Future Cinema. The Cinematic Imaginary After Film

Yksi kaikkien aikojen elokuvakirjoja, MIT:n 2003 julkaisema artikkelikokoelma tulevaisuuden esihistoriasta kun digitaalisuus oli jo syrjäyttämässä analogiaa ja filmiä. Isokokoinen, 640-sivuinen, painavalle laatupaperille painettu erikoinen yhdistelmä hirviömäistä esseekokoelmaa, näyttelyluetteloa ja konferenssin tilinpäätöstä, jossa käydään kaikki cinemaattisen magian ja digitaalisen ilmaisun asiat läpi historiasta tulevaisuuteen, käsittelyssä elokuvan ohella trikit, netti, videotaide, tietokonetaide ja muut. Näyttelyn oheiskirja tämä onkin mutta paljon muutakin.

Esittely:
Throughout the history of cinema, a radical avant-garde has existed on the fringes of the film industry. A great deal of research has focused on the pre- and early history of cinema, but there has been little speculation about a future cinema incorporating new electronic media. Electronic media have not only fundamentally transformed cinema but have altered its role as a witness to reality by rendering "realities" not necessarily linked to documentation, by engineering environments that incorporate audiences as participants, and by creating event-worlds that mix realities and narratives in forms not possible in traditional cinema. This hybrid cinema melds montage, traditional cinema, experimental literature, television, video, and the net. The new cinematic forms suggest that traditional cinema no longer has the capacity to represent events that are themselves complex configurations of experience, interpretation, and interaction.

This book, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the ZKM Institute for Visual Media, explores the history and significance of pre-cinema and of early experimental cinema, as well as the development of the unique theaters in which "immersion" evolved. Drawing on a broad range of scholarship, it examines the shift from monolithic Hollywood spectacles to works probing the possibilities of interactive, performative, and net-based cinemas. The post-cinematic condition, the book shows, has long roots in artistic practice and influences every channel of communication.