William Egginton, The Corporeal Image and the New World Baroque.
http://saq.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/106/1/107
lunes, 30 de junio de 2008
lunes, 14 de abril de 2008
"Composiciones barrocas" en la comida
En el País tenemos una noticia sobre un restaurante de Barcelona, Hofmann, caracterizado por el "mestizaje" de las comidas "composiciones barrocas", es curioso....
Noticia sobre cine
El periodista Carlos Boyero hace una reseña sobre una película de Scorsese, basada en los Rolling, donde introduce lo barroco, lo complejo.....
viernes, 4 de abril de 2008
Barroco Japonés (artículo) del Japan Times
Japan's baroque theater
By DONALD RICHIE
KABUKI: Baroque Fusion of the Arts, by Toshio Kawatake, translated by Frank and Jean Connell Hoff. I-House Press, 2006, 358 pp. with 78 illustrations, 1,905 yen (paper).
This is the new enlarged and revised edition of an important book on the Kabuki, originally published by the University of Tokyo Press in 2001 and released in English translation by I-House Press in 2003.
Among the reasons for its excellence is that it is by one of the leading experts in the field. Toshio Kawatake, scion of a distinguished family long associated with the Japanese arts, is the author of some 80 books, most of them about theater and drama and he knows his field as do few others.
Consequently, he is able see connections in the history and present practice of the Kabuki, can join its apparently disparate techniques, and can place this drama in the context of world theater.
Kawatake hypothesizes "two great strands of world theater," the classical and the baroque. The first stems from Greek tragedy through the French classical theater into the neoclassicism of Henrik Ibsen. It is the style in which a dramatic text is dominant and is regarded as mainstream Western theater.
The baroque, on the other hand, stems from popular improvisational theater, the commedia dell'arte, some of the Elizabethans, all the way down to expressionism and Bertolt Brecht. It is here that the Kabuki joins world theater. Like the above (and in contrast to the classical Noh) it is what we would call fusion theater.
Kawatake uses "baroque" in its primary sense. He does not refer so much to the period we know as Baroque (most of the European 17th century) but rather to the origins of the word.
The Portuguese "barroco" means pebble or stone and, by extension, refers to rough or irregularly shaped pearls -- these to be contrasted with the perfectly formed, round "classical" pearl. Consequently "baroque" has been used to indicate something unorthodox even grotesque, ornately and excessively embellished, and in bad (popular) taste.
Classic theater insists that dramatic development be logical, true to life, salutary; that dramatic action be logical and realistic; that it preferably unfold in a single continuous time period (synchronous with real time) in the same place, with a single protagonist and a single plot line.
Baroque theater has opposite characteristics. It is full of frequent changes of time and place with numerous characters who undergo changes of heart and even of identity. There is no single protagonist, plots are multiple and convoluted, and a dramatic text is not a major part of the proceedings. One sees why Kawatake sees the Kabuki as baroque -- as a type of theater he finds "sensual, erotic, unrefined, garish."
In fact, he discovers in kabuki "the beauty of a dazzling vulgarity" (paraphrasing a 19th-century aesthetician's acknowledgment of its "artistically first-rate vulgar beauty") and can use these qualities as evidence of membership in baroque theater worldwide. It is "a mongrel, a multifaceted theater created by the fusion of three disparate elements -- dance, spoken drama and puppet plays."
His book, writes Kawatake, aims to investigate the facets of this "intractable" theatrical form and to provide a comparative perspective from which to view it. In this way he is able to define and to integrate the disparate-seeming elements of kabuki.
Stage construction, sets, costume, makeup, music, movement, kata (stylized acting patterns) -- all are shown in full working detail. "Romeo and Juliet" is compared with "Imoseyama"; the "negative beauty" of the Kabuki is investigated; and the art of the onnagata (female role) is precisely defined as the artist's ability "to express female beauty without negating his own male body."
Kabuki does indeed fit comfortably within the perimeters of the baroque, and one of the reasons for its present international popularity is precisely the quality of its fusions. A postmodern prerogative is the disregard of the classical, of any difference between high art and low art, the embracing of popular taste (Hello Kitty, Andy Warhol), and an enthusiasm for the revisionist and the iconoclastic. All of which the Kabuki has in abundance and all of which has been brought up to date in this new edition of this important book.
Among the useful enlargements is a complete listing of all kabuki translations currently published in English as well as a listing of the plays mentioned in this book that are available on DVD.
martes, 1 de abril de 2008
Forma
En el siguiente apartado analizaré la forma desde el punto de vista artístico a través de la obra La vida de la formas del filósofo francés Henri Focillon, y desde un enfoque científico con Endless Forms Most Beatiful. The New Science of Evo Devo por Sean B. Carroll.
martes, 25 de marzo de 2008
El día de hoy, el diaro español El país, en su sección cultura ha publicado una entrevista con el artista Guillermo Pérez Villalta (Tarifa, 1948). Él opina: "Me considero un gran melómano, pero si me obligaran a escoger, diría que el pop es mi música. Y lo mismo diría de la psicodelia de los sesenta porque siempre ha estado presente en mi obra. Tiene para mí tal valor plástico que me atrevería a decir que mi obra es hija del barroco y de la psicodelia". El 1er link manda a la entrevista y el segundo a un catálogo de sus obras.
lunes, 24 de marzo de 2008
Exposición en Austria
Recuerdan el libro que llevó JL a la clase sobre una exposición en Austria con ilustraciones interesantes, pero en una lengua más ajena que el powidl.
Bueno, pues aquí está la traducción de lo que hicieron los organizadores.
viernes, 14 de marzo de 2008
Cultura y cerebro
En relación con la clase de hoy... lo que pude escuchar...
Acá un link de la reseña de un artículo
( Trey Hedden, Sarah Ketay, Arthur Aron, Hazel Rose Markus, John D.E. Gabrieli (2008) Cultural Influences on Neural Substrates of Attentional Control
Psychological Science 19 (1) , 12–17doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02038.x )
que aparece en el MIT TechTalk, del 30 de enero del 2008, escrita por Cathryn M. Delude (McGovern Institute)
el link de la reseña es este: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/techtalk52-14.pdf (página 4)
Y el link de la revista donde aparece publicado es este: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02038.x
pero hay que tener suscripción
... sigo buscando la froma de tenerlo por algún mediogratuito... así que a pensar ilegalidades que en teoría si pensamos diferente de oriente...
jueves, 13 de marzo de 2008
Poema que estresa las autenticidad de la América barroca
A Roosevelt
Es con voz de la Biblia, o verso de Walt Whitman,
que habría de llegar hasta ti, Cazador,
primitivo y moderno, sencillo y complicado,
con un algo de Wáshington y cuatro de Nemrod.
Eres los Estados Unidos,
eres el futuro invasor
de la Amárica ingenua que tiene sangre indígena,
que aún reza a Jesucristo y aún habla en español.
Eres soberbio y fuerte ejemplar de tu raza;
eres culto, eres hábil; te opones a Tolstoy.
Y domando caballos, o asesinando tigres,
eres un Alejandro-Nabucodonosor.
(Eres un profesor de Energía,
como dicen los locos de hoy.)
Crees que la vida es incendio,
que el progreso es erupción,
que en donde pones la bala
el porvenir pones.
No.
Los Estados Unidos son potentes y grandes.
Cuando ellos se estremecen hay un hondo temblor
que pasa por las vértebras enormes de los Andes.
Si clamáis, se oye como el rugir del león.
Ya Hugo a Grant lo dijo: Las estrellas son vuestras.
(Apenas brilla, alzándose, el argentino sol
y la estrella chilena se levanta...) Sois ricos.
Juntáis al culto de Hércules el culto de Mammón;
y alumbrando el camino de la fácil conquista,
a Libertad levanta su antorcha en Nueva-York.
Mas la América nuestra, que tenía poetas
desde los viejos tiempos de Netzahualcoyotl,
que ha guardado las huellas de los pies del gran Baco,
que el alfabeto pánico en un tiempo aprendió;
que consultó los astros, que conoció la Atlántida
cuyo nombre nos llega resonando en Platón,
que desde los remotos momentos de su vida
vive de luz, de fuego, de perfume, de amor,
la América del grande Moctezuma, del Inca,
la América fragante de Cristóbal Colón,
la América católica, la América española,
la América en que dijo el noble Guatemoc:
"Yo no estoy en un lecho de rosas"; esa América
que tiembla de huracanes y que vive de amor,
hombres de ojos sajones y alma bárbara, vive.
Y sueña. Y ama, y vibra, yes la hija del Sol.
Tened cuidado. ¡Vive la América española!
Hay mil cachorros sueltos del León Español.
Se necesitaría, Roosevelt, ser, por Dios mismo,
el Riflero terrible y el fuerte Cazador,
para poder tenemos en vuestras férreas garras.
Y, pues contais con todo, falta una cosa: ¡Dios!
Ruben Dario
1905
Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: Bilingual Anthology. Ed. Stephen Tapscott.
Imperio
Imperio
Primeramente es importante escudriñar la etimología de este término. Al primer rey de Roma (al Rex antes del lo que conocemos como el Imperio Romano) se le llamó Imperium (Lapieza 67). La palabra Imperum viene del verbo impero que significa mandar, dar órdenes, reclutar, regir, dominar ejercer el mando e imperar. Después, cuando el Rex cayó, los militares o comandantes del ejército romano que eran victoriosos se les llamaba imperator, “vencedor,” el más famoso y que adoptó ese título fue Julio César. Los sucesores de César adoptaron este prestigioso título y Vespasiano lo hizo hereditario a sus descendientes.
Finalmente, según De Francisci, el imperio tradicional romano tiene tres aspectos esenciales: Es un poder “absoluto, ilimitado y divino” (628). No obstante, como observa Carl Schmitt, el concepto de Imperio tiene otra connotación y contexto desde a finales del siglo XIX, centrándose más bien: “. . . en pura denominación de métodos económico-capitalistas de colonización y de expansión (Schmitt 85). Hoy en día algunos usarían el término globalización.
De Francisci, Pietro. Síntesis histórica del Derecho Romano.
Madrid: Editorial Revista del Derecho Privado, 1954.
Lapieza Elli, Angel E. Historia del Derecho Romano. Buenos Aires: Editorial Cooperadora de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales, 1975.
Schmitt, Carl. “El concepto de Imperio en el derecho internacional.” Revista de estudios políticos. 1 (1941): 83-102.
miércoles, 12 de marzo de 2008
Entropía y nihilismo
En el siguiente apartado se tratara sobre el nihilismo y la entropía, conceptos utilizados por Fernando R. de la Flor en su obra Representación e ideología en el mundo hispánico.
