The media elements (video clips, sound, still images, text, etc.) are selected from a large database to construct a potentially unlimited number of different films.
4. In Soft Cinema ‘films’ video is used as only one type of representation among others: motion graphics, 3D animations, diagrams, ect.” (Lev Manovich: Soft Cinema).
Soft Cinema, which began in 2002, uses custom-made software to edit films in real time on the directions of given by the authors and their software (Soft Cinema). Along with Soft Cinema, another key piece within this field was the film project Short Film About Flying 2003, which is an installation and film in which an open edition of unique cinematic works are automatically generated in the gallery, and in real-time from existing live data found on the world-wide web. The imagery used was from a commercial website that allowed users to control the camera at an airport, thus making the web-users cinematographers (Paul 140). These pieces are in stark contrast to linear film and can often be seen as an opposing new media to interactive narrative film.
3D and Video Games
The last form discussed in Paul’s “Expanding Cinema” is the ever-growing world of 3D and video games. Paul states that “the most radical change that the digital medium has brought about for the ‘moving image’ can be traced in entirely computer generated 3D worlds that can be created on the fly and occasionally incorporate artificial intelligence as a new narrative element” (140-141). In gaming, the narrative rules of cinema, can now be made more realistic and transferred into a real-time animated world. The story arcs that are used in cinema, are often made into a video game and vise versa, precisely because of the fact that these gaming worlds can now look more like the cinema world, due to the digital medium (Hanson 55).
The similarities between the new gaming world, and other 3d environments to the cinema is usually expressed in relation to the narrative plot and the relationship between interactor and game. In the book The End of Celluloid: Film Futures in the Digital Age, a description of the elements that make a game more cinematic our outlined. First, a game is considered to be cinematically authentic when they contain manipulability within the confines of the character and his movement between places, but are guided through a the game-world to set off occurrences that help to move the story along (56) . The use of a narrative sequence, again, is not consequential in having linearity within the gaming worlds. A great amount of connected and disconnected plotlines can weave throughout the game all at once.
What the gaming world lacks certain cinematic elements, being mostly character development and the use of cuts, jumps, flashbacks, and montages (Paul 141). However, this is becoming more common as digital technology and artificial intelligence become more advanced. Also an extensive amount of dialogue is usually not employed. However, like the use of jumps, cut, ect., the interaction between user and video game character are becoming more linked. Christiane Paul notes that the use of more complex narrative forms that are more commonly seen in films and literature require further professional, academic, and artistic investigation.
Role of Audience
As already discussed, one of the major contributions that digital, Expanded Cinema has provided is its alteration of the audience’s perspective. In some cases of Expanded Cinema, to call a person an audience member would be incorrect. Participant, avatar, interactor, gamer, observer, are all titles that show the shift in function based on the alteration of the medium of cinema. To understand a person’s relationship in Expanded Cinema, is to understand the very function of the film. Expanded Cinema has the potential to change the relationship between audience member and film to something wholly different. Artists that are working with Expanded Cinema, are fighting the idea that the audience must be sitting and receiving work. Thus the goal for Expanded Cinema is to have the audience engage with it. This could be done by “making the mechanisms of cinema visible, or just making a person think about the relationship between the screen and the observer” (Tate Live: Expanded Cinema). This fundamental concept is what is guiding the technology in digital Expanded Cinema. But, with this notion as audience member to participant, comes a need for more advanced technology. What re the techniques that have been used and will be used to advance this type of digital cinema?
Conclusion
Expanded cinema is just that; expanding the cinema and breaking its normative, mainstream hold. More works of Expanded Cinema need to be reviewed in order for this literature review to be complete. Christiane Paul, in Expanding Cinema: The Moving Image in Digital Art, has provided and excellent overview of the different sub-genres within Expanded Cinema, and key works from emerging and established artists. Digital technology has also helped to contribute to expanding Expanded Cinema, and being able to blur lines between narrative and non-narrative, video game and film, reality and virtual reality, and linearity versus non-linearity. These concepts should be further explored both in the production aspects of the cinema as well as academically.
Works Cited
"Database cinema." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Web. 16 Nov. 2009.
Expanding Cinema: The Moving Image in Digital Art in Stuart Comer (ed.), Film and Video Art (Tate Publishing: London, UK, 2009)
Grice, Malcolm Le. Experimental cinema in the digital age. London: BFI Pub., 2001. Print.
Hanson, Matt. End of Celluloid Film Futures in the Digital Age. Switzerland: Rotovision, 2004. Print.
Jeffrey Shaw a user's manual, from expanded cinema to virtual reality = Jeffrey Shaw : eine Gebrauchsanweisung, vom expanded Cinema zur virtuellen Realität. Ostfildern: Cantz, 1997. Print.
Lev Manovich: Soft Cinema. Web. 16 Nov. 2009.
Marchessault, Janine. Fluid Screens, Expanded Cinema (Digital Futures). New York: University of Toronto, 2007. Print.
Rombes, Nicholas. Cinema in the Digital Age. London: Wallflower, 2009. Print.
Shaul, Nitzan Ben. Hyper-Narrative Interactive Cinema: Problems and Solutions. New York: Rodopi, 2008. Print.
Soft cinema : navigating the database. Dir. Lev Manovich and Andreas Kratky. MIT Press, 2005. DVD.
Tate Live: Expanded Cinema. Tate Channel. Tate, 14 Apr. 2009. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.
Willis, Holly. New Digital Cinema Reinventing the Moving Image (Short Cuts). New York: Wallflower, 2005. Print.
Youngblood, Gene. Expanded cinema. New York: Dutton, 1970. Print.
