Expanded Cinema
Encyclopedia
Expanded Cinema by Gene Youngblood
(1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts. In the book he argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness. He describes various types of filmmaking utilising new technology, including film special effects, computer art
, video art
, multi-media environments and holography
.
of the Paleocybernetic Age will change fundamental concepts such as intelligence, morality, creativity and the family (pp50–53). The Intermedia
network of the mass media is contemporary man's environment, replacing nature. He uses recent scientific research into cellular memory
and inherited memory to support his claim that this network conditions human experience. The Noosphere
(a term Youngblood borrows from Teilhard de Chardin) is the organising intelligence of the planet - the minds of its inhabitants. "Distributed around the globe by the intermedia network, it becomes a new technology that may prove to be one of the most powerful tools in man's history" (p57). He defends the universality of art against the localism of entertainment:
This is what forces cinema to expand and become more complex. Mass media entertainment dulls people's minds. It is a closed, entropic system, adding nothing new. (pp59–65) Entertainment dwells on the past. We live in future shock so art should be an invention of a future (pp66–69). New systems need to be designed for old information. The artist is a design scientist.
synthesis of opposites which are simultaneously perceived. He then goes on to draw a distinction between the syncretic montage of Pudovkin
and the Eisenstein
's montage of collision (pp84–86). He prefers metamorphosis to cuts (p86). Film-makers that Youngblood think embody this synaesthetic syncretism include: Stan Brakhage
(p87), Will Hindle
, Patrick O'Neill, John Schofill and Ronald Nameth. Film-makers that present ideas of polymorphous
eroticism, the blurring of sexual boundaries, include Andy Warhol
and Carolee Schneemann
(pp112–121). Michael Snow
's Wavelength
is also an example of synaesthetic cinema's extra-objective reality (pp122–127). At the end of the second part of the book Youngblood writes about the rebirth of the cottage industry in the post-mass-audience age. Video tapes can be exchanged freely, films are becoming more personal, specialisations are ending (p128-134).
to explore the "electronic age existentialism
" (pp139–150). He examines Douglas Trumbull
's use of mechanical processes to create the Stargate sequence (pp151–156) and describes the work of Jordan Belson
as an example of cosmic cinema (pp157–177).
and that in the future super-computers will design ever more advanced computers (pp185–188). His vision of the future is the Aesthetic Machine: "Aesthetic application of technology is the only means of achieving new consciousness to match our environment" (p189). Creativity will be shared between man and machine. He points to the links between computer art
and Conceptualism
, and the growing theoretical basis of art. In his exploration of Cybernetic Cinema he gives an account of early experiments using computers to draw and make films. He bemoans the fact that at the time of writing no computer has the power to generate real-time images and that computer art has to be made off-line
. He does, though, foresee a future in which location shooting will become obsolete as all locations will be able to be simulated with computers. (pp194–2006). Examples of film-makers using computers, referred to by Youngblood, include: John Whitney
, James Whitney
, Michael Whitney, John Stehura, Stan VanDerBeek
and Peter Kamnitzer (pp207–256).
by 1978 (pp260–264). He does acknowledge, however, that data retrieval is more complicated than data recording. The various processes involved in video synthesicing
are described: de-beaming, keying, chroma-keying
, feedback
, mixing, switching and editing
(p265-280). The work of Loren Sears is neuroeasthetic
because it treats television as an extension of the central nervous system (pp291–295). The curator James Newman
moved from a traditional gallery to a conceptual gallery with his joint project with KQED-TV, commissioning television work from Terry Riley
, Yvonne Rainer
, Frank Zappa
, Andy Warhol
, The Living Theater, Robert Frank
and Walter De Maria
(pp292–293). Nam June Paik
has worked creatively with television (pp302–308). Les Levine exploits the potential of closed-circuit television
(pp337–344).
's large-scale projections at Expo 67
and Expo '70
pp352–358), and the Cerebrum, an art/nightclub environment. Artists such as Carolee Schneemann
and Robert Whitman
combine film projection with live performance (pp366–371). Wolf Vostell
incorporates video experiments into environmental contexts (p383). Light shows are used in concerts and multiple projectors and videoscreens create complex environments.