Nihilismo y entropía
En el siguiente apartado se tratara sobre el nihilismo y la entropía, conceptos utilizados por Fernando R. de la Flor en su obra Representación e ideología en el mundo hispánico.
martes, 4 de marzo de 2008
El concepto del marco y el barroco
El concepto del marco y el barroco
Según José Ortega y Gasset en su “Meditación sobre el marco” el marco es esencial para cualquier cuadro ya que sin éste el cuadro está prácticamente en cueros (371). Obviamente para Ortega la relación entre el cuadro y el marco es fundamental y vital como “. . . el sistema nervioso exige el sanguíneo y viceversa; como el tronco aspira a culminar en una cabeza y la cabeza a asentarse en un tronco” (371). ¿Entonces, cuál es la significancia del concepto del marco para ayudar a definir el Barroco?
Uno de los puntos de Ortega que encajaría con el estudio del Barroco es su admisión que el discurso del arte puede ser “tan complejo y divino. . .” (371). Pero él elabora más en resaltar las paradojas metafísicas que ejecuta el marco--que me recuerdan bastante a “la razón de la sin razón” en don Quijote. Por eso se resalta que lo que se ve dentro del marco--el cuadro-- “está sin estar” ya que lo que se ve dentro del marco es nada más que una metáfora de objetos y seres tangibles (372). De hecho, se comparan las características paralelas del cuadro con la poesía, música o cualquier trabajo de arte, puesto que el cuadro abre ventanas a irrealidades dentro de nuestra realidad tangible (372).
Ortega se adelantó al concepto de la realidad virtual del film The Matrix ya que enfatiza que dentro del marco se “goza una existencia meramente virtual” (372). El marco demarca estos mundos distintos. En efecto, películas como The Matrix usan la alegoría y cuestionan nuestra noción de lo que es real o no como en el clip en donde Morfeo le da a escoger a Neo entre la píldora azul y la roja. El espectador, ya sea dentro de una multitud en el cine o individualmente en su sala o recámara es transportado a otro mundo--virtualmente--dentro de su mundo. El marco para nosotros, el público, en este caso sería el marco de la pantalla del cine, televisión o monitor de computadora en donde se ve el film. Por lo tanto, según Ortega, el marco tiene una función especial--la de “aislador” ya que sin marco se pierde “el garbo y sugestión” por la falta de la demarcación necesaria entre nuestro mundo “real” y el quimérico del cuadro en donde el marco dorado es el superior por su habilidad metafísica de resaltar el triunfo esplendoroso de la reflexión (373-374). Aunque las televisiones, monitores y pantallas de nuestras computadoras portátiles tengan más público, ya sea individual o en masa, que el teatro, la analogía de Ortega en donde se considera a la boca del telón como un marco que delimita--en donde la escena es el cuadro--continúa siendo relevante porque todos esos dispositivos tecnológicos de entretenimiento mencionados anteriormente son también delimitados por un marco (374). Por eso, según Ortega, la boca del telón tiene una función metafísica como el marco de una pintura: “. . . nos advierte que en el hinterland imaginario de la escena, abierto tras él, empieza el otro mundo, el irreal, la fantasmagoría” (374). Esta perspectiva es paralela con algunos conceptos del barroco como el cuestionamiento de la realidad. Cabría añadir también, el caso de los videojuegos contemporáneos ya que estos no sólo transportan a otro mundo o dimensión sino que activamente hacen parte al individuo o individuos (como en las comunidades de videojuegos en línea) de esa “realidad irreal.” En efecto, las nuevas tecnologías de entretenimiento permiten al público de penetrar el marco y convertirse parte del cuadro por medio de un avatar--personalidad virtual que puede adoptar un usuario en un videojuego o incluso en algunas comunidades 3D en el Internet como Second Life.
Los conceptos de Ortega de mundos dentro de otros mundos y el germanismo hinterland--para referirse a una zona influyente y con efecto para el espectador--de su cita anterior hacen ecos a la filosofía de Heidegger; pero hay que recordar que Ortega realizó estudios en Alemania y que tanto Heidegger como él estudiaron con los jesuitas--los patrones tradicionales del barroco ¿coincidencia o habrán influido estos clericós intelectuales del catolicismo—los jesuitas--en los conceptos místicos-filosóficos de estos pensadores?
Finalmente, el concepto del marco como metáfora para expresar los límites de realidades alternativas dentro de nuestra realidad hace bastante sentido para el estudio del Barroco contemporáneo, el neo barroco. Pero si se toman en cuenta otras opiniones respecto al concepto del marco--como el de la profesora Angela Ndalianis--el barroco rompe el marco. Esto es, porque el barroco no respeta los límites del marco (The frame); Ndalianis nos da de ejemplo la pintura de Pietro de Corona en el techo del Palazzo Barberini--La glorificación de Urbano VII (1633-39) con la siguiente razón:
The lack of respect for the limits of the frame is manifest with intense visual directness in baroque attitudes towards spectacle. The impact and meaning of Cortona’s ceiling painting depends on the interaction and combination of multiple, shifting view points and narrative perspectives all of which operate to collapse the classical function of the frame. The frame is present so that its function can be undermined. Open systems typical of the neo-baroque permit a greater flow between the inside and outside, and operate according to a polycentric logic. (“Architectures of Vision”)
Para Ndalianis el sistema del barroco y el neo-barroco carece de los parámetros establecidos por el marco porque produce, en sus palabras, “an unlimited space coninuum” que produce un efecto cautivante y profundo dentro de las enigmáticas profundidades del infinito, lo que Focillon etiqueta como el sistema del laberinto (Ndalianis, “Arquitectures of Vision”).
El mismo Ortega en su ensayo específico sobre el Barroco, “La Voluntad del Barroco,” tiene esto que decir respecto a la transcendencia constante (la continuidad infinita) del estilo barroco: “Hay en este estilo tal y como parecen demandarlo los tiempos, una interpretación de la vida como riqueza y variación inagotable” (249). Pero no lo menciona en su análisis del concepto del marco. En fin, el concepto del marco en el estudio del barroco es esencial. Tanto Ortega como Ndalianis tienen razón--el marco es nuestra ventana a otra dimensión, a otra realidad, como en una obra de arte cautivante, película o videojuego; esto concordaría con el concepto de Ortega sobre el marco. Sin embargo, hay que admitir que a veces, como en el caso de las pinturas de techo de Cortona o la infinita posibilidad de series que el barroco (y neobarroco) se permite por el hecho de que se da licencia de no respetar el concepto clásico del marco como parámetro final--no sólo en pinturas sino también en las narrativas de las continuaciones de películas, novelas, cómics y videojuegos (Evildead/Evildead II, Alien, Aliens, Alien cómics, Alien videojuegos etc.) ya que no respetan el marco tradicional de la trama puesto que estas obras se adaptan y continúan según convenga, como Ndalianis lo ilustra años más tarde en su libro Neobaroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment.
Obras citadas
Ortega y Gasset, José. “Meditación del marco: Buscando un tema.” Obras de José Ortega y Gasset. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1932. 369-376.
---. “La Voluntad del Barroco.” Meditaciones sobre la literatura y el arte. Madrid: Castalia, 1987. 237-252.
Ndalianis, Angela. “Architectures of Vision: Neo-Baroque Optical Regimes and Contemporary Entertainment Media.” Online Posting. December 19, 1999. Media in Transition Conference at MIT. Feb. 28 2008
sábado, 1 de marzo de 2008
El Valor
El concepto de valor que yo tengo de mi estudios en economia es que el valor de algo es individual. Cada cosa tiene un valor diferente dependiendo en la persona. Por ejemplo, para mi tiene poco valor, en este momento, un bastón. Algunas cosas hasta tienen un valor negativo ya que no le proporcionan a un individuo nada positivo y el costo de vender excede su beneficio. Un valor positivo implica que no me es indiferente o negativo, que me sirve para algo.
El valor de algo para un individuo es la utilidad que se puede derivar del objeto y esta utilidad es dependiente de todo el sistema biologico y social en el que esta envuelto un individuo. Si queremos pensar en el barroco como una herramienta, en el caso material, el valor de una herramienta es dependiente de la demanda por los productos que esta herramienta pueda crear y la cantidad de "inputs" o materiales y otras herramientas que permitan que se creen estos productos. Ademas, es dependiente de las qualidades y capacidades del individuo en usar esta herramienta y todos los otros elementos necesarios para sacarle provecho y de las otras alternativas laborales del individuo.
Esto, en terminos de individuo, pero se hace más complicado hablar de el valor de algo para una sociedad ya que no es necesariamente la suma de los valores de cada inviduo. Sin embargo, una herramienta puede desvalorarse y se ha visto, systematicamente, es decir, para todos, al mismo tiempo. Por ejemplo, por nueva technologia que la hace obsoleta, por cambios en la moda que hace que lo que produce ya no sea valorado por los consumidores, por la falta de "inputs" y por una saturacion del mercado (digamos que se producen muchas de las mismas herramientas).
Hay una diferencia en la valoracion de una herramienta y de un producto final que me parece que puede ser relevante a el barroco. Pero lo tengo que pensar un poco mas.
El valor de algo para un individuo es la utilidad que se puede derivar del objeto y esta utilidad es dependiente de todo el sistema biologico y social en el que esta envuelto un individuo. Si queremos pensar en el barroco como una herramienta, en el caso material, el valor de una herramienta es dependiente de la demanda por los productos que esta herramienta pueda crear y la cantidad de "inputs" o materiales y otras herramientas que permitan que se creen estos productos. Ademas, es dependiente de las qualidades y capacidades del individuo en usar esta herramienta y todos los otros elementos necesarios para sacarle provecho y de las otras alternativas laborales del individuo.
Esto, en terminos de individuo, pero se hace más complicado hablar de el valor de algo para una sociedad ya que no es necesariamente la suma de los valores de cada inviduo. Sin embargo, una herramienta puede desvalorarse y se ha visto, systematicamente, es decir, para todos, al mismo tiempo. Por ejemplo, por nueva technologia que la hace obsoleta, por cambios en la moda que hace que lo que produce ya no sea valorado por los consumidores, por la falta de "inputs" y por una saturacion del mercado (digamos que se producen muchas de las mismas herramientas).
Hay una diferencia en la valoracion de una herramienta y de un producto final que me parece que puede ser relevante a el barroco. Pero lo tengo que pensar un poco mas.
miércoles, 27 de febrero de 2008
Artículo de la profesora Ndalianis/concepto del marco
Architectures of Vision: Neo-Baroque Optical Regimes and Contemporary Entertainment Media
[This is the text of a paper presented at the Media in Transition Conference at MIT on October 8, 1999.]
