It Is Time to Embrace Those Great Opportunities — The Future of Cinema and Cinema Studies (original) (raw)
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WITHIN the variegated domain of media studies, convergence seems to be one of the buzzwords of the day. Forms that were previously discrete entities merge into new constellations, in the process uprooting the entire ecosystem of the media. Business conglomerates merge, on the cultural horizon new technologies continuously emerge, and the different artistic practices flow seamlessly into each other to produce works that are thoroughly hybrid and transaesthetic. The landscape of the arts and the media already looks radically different from what it did less than a decade ago. Coinciding with all these changes is another and-in Europe, at least-perhaps less heralded kind of convergence, which is first and foremost institutional and disciplinary in nature. This is the relatively recent appearance of the field of visual studies, also sometimes referred to as visual culture or visual culture studies, a budding but still very much contested amalgamation of art history, film studies, anthropology, feminism, and cultural studies whose provenance dates back to the early 1990s and the interdisciplinary experiments that were undertaken at some American universities at the time. Currently there are signs that visual studies programs are being introduced across European institutions as well, typically nested within media studies or art history departments. The question that I would like to delve into in this paper is this: what will become of cinema in an age of not only aesthetic but also disciplinary convergence? Is the discipline we all know as cinema studies going to be integrated as part of a new mother discipline known as visual studies, or perhaps a general Bildwissenschaft in Horst Bredekamp's sense? Or, given the efflorescent rise of computer games and other new media among the younger generations, will cinema take its place alongside art history as an archaeological and mostly obsolescent medium, presided over by curators and archivists only? What are the challenges vis-à-vis teaching cinema studies in the context of a broader history of visuality? When film has become something that is available to us in a multitude of formats, does this spell the final parting of the ways of film and cinema? Is the particular sensibility known as cinephilia compatible with the notion of watching movies on your mobile phone? Finally, what are the prospects for film theory in this new era of digital convergence and visual studies?
Since the 1970s, movies have become increasingly dependent on digital technologies. This course explores a range of issues related to the digitization of cinema's production, distribution, and exhibition, including the cultural contexts and aesthetic practices surrounding these technological shifts as well as their experiential and political dimensions. In particular, we will explore such topics as digital cinematography's relation to cinematic realism, emerging trends in editing practices, the political implications of digital special effects, the representation of social media and digital devices in recent films, and the ways that other digital media influence cinematic techniques. Course Standards This course is a 4-credit course, which means that in addition to scheduled discussions, students are expected to do at least 9.5 hours of course-related work or activity each week during the semester. This includes scheduled class lecture/ discussion meeting times as well as time spent completing assigned readings, watching films and video lectures, studying for tests and examinations, preparing written assignments, and other course-related tasks. Readings: All readings are available via Blackboard.
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