of cinema, makes film a unique and different medium from Virtual Reality,
although both mediums are naturally complementary. Certainly, the
relationship of the spectator to the film in the ‘pre-interactive era of cinema’
is a very special one and, in spite of the awareness of the audiences about
the unreality of the stimuli, the film has the ability to maintain the
spectator’s empathy in direct connection with the content. Cinema and
Virtual Reality will coexist and mutually reinforce one another in the future.
There will no doubt soon be an effective and satisfactory fusion of both
elements, but the end of cinema has not yet arrived. In fact, cinema has
always, and will always, change in form and content. Technology is helping to
develop this new stage of the cinematic image but it has not suppressed the
cinematic notion: it merely introduces new and interesting ways of
expression.
2. 5. Technology and/in Cinema
Generally we may see image technologies as still being ‘in
touch’ with reality. But they may also be mobilised as
intoxicating and narcotic distraction or defences against the
vicissitudes of reality. And, at their most extreme, they may
be used to construct alternative and compensatory realities
(Robins, 1996: 123).
As this thesis has described thus far, throughout the history of
humankind art has always found new ways of creating the impression of
(un)reality. From its origins, cinema, in particular, has always been an art of
illusion and paradoxically an art that is committed to the discourse of reality.
Thus, the reality of film is a reproduced and/or simulated reality. The aim of
cinematic techniques can therefore be summarized as the recreation of
reality and/or the fascination of the spectator. There are two different yet
common aspects regarding technology in cinema. Firstly, audiences generally
observe the action from a designated point of view that reproduces our eyes:
the camera. Secondly, they observe the place where they physically perceive
the action: the screen. Therefore, our perception is guided twice in a certain
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