The Baroque Ocular Regime & The Limits Of The Frame
The last two decades have been host to a variety of entertainment media which are dependent upon special effects spectacles that aim at engulfing their audiences in their illusionistic displays. Indeed, late twentieth century entertainment spectacles like blockbuster effects films and theme park attractions are reliant upon a neo-baroque "ocular regime." According to Martin Jay, the baroque ëscopic regime' is one often associated with a delight in visual spectacle. The baroque is an order that calls upon systems of classical or Renaissance perspective in order to overturn, investigate, or complicate their rational, self-contained visual and narrative spaces.
The seventeenth and late twentieth centuries are epochs that reflect wide-scale baroque sensibilities which, while being the product of specific socio-historical and temporal conditions, reflect similar patterns and concerns on formal levels. Both epochs underwent radical cultural, perceptual, and technological shifts which manifested themselves in similar aesthetic forms. While specific historical conditions differ radically, a similar overall formal effect was achieved. Social crisis and change "created a climate from which the baroque emerged and nourished itself". Through a comparison with seventeenth century manifestations of baroque spectacle, this essay explores ways in which a neo-baroque attitude to spectacle manifests itself in the contemporary media spaces of the 1980s and 90s. In particular, I want to introduce a central feature of baroque and neo-baroque ocular regimes in the context of seventeenth and late twentieth centuries' shared fascination with spectacle, illusionism, and the baroque formal principle of the collapse of the frame.
The spatially invasive nature of baroque and neo-baroque spaces instigates participatory spectatorial positions through dynamic compositional arrangements. With borders continually being rewritten, neo-baroque vision provides optical models of perception that suggest worlds of infinity that lose the sense of a centre, which are associated with classically ordered space. Rather, the centre is now to be found in the position of the spectator, with the representational centre changing depending on the spectator's focus. Given that neo-baroque spectacle provides polycentric and multiple shifting centres, the spectator, in a sense, remains the only element in the image/viewer scenario that remains centred and stable. It is now the audience's perception and active engagement with the image that orders the illusion. The notion of the ëpassive spectator' as voyeur collapses when media experiences immerse the viewer in spectacles that aim at perceptually removing the presence of the frame.
Deleuze's analysis of baroque vision is an appropriate interpretative tool here. He suggests that the baroque offers an ëarchitecture of vision' that situates the viewer in a spatial relationship to the representation. Rather than providing a statically ordered perspectival arrangement, the ëcentre' continually shifts, the result being the articulation of complex spatial conditions.
Classical systems are characterised by closure. Such closed systems remain centred, ensuring narrative clarity and symmetry of organisation. Raphael's mural decoration of the School of Athens (1509-11) reflects such a classical attitude to narrative and visual form. The architectural arrangement recedes into the background, centring the two key figures ñ Aristotle and Plato ñ while a series of other philosophers flank them on either side. The fresco is dedicated to Philosophy and, while each of the other philosophers ñ including Socrates, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Heraclitus, Diogenes ñ are depicted in unified groups, "each group is tied to the whole by some detail that serves as a hyphen that relates the details, through compositional arrangement" to the central narrative concern focused around the figures of Aristotle and Plato.
Aided by the use of one-point perspective, the representation aims at perceptually extending the two-dimensional wall space through architectural and figural arrangements that lead the gaze of the spectator into the depth of the composition. The overriding sensation of the compositional and narrative arrangement is of the framing of the main protagonists within a closed and focused narrative and representational scenario, a feat achieved by the rigid, painted architectural framework.
Reflecting the capacity to "rationalize vision through mathematics" Raphael put into practise the Renaissance classical system that was later theorised by Alberti in his Della Pittura of 1435. The mathematical clarity of perspective was employed to "produce the illusion of a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface". According to Ackerman, perspective, in combination with lighting and colour, became "the paradigmatic invention of the Renaissance, in that it literally brought all perceived space under rational control". The effect is one of a representational reality that is contained within the frame. Depicting a represented reality that effaces its construction through rational means, the spectator looks into this space as if looking through a window beyond which another world exists.
Combining Renaissance art's reliance on one-point perspective with the more powerful mimetic system of photographic realism, classical Hollywood cinema has been viewed as producing a representational space that similarly attempts to be transparent "like a window onto the real". Bazin viewed the photographic realism of the cinema as containing the "characteristics of the ripeness of a classical art". In particular, Bazin focused on classical form and themes that were also highlighted by Alberti in his Della Pittura: an art that has perfect balance, narratives that stress dramatic and moral themes, and a realism that is self-effacing.
Baroque Form, And The Collapse Of The Limits Of The Frame
The baroque example of Pietro da Cortona's ceiling painting of The Glorification of Urban VIII (Rome, 1633-9) in the Palazzo Barberini is, in many respects, a paragon of baroque attitudes to spectacle and illusionism. The single, immobile viewpoint of the classical spectator is transformed into a dynamic process that changes as a result of its three-dimensional capacity to actively engage the spectator in spatial terms. The Renaissance ideal of a perspectivally guided representation (evident in Raphael's School of Athens) is replaced by a baroque concern with complex, dynamic motion and multiple perspectives that are dependent on the position of the viewer in relation to the work.
Henri Focillon views classical forms as remaining encased in a space that "keeps them intact". Baroque forms, however, pass into an undulating continuity where both beginning and end are carefully hiddenÖ [The baroque reveals] ëthe system of the series' ñ a system composed of discontinuous elements sharply outlined, strongly rhythmical andÖ [that]eventually becomes ëthe system of the labyrinth', which, by means of mobile synthesis, stretches itself out in a realm of glittering movement and color.
The baroque's difference to classical systems lies in the refusal to respect the limits of the frame. Instead it "tend[s] to invade space in every direction, to perforate it, to become as one with all its possibilities". The lack of respect for the limits of the frame is manifest with intense visual directness in baroque attitudes towards spectacle. The impact and meaning of Cortona's ceiling painting depends on the interaction and combination of multiple, shifting view points and narrative perspectives ñ all of which operate to collapse the classical function of the frame. The frame is present so that its function can be undermined. Open systems typical of the neo-baroque permit a greater flow between the inside and outside, and operate according to a polycentric logic.
Rather than reflecting a classical concern for the static, closed and centralised, the neo-baroque system is dependent upon dynamic forces that expand, and often rupture borders. Differentiation, polycentrism and rhythm are central to neo-baroque storytelling strategies and, as with examples of seventeenth century baroque, neo-baroque entertainment media of the late twentieth century introduce "a taste for elliptical form provided with real centres and multiple potentials".
Cortona's ceiling painting reveals precisely such a polycentric organisation. Whereas Raphael contains his narrative by framing it within a hemispherical border that rigidly encloses the composition, Cortona uses the frame in order to escape its limits. Cortona has divided the vault of the ceiling into five parts, each dealing with separate narratives which are demarcated by painted stucco frames. A personification of Divine Providence floats in the central panel offering support for Pope Urban VIII's worthiness of immortality. Despite the seemingly distinct narrative segments, Cortona is not concerned with a narrative limit such as that present in Raphael's painting. In the cornice that intersects with Minerva and the Giants, for example, numerous figures and swirling clouds tumble and float in front of and behind the painted stucco frames with the result that the narrative from one panel literally spills into the narrative of another. In addition, the impression is such that, in order to spill into the next visual and narrative space, the figures and objects perceptually appear to enter our own space within the Palazzo Barberini. A classically ordered composition would have enclosed and kept discrete the separate narrative borders.
While the scene in the centre of the vault depicting the glorification of Urban VIII is important, the viewer is also invited to follow serial paths that lead to other representational centres. The depiction of each narrative suggests a dynamic space and open attitude, one that aims at and produces "an unlimited space continuum". Indeed, baroque spectacle often serves a dual function. It operates on the principle of co-extensive space ñ a space that illusionistically connects with and infinitely extends from our own (as seen in the central panel of the Barberini ceiling where the solidity of the vault appears to be punctured and perceptually extends to the heavens); and it constructs a labyrinthine space that produces an expansive network of spatial formations that appear to interlink with our own. It therefore draws the gaze of the spectator "deep into the enigmatic depths and the infinite" and rhythmically recalls what Focillon labels the "system of the labyrinth".
Neo-Baroque Architectures of Vision
Our own neo-baroque spectacles similarly parallel Deleuze's articulation of the architectural dimension of sight. Two recent examples suggest the extent to which this dual articulation of the ëarchitecture of vision' embodied by the infinite and the labyrinth has become ingrained in Hollywood effects cinema, primarily as a result of computer generated special effects.
The opening scene of Contact (Zemeckis, 1997) literally (at least, in visual terms) makes the spectator become ëlost in space'. Computer effects create the illusion of the longest zoom-out shot in the history of the cinema as the camera appears to travel ever outwards through infinite space, continually relocating its centre, from planet to planet, solar system to solar system. We are confronted by an infinite vision, one that ultimately deceives us as it shifts from outer space to inner space.
Event Horizon (Anderson 1997) again plunges the audience's vision into an infinite zoom-out. In one sequence, the camera (or the computer effect mimicking a camera motion) centres on the view of a figure through a window. The figure seems to be hanging upside down but, as the camera pulls out it also rotates and recentres the spectator's view to one that encompasses a larger view of a space station which includes further figures seen through windows situated at different angles to the original figure. Again, the camera zooms out and, as it rotates, provides an even longer shot of the station. So it continues, until this dizzying ëarchitecture of vision' reveals the massive polycentric and labyrinthine structure that is the space station, which is itself situated within a boundless space. All the while, it is the spectator's sight that centres these images.
A neo-baroque logic also pervades both scenes, one that turns traditional mono-directional perspective on its head. In the construction of a co-extensive and labyrinthine space, ëa' centre is no longer present. The continual and multiplication of relocation of the centre creates a spatial disorientation that emphasises kinetic motion. In these instances, via the camera (and computer that produces the digital effects) our vision often appears to be violently thrust into the space and representation on the screen. In Event Horizon and Contact the combination of film and computer technology with the kinetic motions that inform the spectacle emphasises a more intense ocular regime concerned with movement and the "turning-eye". Once the frame illusionistically collapses, traditional perspective which relies on the frame and a static view point also collapses. An illusion of infinity itself is placed before the spectator and an invitation is extended to engage with the spectacle in spatially and architecturally disorienting terms.
Theatre of the World and the Collapse of the Proscenium Arch
In her discussion of contemporary science fiction cinema, Sobchack suggests that Jameson's articulation of postmodernist space finds expression in post-1977 science fiction films. Special effects spaces present themselves as "total spaces" that "stand for, and replace all other space", the special effects environments of science fiction cinema also "celebrate hybrid expression, complexity, eclecticism, and ëvariable space with surprises'". Above all, the special effects spaces of science fiction cinema ñ and, I would add, effects-driven cinema and theme park attractions ñ play on the neo-baroque concept of "great theatre of the world" where the world and theatre, reality and performance blur.
