digitally (re)created, was (un)naturally filtered. The consequence of the
introduction of a different kind of technological image produced in the
spectators ‘an ontological uncertainty about the status of the real, creating a
considerable anxiety’ (Niedeffer, 2005: 3). Indeed, sophisticated new
technologies often tend to provoke skepticism and naïve speculations about
their ability to be manipulated, and this is what we are experiencing today
with digital imagery and Virtual Reality. It is, in fact, the same process that
we experienced more than a century ago with the introduction and spread of
cinematic technology, a phenomenon that will be examined in the next
chapter. Paradoxically, this ‘fear’ of the appearance of new visual formats
contrasts with the social belief in technological progress.
Nowadays, aesthetic elements assume an important relevance in our
culture through the use of technology and so displace ideology to a hidden
but equally influential position. In fact, the ideology of the digital and
interactive era is ‘economic control’ of the audiences through technology and
spectacle. Consequently, and to be discussed later in this thesis, digital and
interactive visual technologies redefine the concept of cinema. Indeed, in
digital video or images in real time, interactivity means that there are no
antecedents in the secession of images: what we see is what it is. The
spectacle in front of our eyes does not require a deep understanding of what
we perceive; there is no mystery, no history, in the gaze of the object.
Baudrillard accounts for the success of this cinema of ‘immediacy’ and
fascination in the lack of interest in the ‘definition or richness of imagination
in these images: we look for giddiness of their superficiality, for the artifice
of the detail, the intimacy of their technique. What we truly desire is their
technical artificiality and nothing more’ (Baudrillard, 1988: 43-44).
A collateral consequence of the development of new visual technology
and its abilities is the presumption that old films, especially SF films of the
pre-digital era, are no longer very convincing and are observed with
incredulity by audiences. Yet this is refuted by the fact that films such as Star
Wars (Episodes IV, V and VI) have been digitally remastered to update the
impact of the special effects. The original astonished reaction of the
audience to the technology of films of the pre-digital era has given way today
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