.
Gene Youngblood
Gene Youngblood is a theorist of media arts and politics, and a respected scholar in the history and theory of alternative cinemas. His Expanded Cinema , the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts as a recognized artistic and scholarly...
(1970), the first book to consider video as an art form, was influential in establishing the field of media arts. In the book he argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness. He describes various types of filmmaking utilising new technology, including film special effects, computer art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
, video art
Video art
Video art is a type of art which relies on moving pictures and comprises video and/or audio data. . Video art came into existence during the 1960s and 1970s, is still widely practiced and has given rise to the widespread use of video installations...
, multi-media environments and holography
Holography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
.
Part One: The Audience and the Myth of Entertainment
In the first part of the book, Youngblood attempts to show how expanded cinema will unite art and life. "Television's elaborate movie-like subjective-camera simulation of the first moon landing" (p46) showed a generation that reality was not as real as simulation. He says that he is writing "at the end of the era of cinema as we've known it, the beginning of an era of image-exchange between man and man" (p49). The future shockFuture Shock
Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of...
of the Paleocybernetic Age will change fundamental concepts such as intelligence, morality, creativity and the family (pp50–53). The Intermedia
Intermedia
Intermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
network of the mass media is contemporary man's environment, replacing nature. He uses recent scientific research into cellular memory
Cellular memory
Cellular memory can refer to:*A variation of body memory, the pseudoscientific hypothesis that memories can be stored in individual cells*A memory card used in cellphones...
and inherited memory to support his claim that this network conditions human experience. The Noosphere
Noosphere
Noosphere , according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς + σφαῖρα , in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". Introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1922 in his Cosmogenesis"...
(a term Youngblood borrows from Teilhard de Chardin) is the organising intelligence of the planet - the minds of its inhabitants. "Distributed around the globe by the intermedia network, it becomes a new technology that may prove to be one of the most powerful tools in man's history" (p57). He defends the universality of art against the localism of entertainment:
"The intermedia network has made all of us artists by proxy. A decade of television-watching is equal to a comprehensive course in dramatic acting, writing, and filming...the mystique is gone - we could almost do it ourselves. Unfortunately too many of us do just that: hence the glut of sub-mediocre talent in the entertainment industry" (p58).
This is what forces cinema to expand and become more complex. Mass media entertainment dulls people's minds. It is a closed, entropic system, adding nothing new. (pp59–65) Entertainment dwells on the past. We live in future shock so art should be an invention of a future (pp66–69). New systems need to be designed for old information. The artist is a design scientist.
Part Two: Synaesthetic Cinema: The End of Drama
Youngblood describes television as the software of the planet. It acts as a superego and shows us global reality. This renders cinema obsolete as a communicator of objective reality, and so frees it. (pp78–80). He embraces a synaestheticSynesthesia
Synesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
synthesis of opposites which are simultaneously perceived. He then goes on to draw a distinction between the syncretic montage of Pudovkin
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage...
and the Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
's montage of collision (pp84–86). He prefers metamorphosis to cuts (p86). Film-makers that Youngblood think embody this synaesthetic syncretism include: Stan Brakhage
Stan Brakhage
James Stanley Brakhage , better known as Stan Brakhage, was an American non-narrative filmmaker who is considered to be one of the most important figures in 20th century experimental film....
(p87), Will Hindle
Will Hindle
Will "William Mayo" Hindle was an American 16 mm filmmaker of personal non-narrative visual films.From 1958 to 1976, he made ten 16 mm films. He employed complex rear-projection rephotography, slow motion, and subtle tinting techniques in his work...
, Patrick O'Neill, John Schofill and Ronald Nameth. Film-makers that present ideas of polymorphous
Polymorphous perversity
Polymorphous perversity is a psychoanalytic term for human ability to gain sexual gratification outside socially normative sexual behaviors. Sigmund Freud used this term to describe the normal sexual disposition of humans from infancy to about age five....
eroticism, the blurring of sexual boundaries, include Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. Her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the...