Contemporary entertainment spectacles greatly expand upon techniques of co-extensive space that drive the illusionistic traditions that dominate in the seventeenth century baroque ñ where the fictive and the real appear to merge. The art that emerged was concerned with escaping the limitations of two-dimensional space. In the words of Baur-Heinhold, "space had broken its bounds and become indeterminate".
It is theme park rides like Star Tours at Disneyland, Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, and the Terminator 2: 3D ride, also at Universal, that further expanded the potential for realising the collapse of the frame and spatial indeterminacy. Often using hydraulically powered motion simulators combined with film and digital technology, the participatory and invasive nature of these spectacles produce such an intense sense of an architecture of vision that many an audience member literally suffers the effects in the form of nausea.
This is the realm of baroque spectacle as theatre of the world: once invited beyond the proscenium, and beyond the frame, the frame perceptually disintegrates embroiling the viewer in a series of baroque folds that present the possibility of a limitless scope of vision. The outside becomes inside and the inside out. The baroque phenomenon of border-crossing is best expressed by Deleuze:
If the Baroque establishes a total art or a unity of the arts, it does so first of all in extension, each art tending to be prolonged and even to be prolonged into the next art, which exceeds the one before. We have remarked that the Baroque often confines painting to retables, but it does so because the painting exceeds its frame and is realized in polychrome marble sculpture; and sculpture goes beyond itself by being achieved in architecture; and in turn, architecture discovers a frame in a façade, but the frame itself becomes detached from the inside, and establishes relations with the surroundingsÖ We witness the prodigious development of a continuity in the arts, in breadth or in extension: an interlocking of frames of which each is exceeded by a matter that moves through it.
Theme park attractions (which stand at the centre of the most ëcutting edge' developments in the entertainment industry) take to new limits the ëunity of the arts'. While played out overtly in contemporary blockbuster effects films, the polycentrism inherent in neo-baroque architectures of vision finds its most literal form of expression in contemporary theme park attractions. Where blockbuster effects cinema interweaves the represented frames of computer generated, filmic and architectural realities, theme park attractions often take the ambiguity of the frame further still. Insides and outsides are continually rewritten, and multiple media and lived realities are continually reframed. The proscenium that demarcates audience space from the performance is blurred, and the audience becomes a participant in an enveloping entertainment spectacle.
Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time
In Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time, a multi-media attraction at Universal Studios, Florida, Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, Furlong and Patrick reprise their roles under the direction of James Cameron. Screen action using computer, video and film technology combines with live action within the theatre to produce an exhilarating, participatory entertainment experience. The unsuspecting group of adventurers enter the "Cyberdyne Complex" at Universal Studios, and the tour of the installation begins. The audience is to be present at the unveiling of the latest Cyberdyne innovation: the T-70 cyborg (a primitive 1997 version of the T-800). While the Cyberdyne host introduces the crowd to the company's ëcybotic' vision through a video being projected on multiple television screens, the video control room is invaded by Sarah and John Connor who warn the audience (via video screens) of the dire need to escape. After Sarah refreshes the group's memories about the events that took place in Terminator 2 by narrating and showing them brief scenes from the film (and as the reality of the audience's presence at Universal melds with the fiction of the Terminator universe), Cyberdyne once again takes control of transmission, and an embarrassed host warns everyone to ignore the wild ramblings of the Connor rebels. The audience is then ushered into a theatre, and the presentation continues. Sitting dumbstruck and surrounded by ëlive' T-70s who flank the audience on either side of the auditorium, the audience's state of awe continues as they are treated to the sight of Sarah's and John's invasion of the theatre, this time as ëreal' actors in the audience's space. Suddenly the crowd finds itself thrust into the centre of a live action battle ground.
Meanwhile, behind the Cyberdyne representative on stage the Cyberdyne logo appears projected onto a 23 x 50 foot screen. Amidst the battle chaos (and armed with 3D glasses) the attraction participants are seemingly caught in the cross-fire of bullets fired at the Connors by the T-70s; some of the bullet shots fired in the auditorium hit the Cyberdyne logo on the screen. With appropriate sound effects booming out of the 159 speakers, the audience looks on in horror as the bullet holes embedded in the logo melt and ëmorph' into the T-1000. As his liquid, blob-shape ëmorphs' into ëchrome man' guise, the T-1000's head begins to fill the 23 foot screen, then lunges forward, seemingly escaping the confines of the screen space as it thrusts towards the audience, some of whom parallel the motion by screaming and reaching out to protect their faces from the coming onslaught. The T-1000 then ëmoves back' into screen space (his 3D form flattening back into the more two-dimensional nature of the ëflat' screen format), ëmorphing' into liquid-metal form and slipping down to the lower part of the screen where, in search of his prey, he then transforms into a live actor (as policeman form of the T-1000) on stage. Moments later, a time portal opens up in the screen and a ëlive' T-800 (a Schwarzenegger look-alike) arrives on stage on a Harley-Davidson Fatboy, calling out a repeat performance of his famous one-liner to John: "Come with me if you want to live". Both then enter the screen reality (leaving Sarah behind to deal with our present reality), and the next stage of the story begins: a 7 minute film that dramatises John and the T-800 trying to destroy the Cyberdyne computer mainframe in the year 2029.
Like many of the effects films and attractions that preceded it, the Terminator 2:3D attraction has pushed film technology and computer graphics to new limits, while simultaneously acknowledging its dependence on film technology of the past ñ in this instance, of the 50s ñ itself an era of entertainment media reflecting neo-baroque sensibilities. Indeed, the attraction remediates and provides and alternate technological and media dimension to baroque spectacles familiar to audiences since the seventeenth century. At one stage in the ëfilm', the 23 x 50 foot screen expands to 180o and is flanked by two additional screens of identical size - changing the dimensions of the screen to 23 X 150 feet of enveloping spectacle.
However, true to baroque virtuosity, while harking back to the 50's era of Cinerama (as well as 3D cinema), Cameron and the effects crew of Digital Domain also take this technology further. The 70mm projected film no longer reveals the graininess of 50's Cinerama; film quality combines with digital effects to produce a crystal clear depiction of an alternative reality that invades the reality of the audience. Digital technology also rejuvenates 50's 3D cinema ñ as does the new screen which is coated with high-gain material allowing for the best possible 3D imagery. ëMorphed' beings are now placed within a 3D context, and the illusionistic outcome is not only technologically ground-breaking but phenomenologically new. Audience members sit in their seats, wondering how these illusions are possible. Likewise, the surround sound systems that widescreen cinema first introduced as a five speaker format in the 50s (and which were given new life with the release of Star Wars and the era of surround-sound entertainment cinema that followed) are now replaced with new digital audio effects by Soundelux that comprise 45,620 watts of sound blaring through 159 speakers. Furthermore, simulation ride technology works on a grand scale in this attraction: the norm of approximately 6-40 seats per ride found in attractions such as Back to the Future (Universal Studios) and Star Tours (Walt Disney World) is now expanded to accommodate approximately seven hundred vibrating seats. At one stage during the attraction, the auditorium floor moves and the audience has the sensation of going down an elevator into the depths of Cyberdyne with Schwarzenegger and Furlong. The combined effort of all of these innovative effects makes the experience seem real, and the audience feels as if they are placed in the middle of the action. Adding to the sensation of the collapse of illusion into reality is the theatrical addition of sprays of water and smoke that integrate us with the action on the screen and in the theatre. State of the art digital effects, the digital sound system, and simulation ride technology combine with "older" technologies of widescreen and 3D cinema to produce an immersive and sensorially entertaining experience.
Extending the baroque spatial dimension of sight, the neo-baroque employs computer and film technology to produce virtual trompe l'oeil effects. Introducing motion, sound, and other sensorial experiences to visual spectacle, the neo-baroque articulates the perceptual collapse of the frame more powerfully, and in ways not witnessed before. In the words of Schwarzenegger: "The topography of motion pictures continues to change at the speed of light, becoming more and more interactive with audiences across the globe... What we have created with Terminator 2: 3D is the quintessential sight and sound experience for the 21st century, and that's why I'm back". The effects illusions in Terminator 2: 3D are indicative of the accelerated pace in which entertainment industries are transforming as a result of new computer technologies.
Perceptions of Realism
In the late twentieth century entertainment forms like this theme park attraction are now engaged in a complex level of interaction that makes it increasingly difficult to untangle one media form from another. Does Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time, for example, belong to the realm of the cinema, television, computer technology, the theatre, or the theme park attraction? Where does the theatrical experience end and the film begin? Where does the film end and the attraction begin? The total unity of the arts that Deleuze discusses occurs through extension, invoking the motion of the fold: like the ëmorphing effects' and the fluid media and figural transformations of Cortona's Barberini ceiling, one space extends into another, one medium into the next, the spectator into the spectacle, and the spectacle into the spectator.
The classical paradigm, and its associations with narrativity and the ëpassive' spectator, no longer seems viable given new entertainment experiences concerned with spectacle and active audience address and participation. Spectacle engulfs the audience in invasive, spatial, and theatrical terms, producing a participatory experience. Like baroque quadratura and trompe l'oeil paintings, these diverse media effects, in many respects, encapsulate the logic of baroque illusionism: special effects create illusions that seem to perceptually transform into reality, and reality itself often appears to merge with the effects illusion. In turn, this obfuscation of boundaries affects audience/screen relations. The theoretical structure that supports the model of the classic realist text collapses.
A central feature of spectatorship and contemporary effects film and theme park attractions lies in the spectator's state of uncertainty while in the midst of a game of perception is about "seeing something which was impossible, and yet looked completely photorealistic". A neo-baroque ambivalence lies beneath the spectacle. The traditions of quadratura illusions and computer and film generated effects, share a baroque concern in making the fantastic appear photorealistic. The tricks have always been there, but the technology has now changed. The dynamic aspects of the neo-baroque are evident especially in the interchange that exists between spectator and representation. The special effects illusion ñ whether it be a morphing cyborg, a computer generated dinosaur, a 3D T-Meg, or a digitally processed 70mm surround image and sound fx ñ merges with the audience in the way it invites us to embrace its illusionistic universe in such real terms.
