SITE-SPECIFIC NARRATIONS
SITE-SPECIFIC NARRATIONS
Keynote Presentation
Presented in November 2016
As part of the Real of Reality International Conference on Philosophy and Film
Organized by the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe
The language of film was made for the cinema. When a film starts and the auditorium gets dark we forget about the room around us and get into the reality of the film. Here the montage is a fundamental technique to narrate a story. We jump from one place to another and bridge the gap of unnecessary time. The cinema auditorium is a place where we lose our normal perception of space and time.
But what happens if we carry a film to a place where we are aware of our environment, where the screen is no more a flat surface nor restricted to its usual dimensions? What happens if we think about film as a site-specific narration and a form of mixed reality? If film gets embedded into a spatial surrounding the montage becomes a disruptive element in an environment which remains the same.
The spatial film requires a new language! A language which takes the environment and the three dimensional projection surface into account. The technology of Projection Mapping gives the opportunity to work with spatial structures accurately on every detail. But how do we use these new potentials of film?
In our talk we tried to re-think common ideas of film and focus on practical examples of cinematic aspects outside their common spatial localization. We discussed theoretical aspects of cinema and brought it in context with the philosophy of site-specific narrations and the technologies of mixed reality. To illustrate the differences we discussed observations and examples from our practical experiences and projects.
Credits:
The Real of Reality – International Conference on Philosophy and Film
Speaker: Lorenz Potthast and Marcel Bückner
Video Documentary: ZKM | Institute for Visual Media
Camera: Peter Müller
Editing: Frenz Jordt
Live Editing: Martina Rotzal
Many thanks to Christine Reeh and the ZKM for the invitation and the organization of the conference.