(pp112–121). Michael Snow
Michael Snow
Michael Snow, CC is a Canadian artist working in painting, sculpture, video, films, photography, holography, drawing, books and music.-Life:...
's Wavelength
Wavelength (1966 film)
Wavelength is a forty-five minute film that made the reputation of Canadian experimental filmmaker and artist Michael Snow. Considered a landmark of avant-garde cinema, it was filmed over one week in December 1966 and edited in 1967 and is an example of what film theorist P...
is also an example of synaesthetic cinema's extra-objective reality (pp122–127). At the end of the second part of the book Youngblood writes about the rebirth of the cottage industry in the post-mass-audience age. Video tapes can be exchanged freely, films are becoming more personal, specialisations are ending (p128-134).
Part Three: Toward Cosmic Consciousness
Youngblood analyses 2001: A Space Odyssey2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 epic science fiction film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, and co-written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, partially inspired by Clarke's short story The Sentinel...
to explore the "electronic age existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
" (pp139–150). He examines Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Trumbull
Douglas Huntley Trumbull is an American film director, special effects supervisor, and inventor. He contributed to, or was responsible for, the special photographic effects of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of...
's use of mechanical processes to create the Stargate sequence (pp151–156) and describes the work of Jordan Belson
Jordan Belson
Jordan Belson was an American artist and filmmaker who created nonobjective, often spiritually oriented, abstract films spanning six decades.-Biography:Belson was born in Chicago, Illinois....
as an example of cosmic cinema (pp157–177).
Part Four: Cybernetic Cinema and Computer Films
Youngblood defines the technosphere as a symbiosis between man and machine. The computer liberates man from specialisation and amplifies intelligence (pp180–182). He draws comparisons between computer processing and human neural processing (pp183–184). Logic and intelligence is the brain's software. He predicts that computer software will become more important than hardwareComputer hardware
Personal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
and that in the future super-computers will design ever more advanced computers (pp185–188). His vision of the future is the Aesthetic Machine: "Aesthetic application of technology is the only means of achieving new consciousness to match our environment" (p189). Creativity will be shared between man and machine. He points to the links between computer art
Computer art
Computer art is any art in which computers play a role in production or display of the artwork. Such art can be an image, sound, animation, video, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, videogame, web site, algorithm, performance or gallery installation...
and Conceptualism
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
, and the growing theoretical basis of art. In his exploration of Cybernetic Cinema he gives an account of early experiments using computers to draw and make films. He bemoans the fact that at the time of writing no computer has the power to generate real-time images and that computer art has to be made off-line
Off-line
The terms "online" and "offline" have specific meanings in regard to computer technology and telecommunications. In general, "online" indicates a state of connectivity, while "offline" indicates a disconnected state...
. He does, though, foresee a future in which location shooting will become obsolete as all locations will be able to be simulated with computers. (pp194–2006). Examples of film-makers using computers, referred to by Youngblood, include: John Whitney
John Whitney (animator)
John Whitney, Sr. was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation.-Life:...
, James Whitney
James Whitney (filmmaker)
For other people named James Whitney, see James Whitney James Whitney , younger brother of John, was a filmmaker regarded as one of the great masters of abstract cinema...
, Michael Whitney, John Stehura, Stan VanDerBeek
Stan Vanderbeek
Stan Vanderbeek was an American experimental filmmaker.- Life :VanDerBeek studied art and architecture first at Cooper Union College in New York and then at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where he met architect Buckminster Fuller, composer John Cage, and choreographer Merce Cunningham...
and Peter Kamnitzer (pp207–256).
Part Five: Television as a Creative Medium
Youngblood describes the videosphere, in which computers and televisions are extensions to man's central nervous system. He is optimistic about technological advances and predicts TV-on-demandVideo on demand
Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
by 1978 (pp260–264). He does acknowledge, however, that data retrieval is more complicated than data recording. The various processes involved in video synthesicing
Video synthesizer
A Video Synthesizer is a device that electronically creates a video signal.A video synthesizer is able to generate a variety of visual material without camera input through the use of internal video pattern generators, as seen in the stillframes of motion sequences shown above. It can also accept...
are described: de-beaming, keying, chroma-keying
Chroma key
Chroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
, feedback
Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
, mixing, switching and editing
Linear video editing
Linear video editing is a video editing post-production process of selecting, arranging and modifying images and sound in a predetermined, ordered sequence. Regardless whether captured by a video camera, tapeless camcorder, recorded in a television studio on a video tape recorder the content must...