Film theory fails to account for the paradox that, while images may be perceptually realistic, they are referentially unreal. Contemporary entertainment forms employ a variety of technological means to achieve this shift in perception. In the process, 90s effects cinema and theme park attractions also perform and compete with prior effects traditions, continually attempting to technically out-perform previous effects technology ñ and, along with it, the perceptions of reality these technologies delivered. The culmination ñ or, perhaps the beginning ñ of such perceptions is experienced in entertainment technologies that engage in an architecture of vision that confuses the distinction between that which is perceptually realistic and that which is referentially unreal. By seeking to collapse the proscenium arch, current entertainment spectacles, and the technology that drives them attempt to disguise the paradox that exists between the perceptually real and the referentially unreal.
Terminator 2: 3D reflects the way contemporary entertainment media attempt to make perceptually real illusions appear referentially real. The attraction lures the audience into various levels of reality by displaying a variety of technologically conjured effects ñ in the process, setting itself up as a new kind of techno-spatial experience. Participatory techniques are taken to excess. Not only are there wider screens, greater digital surround sound systems, state of the art digital effects, and a 3D technology never witnessed before, but all these technologies combine to produce an assaultive sensation that integrates the audience into the illusion. Terminator 2: 3D lures the spectator-as-participant into its levels of reality, thus plunging him/her into a realm of spatial ambiguity. This is achieved both through an illusory invasion of the audience's space (through 3D), and through an illusion that plunges the audience into the spectacle's space (through widescreen). Unlike the 1950's spectacle counterpart, in the 90s, computer graphics control every level of production, ensuring the successful, hyperreal articulation of this illusion as reality. Throughout the entire attraction, the audience's sense of their phenomenological reality redefines itself as they accommodate the various games of perception that envelop them in their illusionistic spaces.
When the T-1000 makes his first ëmorphed', 3D appearance, not only does his screen form, as the Cyberdyne logo, ëmorph' into the chrome man, but the digital metamorphosis also slips into a theatrical metamorphosis: liquid metal, computer generated effect on the screen, slides into a live theatrical effect involving a live actor on stage ñ then back again to digital film effect on the screen. The audience is taken on a journey through different possibilities of illusions of reality. The theatrical space of the audience/Cyberdyne complex, the actors, and T-70 cybots performing live in the auditorium, interweave with the filmed, videoed and digitised realities of widescreen, 3D, television and computer images.
Furthermore, the filmed realities contain within them further layers that reflect on different constructions of perceived realities. The result is that an interplay occurs between film and digital traditions, one that suggests that the incorporation of the digital into film has "improved" or "advanced" the audience's understanding of a perceptual reality (especially in relation to the perceptions provided by traditional film viewing experiences).
The attempted disguise of the paradox inherent in the interplay between perceptual and referential realities returns us to the principle of neo-baroque virtuosity. Underlying Terminator 2: 3D is a virtuoso concern, one that results from its flawless articulation of an illusion that invades the audience's space in such deceptively real terms. Like other neo-baroque examples, Terminator 2: 3D frames itself within its own historicity. The single 23 x 50 foot screen (which suggests more conventional cinematic viewing), transforms to also display the ëmorphing' effects of the T-1000. For the first time in film history, 3D technology integrates with computer technology to expand the audience's perception of screen space collapsing into theatre space. The screen expands to triple its length, but the traditional widescreen, Cinerama experience also introduces another computer generated spectacle ñ the T-Meg; this liquid metal, insect-like creature fills the 180o space (which encompasses the spectator's peripheral vision, thus creating the illusion that we have entered representational space), then lunges at the audience to further invade the auditorium space.
The neo-baroque fold informs the logic of the spectacle as all of these multimedia ërealities' intermingle with one another: actors from within the screen enter into the space of the audience; the space of the audience appears to become one with the space of the screen; effects on the screen thrust themselves forcefully into the audience's space (due to the combination of 3D and morphing effects, and through theatrical effects such as the sprays of water that hit the crowd when the T-Meg splatters into millions of pieces as it comes straight at us). 3D, computer graphics, and widescreen technologies combine to construct the illusion of a breakdown of spatial boundaries that separate the audience's reality from the representation, perceptually collapsing the theatrical frame of the stage.
Throughout the entire attraction, the spectacle maintains an undeniable sense that this convincingly real representational space is also being displayed in order that the audience may admire it as a multi-technological feat of illusionism. But unlike the ëcompetition' 3D attractions at Disneyworld (Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and Jim Henson's Muppet Vision 3D), Terminator 2: 3D does not round off its performance with the theatrical closure of the stage curtains. This attraction signals its difference by presenting a performance that is about the removal of the curtain ñ the removal of the barrier that separates the audience from the special effects fabrication. Yet the fact that it achieves this so masterfully sets up an invisible curtain, one that is drawn to signal closure in the minds of the audience ñ a closure experienced during those moments of stunned silence and amazement that accompany the literally explosive end of the film. The attraction/film literally ends with a bang as the T-800 blasts the Cyberdyne Complex of 2029 to smithereens. The effects of this explosion are not merely felt perceptually (while remaining contained by the frame of the screen); they are also felt in quite real (yet theatrical) terms through the vibrations felt under the audience's seats, through the heat that warms their bodies, and through the sea of smoke that veils their vision as it drifts through the auditorium. This silence is soon followed by the audience's tumultuous applause as the technological performance is acknowledged.
The visual and sensory games that entertainment technologies articulate flaunt their capacity for making a reality out of an illusion. Increasingly, and through their own media-specific methods, entertainment spectacles strive to obliterate the frame that demarcates a distance between reality and representation. The cinema relies on widescreen formats, computer-generated special effects, and surround sound experiences. Computer games immerse the player into their representational spaces through audience interaction. Theme park attractions draw upon a variety of methods including Imax and Omnimax screen formats, widescreen images, simulation rides, and theatrical experiences to sensorially assault the spectator, inviting them to believe that the illusion they witness is perceptually real. As Gunning observes in relation to the pre-cinema: "These optical entertainments exemplify the state of suspended disbelief that Octave Mannoni describes as ëI know very well, and all the sameÖ' In a new realm of visual entertainment this psychic state might best be described as ëI know very well, and yet I seeÖ'"
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[This is the text of a paper presented at the Media in Transition Conference at MIT on October 8, 1999.]
The Baroque Ocular Regime & The Limits Of The Frame
The last two decades have been host to a variety of entertainment media which are dependent upon special effects spectacles that aim at engulfing their audiences in their illusionistic displays. Indeed, late twentieth century entertainment spectacles like blockbuster effects films and theme park attractions are reliant upon a neo-baroque "ocular regime." According to Martin Jay, the baroque ëscopic regime' is one often associated with a delight in visual spectacle. The baroque is an order that calls upon systems of classical or Renaissance perspective in order to overturn, investigate, or complicate their rational, self-contained visual and narrative spaces.
The seventeenth and late twentieth centuries are epochs that reflect wide-scale baroque sensibilities which, while being the product of specific socio-historical and temporal conditions, reflect similar patterns and concerns on formal levels. Both epochs underwent radical cultural, perceptual, and technological shifts which manifested themselves in similar aesthetic forms. While specific historical conditions differ radically, a similar overall formal effect was achieved. Social crisis and change "created a climate from which the baroque emerged and nourished itself". Through a comparison with seventeenth century manifestations of baroque spectacle, this essay explores ways in which a neo-baroque attitude to spectacle manifests itself in the contemporary media spaces of the 1980s and 90s. In particular, I want to introduce a central feature of baroque and neo-baroque ocular regimes in the context of seventeenth and late twentieth centuries' shared fascination with spectacle, illusionism, and the baroque formal principle of the collapse of the frame.
The spatially invasive nature of baroque and neo-baroque spaces instigates participatory spectatorial positions through dynamic compositional arrangements. With borders continually being rewritten, neo-baroque vision provides optical models of perception that suggest worlds of infinity that lose the sense of a centre, which are associated with classically ordered space. Rather, the centre is now to be found in the position of the spectator, with the representational centre changing depending on the spectator's focus. Given that neo-baroque spectacle provides polycentric and multiple shifting centres, the spectator, in a sense, remains the only element in the image/viewer scenario that remains centred and stable. It is now the audience's perception and active engagement with the image that orders the illusion. The notion of the ëpassive spectator' as voyeur collapses when media experiences immerse the viewer in spectacles that aim at perceptually removing the presence of the frame.
Deleuze's analysis of baroque vision is an appropriate interpretative tool here. He suggests that the baroque offers an ëarchitecture of vision' that situates the viewer in a spatial relationship to the representation. Rather than providing a statically ordered perspectival arrangement, the ëcentre' continually shifts, the result being the articulation of complex spatial conditions.
Classical systems are characterised by closure. Such closed systems remain centred, ensuring narrative clarity and symmetry of organisation. Raphael's mural decoration of the School of Athens (1509-11) reflects such a classical attitude to narrative and visual form. The architectural arrangement recedes into the background, centring the two key figures ñ Aristotle and Plato ñ while a series of other philosophers flank them on either side. The fresco is dedicated to Philosophy and, while each of the other philosophers ñ including Socrates, Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Heraclitus, Diogenes ñ are depicted in unified groups, "each group is tied to the whole by some detail that serves as a hyphen that relates the details, through compositional arrangement" to the central narrative concern focused around the figures of Aristotle and Plato.
Aided by the use of one-point perspective, the representation aims at perceptually extending the two-dimensional wall space through architectural and figural arrangements that lead the gaze of the spectator into the depth of the composition. The overriding sensation of the compositional and narrative arrangement is of the framing of the main protagonists within a closed and focused narrative and representational scenario, a feat achieved by the rigid, painted architectural framework.
Reflecting the capacity to "rationalize vision through mathematics" Raphael put into practise the Renaissance classical system that was later theorised by Alberti in his Della Pittura of 1435. The mathematical clarity of perspective was employed to "produce the illusion of a three-dimensional world on a two-dimensional surface". According to Ackerman, perspective, in combination with lighting and colour, became "the paradigmatic invention of the Renaissance, in that it literally brought all perceived space under rational control". The effect is one of a representational reality that is contained within the frame. Depicting a represented reality that effaces its construction through rational means, the spectator looks into this space as if looking through a window beyond which another world exists.
Combining Renaissance art's reliance on one-point perspective with the more powerful mimetic system of photographic realism, classical Hollywood cinema has been viewed as producing a representational space that similarly attempts to be transparent "like a window onto the real". Bazin viewed the photographic realism of the cinema as containing the "characteristics of the ripeness of a classical art". In particular, Bazin focused on classical form and themes that were also highlighted by Alberti in his Della Pittura: an art that has perfect balance, narratives that stress dramatic and moral themes, and a realism that is self-effacing.
