DOI issue:
Zwrot kinematograficzny w praktyce i teorii sztuki / The Cinematic Turn in Art Practice and Theory
DOI article:Lipiński, Filip: Cinematic art (history) and Mieke Bal's thinking in film
Citation link:https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/artium_quaestiones2020/0018
12
Filip Lipiński
developments concerning the object of visual studies rather than film studies
or art history he writes that film/cinema should not be regarded narrowly
within its own domain, but rather as a phenomenon "at the crossroads of live
spectacle and visual art, from a viewpoint expanded to encompass a gener-
al history of representations."20 He proposes, in the wake of his articulations
concerning Warburg's iconology a broad definition of cinema which comes
somewhat closer, as we will see below, to how it is defined by Bal:
... over and above the material elements of the film - the strip, the camera, the
projector and the screen - the cinema is gathered within the general parameters of
space and time. Consequently all art which triggers an interaction of space-time
effects can be regarded as cinema, even beyond the film's material presence.21
Cinema as a specific mode of representation with particular types of dis-
positives, invented in the late 19th century and developed throughout 20th
and 21st centuries, is then but one, technological manifestation of "the cine-
matic" or "the filmic." In consequence, cinema should be "a way of rethinking
images no longer on the basis of concepts of uniqueness and immobility ...
but on the basis of notions of mobility and multiplicity"22 Here, he touches
upon some essential issues: first, it is the idea - and activity - of "rethinking
images," as seen through the lens of what was introduced, made visible or
felt by the technologies of moving images that develop in time. This is not
just an arbitrary decision or willed imposition of a schema on otherwise un-
related spheres of inquiry. It is a response both to a constituent aspect of lived
experience and formative element of cultural screens: the diverse technolo-
gies of image in motion, the umbrella term for which could be "the cinemat-
ic," to a great extent inform our visual reception of time and space, model
vision and paths of thinking about art past and present, and ways of mak-
ing it. Michaud's perspective was in a way congruent with and responsive to
the aforementioned discussions concerning visual culture and more general
tendencies such as postmodernism, favoring the multiple and mobile rather
than singular and static, interdisciplinarity in academia and intermediality in
art practices.23 Importantly, though, it exemplified the opening up of the con-
20 P-A. Michaud, "Le mouvement des images / The Movement of Images," in: Le Mou-
vement des Images, p. 16.
21 Ibidem, p. 26.
22 Ibidem, p. 28.
23 At this point, it should also be added that, especially since the beginning of the 21st
century we have a whole new set of VR and internet-based art practices, which add another
dimension to the idea of motion, temporality multiplicity and connectivity However, re-
gardless of its relevance, this exceeds the scope of this discussion.
Filip Lipiński
developments concerning the object of visual studies rather than film studies
or art history he writes that film/cinema should not be regarded narrowly
within its own domain, but rather as a phenomenon "at the crossroads of live
spectacle and visual art, from a viewpoint expanded to encompass a gener-
al history of representations."20 He proposes, in the wake of his articulations
concerning Warburg's iconology a broad definition of cinema which comes
somewhat closer, as we will see below, to how it is defined by Bal:
... over and above the material elements of the film - the strip, the camera, the
projector and the screen - the cinema is gathered within the general parameters of
space and time. Consequently all art which triggers an interaction of space-time
effects can be regarded as cinema, even beyond the film's material presence.21
Cinema as a specific mode of representation with particular types of dis-
positives, invented in the late 19th century and developed throughout 20th
and 21st centuries, is then but one, technological manifestation of "the cine-
matic" or "the filmic." In consequence, cinema should be "a way of rethinking
images no longer on the basis of concepts of uniqueness and immobility ...
but on the basis of notions of mobility and multiplicity"22 Here, he touches
upon some essential issues: first, it is the idea - and activity - of "rethinking
images," as seen through the lens of what was introduced, made visible or
felt by the technologies of moving images that develop in time. This is not
just an arbitrary decision or willed imposition of a schema on otherwise un-
related spheres of inquiry. It is a response both to a constituent aspect of lived
experience and formative element of cultural screens: the diverse technolo-
gies of image in motion, the umbrella term for which could be "the cinemat-
ic," to a great extent inform our visual reception of time and space, model
vision and paths of thinking about art past and present, and ways of mak-
ing it. Michaud's perspective was in a way congruent with and responsive to
the aforementioned discussions concerning visual culture and more general
tendencies such as postmodernism, favoring the multiple and mobile rather
than singular and static, interdisciplinarity in academia and intermediality in
art practices.23 Importantly, though, it exemplified the opening up of the con-
20 P-A. Michaud, "Le mouvement des images / The Movement of Images," in: Le Mou-
vement des Images, p. 16.
21 Ibidem, p. 26.
22 Ibidem, p. 28.
23 At this point, it should also be added that, especially since the beginning of the 21st
century we have a whole new set of VR and internet-based art practices, which add another
dimension to the idea of motion, temporality multiplicity and connectivity However, re-
gardless of its relevance, this exceeds the scope of this discussion.