(p265-280). The work of Loren Sears is neuroeasthetic
Neuroesthetics
Neuroesthetics is a relatively recent sub-discipline of empirical aesthetics. Empirical aesthetics takes a scientific approach to the study of aesthetic perceptions of art and music. Neuroesthetics received its formal definition in 2002 as the scientific study of the neural bases for the...
because it treats television as an extension of the central nervous system (pp291–295). The curator James Newman
Jim Newman (Dilexi Gallery, Other Minds)
Jim Newman is a film and television producer, contemporary art curator, gallerist and musician.-Musical career and festival management:...
moved from a traditional gallery to a conceptual gallery with his joint project with KQED-TV, commissioning television work from Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
, Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, The Living Theater, Robert Frank
Robert Frank
Robert Frank , born in Zürich, Switzerland, is an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable work, the 1958 photobook titled The Americans, was influential, and earned Frank comparisons to a modern-day de Tocqueville for his fresh and skeptical outsider's view of American...
and Walter De Maria
Walter De Maria
-Early life and career:De Maria was born in Albany, California on October 1, 1935. He studied history and art at the University of California, Berkeley from 1953 to 1959. Although trained as a painter, De Maria soon turned to sculpture and began using other media...
(pp292–293). Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist....
has worked creatively with television (pp302–308). Les Levine exploits the potential of closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television
Closed-circuit television is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors....
(pp337–344).
Part Six: Intermedia
Youngblood sees the artist as an ecologist, involved with the environment rather than with objects (pp346–351). By way of example he cites the video displays at world expositions (specifically Roman KroitorRoman Kroitor
Roman Kroitor is a Canadian filmmaker who is known as an early practitioner of Cinéma vérité, as co-founder of IMAX, and as creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic animation system...
's large-scale projections at Expo 67
Expo 67
The 1967 International and Universal Exposition or Expo 67, as it was commonly known, was the general exhibition, Category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with the...
and Expo '70
Expo '70
was a World's Fair held in Suita, Osaka, Japan between March 15 and September 13, 1970. The theme of the Expo was "Progress and Harmony for Mankind." In Japanese Expo '70 is often referred to as Ōsaka Banpaku...
pp352–358), and the Cerebrum, an art/nightclub environment. Artists such as Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. Her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the...
and Robert Whitman
Robert Whitman
Robert Whitman is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making...
combine film projection with live performance (pp366–371). Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...
incorporates video experiments into environmental contexts (p383). Light shows are used in concerts and multiple projectors and videoscreens create complex environments.
Part Seven: Holographic Cinema: A New World
Finally, Youngblood explores the creative potential of holographyHolography
Holography is a technique that allows the light scattered from an object to be recorded and later reconstructed so that when an imaging system is placed in the reconstructed beam, an image of the object will be seen even when the object is no longer present...
.
Key ideas
- Future shockFuture ShockFuture Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of...
- IntermediaIntermediaIntermedia was a concept employed in the mid-sixties by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the ineffable, often confusing, inter-disciplinary activities that occur between genres that became prevalent in the 1960s. Thus, the areas such as those between drawing and poetry, or between painting...
- NeuroestheticsNeuroestheticsNeuroesthetics is a relatively recent sub-discipline of empirical aesthetics. Empirical aesthetics takes a scientific approach to the study of aesthetic perceptions of art and music. Neuroesthetics received its formal definition in 2002 as the scientific study of the neural bases for the...
- NoosphereNoosphereNoosphere , according to the thought of Vladimir Vernadsky and Teilhard de Chardin, denotes the "sphere of human thought". The word is derived from the Greek νοῦς + σφαῖρα , in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". Introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin 1922 in his Cosmogenesis"...
- Synaesthesia