Baroque Form, And The Collapse Of The Limits Of The Frame
The baroque example of Pietro da Cortona's ceiling painting of The Glorification of Urban VIII (Rome, 1633-9) in the Palazzo Barberini is, in many respects, a paragon of baroque attitudes to spectacle and illusionism. The single, immobile viewpoint of the classical spectator is transformed into a dynamic process that changes as a result of its three-dimensional capacity to actively engage the spectator in spatial terms. The Renaissance ideal of a perspectivally guided representation (evident in Raphael's School of Athens) is replaced by a baroque concern with complex, dynamic motion and multiple perspectives that are dependent on the position of the viewer in relation to the work.
Henri Focillon views classical forms as remaining encased in a space that "keeps them intact". Baroque forms, however, pass into an undulating continuity where both beginning and end are carefully hiddenÖ [The baroque reveals] ëthe system of the series' ñ a system composed of discontinuous elements sharply outlined, strongly rhythmical andÖ [that]eventually becomes ëthe system of the labyrinth', which, by means of mobile synthesis, stretches itself out in a realm of glittering movement and color.
The baroque's difference to classical systems lies in the refusal to respect the limits of the frame. Instead it "tend[s] to invade space in every direction, to perforate it, to become as one with all its possibilities". The lack of respect for the limits of the frame is manifest with intense visual directness in baroque attitudes towards spectacle. The impact and meaning of Cortona's ceiling painting depends on the interaction and combination of multiple, shifting view points and narrative perspectives ñ all of which operate to collapse the classical function of the frame. The frame is present so that its function can be undermined. Open systems typical of the neo-baroque permit a greater flow between the inside and outside, and operate according to a polycentric logic.
Rather than reflecting a classical concern for the static, closed and centralised, the neo-baroque system is dependent upon dynamic forces that expand, and often rupture borders. Differentiation, polycentrism and rhythm are central to neo-baroque storytelling strategies and, as with examples of seventeenth century baroque, neo-baroque entertainment media of the late twentieth century introduce "a taste for elliptical form provided with real centres and multiple potentials".
Cortona's ceiling painting reveals precisely such a polycentric organisation. Whereas Raphael contains his narrative by framing it within a hemispherical border that rigidly encloses the composition, Cortona uses the frame in order to escape its limits. Cortona has divided the vault of the ceiling into five parts, each dealing with separate narratives which are demarcated by painted stucco frames. A personification of Divine Providence floats in the central panel offering support for Pope Urban VIII's worthiness of immortality. Despite the seemingly distinct narrative segments, Cortona is not concerned with a narrative limit such as that present in Raphael's painting. In the cornice that intersects with Minerva and the Giants, for example, numerous figures and swirling clouds tumble and float in front of and behind the painted stucco frames with the result that the narrative from one panel literally spills into the narrative of another. In addition, the impression is such that, in order to spill into the next visual and narrative space, the figures and objects perceptually appear to enter our own space within the Palazzo Barberini. A classically ordered composition would have enclosed and kept discrete the separate narrative borders.
While the scene in the centre of the vault depicting the glorification of Urban VIII is important, the viewer is also invited to follow serial paths that lead to other representational centres. The depiction of each narrative suggests a dynamic space and open attitude, one that aims at and produces "an unlimited space continuum". Indeed, baroque spectacle often serves a dual function. It operates on the principle of co-extensive space ñ a space that illusionistically connects with and infinitely extends from our own (as seen in the central panel of the Barberini ceiling where the solidity of the vault appears to be punctured and perceptually extends to the heavens); and it constructs a labyrinthine space that produces an expansive network of spatial formations that appear to interlink with our own. It therefore draws the gaze of the spectator "deep into the enigmatic depths and the infinite" and rhythmically recalls what Focillon labels the "system of the labyrinth".
Neo-Baroque Architectures of Vision
Our own neo-baroque spectacles similarly parallel Deleuze's articulation of the architectural dimension of sight. Two recent examples suggest the extent to which this dual articulation of the ëarchitecture of vision' embodied by the infinite and the labyrinth has become ingrained in Hollywood effects cinema, primarily as a result of computer generated special effects.
The opening scene of Contact (Zemeckis, 1997) literally (at least, in visual terms) makes the spectator become ëlost in space'. Computer effects create the illusion of the longest zoom-out shot in the history of the cinema as the camera appears to travel ever outwards through infinite space, continually relocating its centre, from planet to planet, solar system to solar system. We are confronted by an infinite vision, one that ultimately deceives us as it shifts from outer space to inner space.
Event Horizon (Anderson 1997) again plunges the audience's vision into an infinite zoom-out. In one sequence, the camera (or the computer effect mimicking a camera motion) centres on the view of a figure through a window. The figure seems to be hanging upside down but, as the camera pulls out it also rotates and recentres the spectator's view to one that encompasses a larger view of a space station which includes further figures seen through windows situated at different angles to the original figure. Again, the camera zooms out and, as it rotates, provides an even longer shot of the station. So it continues, until this dizzying ëarchitecture of vision' reveals the massive polycentric and labyrinthine structure that is the space station, which is itself situated within a boundless space. All the while, it is the spectator's sight that centres these images.
A neo-baroque logic also pervades both scenes, one that turns traditional mono-directional perspective on its head. In the construction of a co-extensive and labyrinthine space, ëa' centre is no longer present. The continual and multiplication of relocation of the centre creates a spatial disorientation that emphasises kinetic motion. In these instances, via the camera (and computer that produces the digital effects) our vision often appears to be violently thrust into the space and representation on the screen. In Event Horizon and Contact the combination of film and computer technology with the kinetic motions that inform the spectacle emphasises a more intense ocular regime concerned with movement and the "turning-eye". Once the frame illusionistically collapses, traditional perspective which relies on the frame and a static view point also collapses. An illusion of infinity itself is placed before the spectator and an invitation is extended to engage with the spectacle in spatially and architecturally disorienting terms.
Theatre of the World and the Collapse of the Proscenium Arch
In her discussion of contemporary science fiction cinema, Sobchack suggests that Jameson's articulation of postmodernist space finds expression in post-1977 science fiction films. Special effects spaces present themselves as "total spaces" that "stand for, and replace all other space", the special effects environments of science fiction cinema also "celebrate hybrid expression, complexity, eclecticism, and ëvariable space with surprises'". Above all, the special effects spaces of science fiction cinema ñ and, I would add, effects-driven cinema and theme park attractions ñ play on the neo-baroque concept of "great theatre of the world" where the world and theatre, reality and performance blur.
Contemporary entertainment spectacles greatly expand upon techniques of co-extensive space that drive the illusionistic traditions that dominate in the seventeenth century baroque ñ where the fictive and the real appear to merge. The art that emerged was concerned with escaping the limitations of two-dimensional space. In the words of Baur-Heinhold, "space had broken its bounds and become indeterminate".
It is theme park rides like Star Tours at Disneyland, Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, and the Terminator 2: 3D ride, also at Universal, that further expanded the potential for realising the collapse of the frame and spatial indeterminacy. Often using hydraulically powered motion simulators combined with film and digital technology, the participatory and invasive nature of these spectacles produce such an intense sense of an architecture of vision that many an audience member literally suffers the effects in the form of nausea.
This is the realm of baroque spectacle as theatre of the world: once invited beyond the proscenium, and beyond the frame, the frame perceptually disintegrates embroiling the viewer in a series of baroque folds that present the possibility of a limitless scope of vision. The outside becomes inside and the inside out. The baroque phenomenon of border-crossing is best expressed by Deleuze:
If the Baroque establishes a total art or a unity of the arts, it does so first of all in extension, each art tending to be prolonged and even to be prolonged into the next art, which exceeds the one before. We have remarked that the Baroque often confines painting to retables, but it does so because the painting exceeds its frame and is realized in polychrome marble sculpture; and sculpture goes beyond itself by being achieved in architecture; and in turn, architecture discovers a frame in a façade, but the frame itself becomes detached from the inside, and establishes relations with the surroundingsÖ We witness the prodigious development of a continuity in the arts, in breadth or in extension: an interlocking of frames of which each is exceeded by a matter that moves through it.
Theme park attractions (which stand at the centre of the most ëcutting edge' developments in the entertainment industry) take to new limits the ëunity of the arts'. While played out overtly in contemporary blockbuster effects films, the polycentrism inherent in neo-baroque architectures of vision finds its most literal form of expression in contemporary theme park attractions. Where blockbuster effects cinema interweaves the represented frames of computer generated, filmic and architectural realities, theme park attractions often take the ambiguity of the frame further still. Insides and outsides are continually rewritten, and multiple media and lived realities are continually reframed. The proscenium that demarcates audience space from the performance is blurred, and the audience becomes a participant in an enveloping entertainment spectacle.
Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time
In Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time, a multi-media attraction at Universal Studios, Florida, Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, Furlong and Patrick reprise their roles under the direction of James Cameron. Screen action using computer, video and film technology combines with live action within the theatre to produce an exhilarating, participatory entertainment experience. The unsuspecting group of adventurers enter the "Cyberdyne Complex" at Universal Studios, and the tour of the installation begins. The audience is to be present at the unveiling of the latest Cyberdyne innovation: the T-70 cyborg (a primitive 1997 version of the T-800). While the Cyberdyne host introduces the crowd to the company's ëcybotic' vision through a video being projected on multiple television screens, the video control room is invaded by Sarah and John Connor who warn the audience (via video screens) of the dire need to escape. After Sarah refreshes the group's memories about the events that took place in Terminator 2 by narrating and showing them brief scenes from the film (and as the reality of the audience's presence at Universal melds with the fiction of the Terminator universe), Cyberdyne once again takes control of transmission, and an embarrassed host warns everyone to ignore the wild ramblings of the Connor rebels. The audience is then ushered into a theatre, and the presentation continues. Sitting dumbstruck and surrounded by ëlive' T-70s who flank the audience on either side of the auditorium, the audience's state of awe continues as they are treated to the sight of Sarah's and John's invasion of the theatre, this time as ëreal' actors in the audience's space. Suddenly the crowd finds itself thrust into the centre of a live action battle ground.
Meanwhile, behind the Cyberdyne representative on stage the Cyberdyne logo appears projected onto a 23 x 50 foot screen. Amidst the battle chaos (and armed with 3D glasses) the attraction participants are seemingly caught in the cross-fire of bullets fired at the Connors by the T-70s; some of the bullet shots fired in the auditorium hit the Cyberdyne logo on the screen. With appropriate sound effects booming out of the 159 speakers, the audience looks on in horror as the bullet holes embedded in the logo melt and ëmorph' into the T-1000. As his liquid, blob-shape ëmorphs' into ëchrome man' guise, the T-1000's head begins to fill the 23 foot screen, then lunges forward, seemingly escaping the confines of the screen space as it thrusts towards the audience, some of whom parallel the motion by screaming and reaching out to protect their faces from the coming onslaught. The T-1000 then ëmoves back' into screen space (his 3D form flattening back into the more two-dimensional nature of the ëflat' screen format), ëmorphing' into liquid-metal form and slipping down to the lower part of the screen where, in search of his prey, he then transforms into a live actor (as policeman form of the T-1000) on stage. Moments later, a time portal opens up in the screen and a ëlive' T-800 (a Schwarzenegger look-alike) arrives on stage on a Harley-Davidson Fatboy, calling out a repeat performance of his famous one-liner to John: "Come with me if you want to live". Both then enter the screen reality (leaving Sarah behind to deal with our present reality), and the next stage of the story begins: a 7 minute film that dramatises John and the T-800 trying to destroy the Cyberdyne computer mainframe in the year 2029.
