Films by themselves are curious artifacts that take advantage of the
psychological characteristics of humans. Imagination connects the fiction and
reality of the films, and all the technology used, artifacts and creative work
of the crew just push in the same direction: to either make the film
realistically fantastic or fantastically realistic. The most efficient techniques
in cinema are those that are not easily noticeable by the spectator; those
that, after watching a film, audiences need an explanation about to realize
that what they have perceived was not real. Films like Jurassic Park
(Spielberg, 1993) perfectly represent this repercussion because its innovative
visual techniques, specifically the accuracy in the reproduction of dinosaurs,
meant that when it was released the spectators felt a confusion about what
they saw in the film. In this sense, the social habits, the education of our
perception plays an important role in the acceptance of cinematic innovation
in audiences. We learn to watch and understand films and their technology
precisely by watching films.
As mentioned previously, cinema, together with videogames, is
currently fulfilling some of the functions that in the history of humankind
have been met by storytelling: films provide a system of symbols, myths and
feelings that unite groups of people who share the same experiences and
anxieties about the future. Paradoxically, cinema, invented by humans, is in
some ways reinventing humanity with its storytelling abilities. Cinema is in
the epicentre of current technological development; visual technologies and
the ‘technological ideology’ of today meet in cinema. Today we find a cinema
with an ever increasing perfection, expressed in its ‘veracity’ and the
pretension to be real, the immediate, the unsignified. Cinema is fascinated
by itself as we are fascinated by its ability to create unrealities. Cinema
becomes ‘more cinema than cinema as images become more real than the
real’ (Baudrillard, 1987b: 33).
Cinema is thus a key, fluid and influenceable element that connects art
and technology. McLuhan observes that ‘the artist is the person who invents
the means to bridge between biological inheritance and the environment
created by technological innovation’ (McLuhan, 1992: 98). The artist, the
filmmaker in this case, then, is not only someone who uses technology, but
- 67 -
More intriguing information
1. A Hybrid Neural Network and Virtual Reality System for Spatial Language Processing2. HACCP AND MEAT AND POULTRY INSPECTION
3. The Social Context as a Determinant of Teacher Motivational Strategies in Physical Education
4. Disentangling the Sources of Pro-social Behavior in the Workplace: A Field Experiment
5. The name is absent
6. The name is absent
7. The purpose of this paper is to report on the 2008 inaugural Equal Opportunities Conference held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich
8. The name is absent
9. THE ECONOMICS OF COMPETITION IN HEALTH INSURANCE- THE IRISH CASE STUDY.
10. The Triangular Relationship between the Commission, NRAs and National Courts Revisited