From: Mitsu Hadeishi (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Mar 06 2006 - 06:18:55 PST
Actually several people have mentioned the social aspect of cinema, but it's
not clear to me this will go away as the result of digital. I put on
screenings regularly and people come to see new experimental work, and it's
fun, it's like a party, and it opens people's minds about what is out there
and what is possible. Most people don't have the equipment or the
wherewithal to put on a screening at the appropriate quality level.
In any event, setting up a dark room for a "VIDEO" screening: one does this
for the same reason you set up a dark room for a "FILM" screening, because it
looks better that way. There's nothing magical about a video projector that
changes the fact that you want to project in a darkened room ... ?
M
On Monday 06 March 2006 07:00, Klaus W. Eisenlohr wrote:
> >It's going to be interesting to see what cinemas will
> >be like in the future, I guess they won't even be
> >cinemas like we know them now, what with live events
> >and everything. It's when I think of things like that
> >that sometimes I think I'd like to take a peek in the
> >future and see what it is like. Good or bad, you know,
> >just out of curiosity, whereas usually I have the good
> >sense to not want to know! ;)
> >
> >love
> >
> >Freya
>
> I think nobody mentioned so far, that film is
> also a special SOCIAL experience. You sit in a
> dark room with certain people to share an
> experience with your senses and your intellect,
> which is unique to other media. Digital media
> does not need that space, and it mostly feels odd
> to sit in a dark, calm space to watch video. Why
> not go out, fetch a coffee and a snack and come
> back, why not rewind a bit if you missed
> something while talking to your neighbour? What I
> mean is, video and other digital media has a
> different social mind-set, and it might be that
> setting up a dark room for a VIDEO screening
> really is the nostalgic setting that some people
> are talking about, here. (Setting up a "home
> theatre" like it is now being promoted in all the
> media departments of department stores picks up
> on the same nostalgia, I feel).
>
> On the other hand, the recent spread of the
> microcinema idea really derives from the special
> social experience people can have by watching
> film and video. What is interesting in this
> regard is, that the idea of microcinema includes
> both film and video: here, this old(fashioned)
> fight seems to be forgotten.
>
> What comes to my mind as a parallel is that it
> was DJs who sticked to these odd, old fashioned
> black discs and who made the music industry still
> producing LPs, and not the people who claimed
> that the sound quality of the old medium is much
> better than the compressed music on CD.
>
> However, what we should not forget about is, that
> culture is always about exclusion (excluding
> other ideas, people, social groups or religions).
> Especially the idea of avant-garde is an idea of
> exclusion and receives a lot of its impetus
> through the idea of having "better ideas" (than
> the mainstream, the old guys... whatsoever). (One
> of the reasons I feel odd about the American term
> "avant-garde film", which had its exclusive hype
> quite some time ago). Moreover, I feel that today
> no group in the arts is more trying to protect
> their exclusive rights and position than the
> "digital community" and from their point of view
> there is nothing more nostalgic than a screening.
> (Which is funny in the sense that that discussion
> was already going on in the 70's. And in certain
> ways, the new hype of expanded media isn't it a
> nostalgic idea?)
>
> Best wishes from Berlin
> Klaus
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