Like many of the effects films and attractions that preceded it, the Terminator 2:3D attraction has pushed film technology and computer graphics to new limits, while simultaneously acknowledging its dependence on film technology of the past ñ in this instance, of the 50s ñ itself an era of entertainment media reflecting neo-baroque sensibilities. Indeed, the attraction remediates and provides and alternate technological and media dimension to baroque spectacles familiar to audiences since the seventeenth century. At one stage in the ëfilm', the 23 x 50 foot screen expands to 180o and is flanked by two additional screens of identical size - changing the dimensions of the screen to 23 X 150 feet of enveloping spectacle.
However, true to baroque virtuosity, while harking back to the 50's era of Cinerama (as well as 3D cinema), Cameron and the effects crew of Digital Domain also take this technology further. The 70mm projected film no longer reveals the graininess of 50's Cinerama; film quality combines with digital effects to produce a crystal clear depiction of an alternative reality that invades the reality of the audience. Digital technology also rejuvenates 50's 3D cinema ñ as does the new screen which is coated with high-gain material allowing for the best possible 3D imagery. ëMorphed' beings are now placed within a 3D context, and the illusionistic outcome is not only technologically ground-breaking but phenomenologically new. Audience members sit in their seats, wondering how these illusions are possible. Likewise, the surround sound systems that widescreen cinema first introduced as a five speaker format in the 50s (and which were given new life with the release of Star Wars and the era of surround-sound entertainment cinema that followed) are now replaced with new digital audio effects by Soundelux that comprise 45,620 watts of sound blaring through 159 speakers. Furthermore, simulation ride technology works on a grand scale in this attraction: the norm of approximately 6-40 seats per ride found in attractions such as Back to the Future (Universal Studios) and Star Tours (Walt Disney World) is now expanded to accommodate approximately seven hundred vibrating seats. At one stage during the attraction, the auditorium floor moves and the audience has the sensation of going down an elevator into the depths of Cyberdyne with Schwarzenegger and Furlong. The combined effort of all of these innovative effects makes the experience seem real, and the audience feels as if they are placed in the middle of the action. Adding to the sensation of the collapse of illusion into reality is the theatrical addition of sprays of water and smoke that integrate us with the action on the screen and in the theatre. State of the art digital effects, the digital sound system, and simulation ride technology combine with "older" technologies of widescreen and 3D cinema to produce an immersive and sensorially entertaining experience.
Extending the baroque spatial dimension of sight, the neo-baroque employs computer and film technology to produce virtual trompe l'oeil effects. Introducing motion, sound, and other sensorial experiences to visual spectacle, the neo-baroque articulates the perceptual collapse of the frame more powerfully, and in ways not witnessed before. In the words of Schwarzenegger: "The topography of motion pictures continues to change at the speed of light, becoming more and more interactive with audiences across the globe... What we have created with Terminator 2: 3D is the quintessential sight and sound experience for the 21st century, and that's why I'm back". The effects illusions in Terminator 2: 3D are indicative of the accelerated pace in which entertainment industries are transforming as a result of new computer technologies.
Perceptions of Realism
In the late twentieth century entertainment forms like this theme park attraction are now engaged in a complex level of interaction that makes it increasingly difficult to untangle one media form from another. Does Terminator 2: 3D Battle Across Time, for example, belong to the realm of the cinema, television, computer technology, the theatre, or the theme park attraction? Where does the theatrical experience end and the film begin? Where does the film end and the attraction begin? The total unity of the arts that Deleuze discusses occurs through extension, invoking the motion of the fold: like the ëmorphing effects' and the fluid media and figural transformations of Cortona's Barberini ceiling, one space extends into another, one medium into the next, the spectator into the spectacle, and the spectacle into the spectator.
The classical paradigm, and its associations with narrativity and the ëpassive' spectator, no longer seems viable given new entertainment experiences concerned with spectacle and active audience address and participation. Spectacle engulfs the audience in invasive, spatial, and theatrical terms, producing a participatory experience. Like baroque quadratura and trompe l'oeil paintings, these diverse media effects, in many respects, encapsulate the logic of baroque illusionism: special effects create illusions that seem to perceptually transform into reality, and reality itself often appears to merge with the effects illusion. In turn, this obfuscation of boundaries affects audience/screen relations. The theoretical structure that supports the model of the classic realist text collapses.
A central feature of spectatorship and contemporary effects film and theme park attractions lies in the spectator's state of uncertainty while in the midst of a game of perception is about "seeing something which was impossible, and yet looked completely photorealistic". A neo-baroque ambivalence lies beneath the spectacle. The traditions of quadratura illusions and computer and film generated effects, share a baroque concern in making the fantastic appear photorealistic. The tricks have always been there, but the technology has now changed. The dynamic aspects of the neo-baroque are evident especially in the interchange that exists between spectator and representation. The special effects illusion ñ whether it be a morphing cyborg, a computer generated dinosaur, a 3D T-Meg, or a digitally processed 70mm surround image and sound fx ñ merges with the audience in the way it invites us to embrace its illusionistic universe in such real terms.
Film theory fails to account for the paradox that, while images may be perceptually realistic, they are referentially unreal. Contemporary entertainment forms employ a variety of technological means to achieve this shift in perception. In the process, 90s effects cinema and theme park attractions also perform and compete with prior effects traditions, continually attempting to technically out-perform previous effects technology ñ and, along with it, the perceptions of reality these technologies delivered. The culmination ñ or, perhaps the beginning ñ of such perceptions is experienced in entertainment technologies that engage in an architecture of vision that confuses the distinction between that which is perceptually realistic and that which is referentially unreal. By seeking to collapse the proscenium arch, current entertainment spectacles, and the technology that drives them attempt to disguise the paradox that exists between the perceptually real and the referentially unreal.
Terminator 2: 3D reflects the way contemporary entertainment media attempt to make perceptually real illusions appear referentially real. The attraction lures the audience into various levels of reality by displaying a variety of technologically conjured effects ñ in the process, setting itself up as a new kind of techno-spatial experience. Participatory techniques are taken to excess. Not only are there wider screens, greater digital surround sound systems, state of the art digital effects, and a 3D technology never witnessed before, but all these technologies combine to produce an assaultive sensation that integrates the audience into the illusion. Terminator 2: 3D lures the spectator-as-participant into its levels of reality, thus plunging him/her into a realm of spatial ambiguity. This is achieved both through an illusory invasion of the audience's space (through 3D), and through an illusion that plunges the audience into the spectacle's space (through widescreen). Unlike the 1950's spectacle counterpart, in the 90s, computer graphics control every level of production, ensuring the successful, hyperreal articulation of this illusion as reality. Throughout the entire attraction, the audience's sense of their phenomenological reality redefines itself as they accommodate the various games of perception that envelop them in their illusionistic spaces.
When the T-1000 makes his first ëmorphed', 3D appearance, not only does his screen form, as the Cyberdyne logo, ëmorph' into the chrome man, but the digital metamorphosis also slips into a theatrical metamorphosis: liquid metal, computer generated effect on the screen, slides into a live theatrical effect involving a live actor on stage ñ then back again to digital film effect on the screen. The audience is taken on a journey through different possibilities of illusions of reality. The theatrical space of the audience/Cyberdyne complex, the actors, and T-70 cybots performing live in the auditorium, interweave with the filmed, videoed and digitised realities of widescreen, 3D, television and computer images.
Furthermore, the filmed realities contain within them further layers that reflect on different constructions of perceived realities. The result is that an interplay occurs between film and digital traditions, one that suggests that the incorporation of the digital into film has "improved" or "advanced" the audience's understanding of a perceptual reality (especially in relation to the perceptions provided by traditional film viewing experiences).
The attempted disguise of the paradox inherent in the interplay between perceptual and referential realities returns us to the principle of neo-baroque virtuosity. Underlying Terminator 2: 3D is a virtuoso concern, one that results from its flawless articulation of an illusion that invades the audience's space in such deceptively real terms. Like other neo-baroque examples, Terminator 2: 3D frames itself within its own historicity. The single 23 x 50 foot screen (which suggests more conventional cinematic viewing), transforms to also display the ëmorphing' effects of the T-1000. For the first time in film history, 3D technology integrates with computer technology to expand the audience's perception of screen space collapsing into theatre space. The screen expands to triple its length, but the traditional widescreen, Cinerama experience also introduces another computer generated spectacle ñ the T-Meg; this liquid metal, insect-like creature fills the 180o space (which encompasses the spectator's peripheral vision, thus creating the illusion that we have entered representational space), then lunges at the audience to further invade the auditorium space.
The neo-baroque fold informs the logic of the spectacle as all of these multimedia ërealities' intermingle with one another: actors from within the screen enter into the space of the audience; the space of the audience appears to become one with the space of the screen; effects on the screen thrust themselves forcefully into the audience's space (due to the combination of 3D and morphing effects, and through theatrical effects such as the sprays of water that hit the crowd when the T-Meg splatters into millions of pieces as it comes straight at us). 3D, computer graphics, and widescreen technologies combine to construct the illusion of a breakdown of spatial boundaries that separate the audience's reality from the representation, perceptually collapsing the theatrical frame of the stage.
Throughout the entire attraction, the spectacle maintains an undeniable sense that this convincingly real representational space is also being displayed in order that the audience may admire it as a multi-technological feat of illusionism. But unlike the ëcompetition' 3D attractions at Disneyworld (Honey I Shrunk the Audience, and Jim Henson's Muppet Vision 3D), Terminator 2: 3D does not round off its performance with the theatrical closure of the stage curtains. This attraction signals its difference by presenting a performance that is about the removal of the curtain ñ the removal of the barrier that separates the audience from the special effects fabrication. Yet the fact that it achieves this so masterfully sets up an invisible curtain, one that is drawn to signal closure in the minds of the audience ñ a closure experienced during those moments of stunned silence and amazement that accompany the literally explosive end of the film. The attraction/film literally ends with a bang as the T-800 blasts the Cyberdyne Complex of 2029 to smithereens. The effects of this explosion are not merely felt perceptually (while remaining contained by the frame of the screen); they are also felt in quite real (yet theatrical) terms through the vibrations felt under the audience's seats, through the heat that warms their bodies, and through the sea of smoke that veils their vision as it drifts through the auditorium. This silence is soon followed by the audience's tumultuous applause as the technological performance is acknowledged.
The visual and sensory games that entertainment technologies articulate flaunt their capacity for making a reality out of an illusion. Increasingly, and through their own media-specific methods, entertainment spectacles strive to obliterate the frame that demarcates a distance between reality and representation. The cinema relies on widescreen formats, computer-generated special effects, and surround sound experiences. Computer games immerse the player into their representational spaces through audience interaction. Theme park attractions draw upon a variety of methods including Imax and Omnimax screen formats, widescreen images, simulation rides, and theatrical experiences to sensorially assault the spectator, inviting them to believe that the illusion they witness is perceptually real. As Gunning observes in relation to the pre-cinema: "These optical entertainments exemplify the state of suspended disbelief that Octave Mannoni describes as ëI know very well, and all the sameÖ' In a new realm of visual entertainment this psychic state might best be described as ëI know very well, and yet I seeÖ'"
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martes, 26 de febrero de 2008
Dos alegorías del film The Matrix en contexto cristiano
La alegoría no es más
que un espejo que traslada
lo que es con lo que no es,
y está toda su elegancia
en que salga parecida
tanto la copia en la tabla,
que el que está mirando a una
piense que está viendo a entrambas.
(Calderón de la Barca, Autos sacramentales)
Dos alegorías del film The Matrix en contexto cristiano
Dos alegorías del film The Matrix en contexto cristiano
Lo primero que se me viene en mente--basándome exclusivamente en el primer film de la trilogía--es la alegoría del Salvador de la humanidad. Por lo tanto, si este film se interpreta como una alegoría cristiana, obviamente el personaje Neo representa a Jesús, el Mesías y Redentor de la humanidad. En efecto, el agente Smith lo llama todo el tiempo Mr. Anderson, y si se escudriña la etemología del apellido Anderson, la raíz Ander (como en la palabra androide en español) significa hombre y son “hijo;” por eso el nombre del mundo “real” de Neo es “hijo del hombre,” una excelente alusión al concepto mesiánico judeo-cristiano. De hecho, el interés amoroso de Neo, Trinidad (Trinity) es también otra alusión cristiana. En esta película Neo muere y resucita cuando Trinity lo besa--una alusión al concepto cristiano de la Resurrección a través de Dios que es la Trinidad (El Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo) para los cristianos. Morfeo en este caso sería un Juan Bautista ya que reconoce a Neo como el Redentor de la humanidad que esta sujetada sin darse cuenta a "cadenas virtuales" (clip ). Para los cristianos, Cristo abrió las puertas del cielo con su sacrificio. En fin, la primera alegoría--adaptada a tiempos modernos-- es la del Jesús bíblico del Nuevo Testamento (excluyendo el Apocalipsis). Y la otra alegoría sería apocalíptica en donde la última batalla entre el bien (Neo, Mr. Anderson/Jesucristo, Jesús) y el mal (el agente Smith/el anticristo) toma lugar.
Saludos
Xavier G.
martes, 19 de febrero de 2008
domingo, 17 de febrero de 2008
Virtud
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cosas curiosas: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrno_Crusade
(Es un ánime que mezcla vritudes, demonios y la orden de las magdalenas asesinas... para que vean que los japoneses están en todo. Lo puse porque algunos de los personajes principales de esta serie tienen el nombre de alguna de las 7 virtudes... bien pueden evitarlo.)
jueves, 14 de febrero de 2008
Verdad
La Verdad de Bernini, obra que hizo para sí mismo, basándose en la iconografía de Cesare Ripa.
El concepto Histórico en el Pensamiento Cristiano
Historia y Naturaleza en el Contexto del Pensamiento Cristiano
La historia
•Tiene un fin último que cumplir
•Trasciende sus acontecimientos
•Promesa del futuro como dinamizadora de la historia
•Judeo-cristianismo Introduce un importante concepto en la cultura occidental
•[Trascender= ir más allá, sobrepasar cierto límite]
•La creación tiene como finalidad la glorificación de su autor (Lumeum gentum 36—Concilio del Vaticano II)
•La historia viene de Dios, el Dios de la historia de la salvación
•Fin = el regreso de todas las cosas creadas a Dios
•El presente como preparación en expectativa de un objetivo de futuro.
•Introduce un telos (meta hacia un fin) histórico que suministra una significación a la historia capaz de hacer frente a la amenaza del azar y la incertidumbre.
Escatología histórica
•Escatología = Conjunto de creencias y doctrinas referentes a la vida de ultratumba (la otra vida).
•Lo histórico tiene un fin que cumplir
•Una propuesta de Unidad a la historia
•Un monoteísmo que circunscribe a la historia (que la reduce a ciertos límites) a una unidireccionalidad (en una sola dirección) =
El Juicio Final (Armagedón para los judíos).
Naturaleza
•“El hombre en su unidad espiritual y corporal, en su alma, principio espiritual en el hombre, que es como la forma de su cuerpo”
•[Concilio de Viena de 1312]
•Cuando el concepto de naturaleza se aplica al hombre, culmen de la creación, cobra un sentido particular.
•El hombre, la única criatura en la tierra a la que Dios ha amado por si misma, tiene una dignidad que le viene de su naturaleza espiritual, en la que se encuentra la impronta del Creador, ya que ha sido creado a su imagen y semejanza (Gn 1, 26)
•Dios y el hombre son dos esencias de naturaleza espiritual
•[Gn= Génesis ]
¡Feliz Día de la Amistad a tod@s!
Saludos
Xavier G.
miércoles, 13 de febrero de 2008
martes, 12 de febrero de 2008
Alegoría
En esta entrada añado lo que me tocó sobre la definición de alegoría, el Trauerspiel de Benjamin y la teología de Henri de Lubac.
martes, 29 de enero de 2008
Algunos conceptos de Wölfflin respecto al Barroco desde una perspectiva del estudio del arte:
“Los grandes maestros del Renacimiento han introducido ellos mismos el barroco. Este ha surgido de estilo en pleno apogeo. Roma ha quedado como cabeza de la evolución artística” (44-45).
“. . . el barroco romano es la transformación más completa y la más radical del Renacimiento” (45).
“De un lado el barroco está delimitado por el Renacimiento, de otro por el neoclasicismo que comienza a manifestarse en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII; en total abarca aproximadamente dos siglos” (45).
"El barroco en sus comienzos es pesado, masivo, comprimido, severo; a continuación escapa poco a poco a su pesantez primera, el estilo gana en ligereza y alegría; al final se llega a disolver como combinándose todas las formas tectónicas; a esta última etapa la designamos con el nombre de rococó "(45-46)
“Toda innovación es un síntoma del estilo barroco naciente” (46).
“A diferencia del Renacimiento, al barroco no se acompaña de ninguna teoría” (55).
[El barroco] Recurre al poder de la emoción para conmover y subyugar directamente. Lo que aporta no es animación regular, sino sobresalto, éxtasis, embriaguez. Tiende a dar una impresión del instante. . . (79)
El barroco ejerce momentáneamente sobre nosotros una fuerte acción, pero nos abandona muy pronto dejándonos una especie de náusea. No evoca la plenitud del ser, sino el devenir, el acontecimiento; no la satisfacción; sino la insatisfacción y la inestabilidad. Uno no se siente liberado, sino arrestado al interior de la tensión con un estado apasionado [ y es grande y colosal en tamaño] (80).
“El barroco sólo crea en grande” (87).
“Efecto de masa y movimiento son los principios del estilo barroco” (109).
El barroco actúa por la ausencia de la forma, la cual excita aquello que debe ser superado (127).
El barroco . . . exige una unidad absoluta y las partes laterales son sacrificadas (85).
Wölfflin es prácticamente apolítico comparado con Maravall; su vertiente es más bien la de un crítico de arte.
Saludos
Xavier G.
“. . . el barroco romano es la transformación más completa y la más radical del Renacimiento” (45).
“De un lado el barroco está delimitado por el Renacimiento, de otro por el neoclasicismo que comienza a manifestarse en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII; en total abarca aproximadamente dos siglos” (45).
"El barroco en sus comienzos es pesado, masivo, comprimido, severo; a continuación escapa poco a poco a su pesantez primera, el estilo gana en ligereza y alegría; al final se llega a disolver como combinándose todas las formas tectónicas; a esta última etapa la designamos con el nombre de rococó "(45-46)
“Toda innovación es un síntoma del estilo barroco naciente” (46).
“A diferencia del Renacimiento, al barroco no se acompaña de ninguna teoría” (55).
[El barroco] Recurre al poder de la emoción para conmover y subyugar directamente. Lo que aporta no es animación regular, sino sobresalto, éxtasis, embriaguez. Tiende a dar una impresión del instante. . . (79)
El barroco ejerce momentáneamente sobre nosotros una fuerte acción, pero nos abandona muy pronto dejándonos una especie de náusea. No evoca la plenitud del ser, sino el devenir, el acontecimiento; no la satisfacción; sino la insatisfacción y la inestabilidad. Uno no se siente liberado, sino arrestado al interior de la tensión con un estado apasionado [ y es grande y colosal en tamaño] (80).
“El barroco sólo crea en grande” (87).
“Efecto de masa y movimiento son los principios del estilo barroco” (109).
El barroco actúa por la ausencia de la forma, la cual excita aquello que debe ser superado (127).
El barroco . . . exige una unidad absoluta y las partes laterales son sacrificadas (85).
Wölfflin es prácticamente apolítico comparado con Maravall; su vertiente es más bien la de un crítico de arte.
Saludos
Xavier G.
lunes, 28 de enero de 2008
Tecnología según Ortega y Gasset
"La técnica es, consustancialmente, ciencia, y la ciencia no existe si no interesa en su pureza y por ella misma, y no puede interesar si las gentes no continúan entusiasmadas con los principios generales de cultura. Si se embota este fervor –como parece ocurrir-, la técnica sólo puede pervivir un rato, el que le dure la inercia del impulso cultural que la creó. Se vive con la técnica, pero no de la técnica. "
sábado, 26 de enero de 2008
Barroco urbano vs Barroco rural
Aquí irá el resumen de nuestros ensayos sobre esta categoría social propuesta por Maravall para describir la cultura del barroco.
miércoles, 23 de enero de 2008
Definiciones y técnicas
Hola a tod@s
Como inicialmente Xavier se comprometió a poner en el blog las "definiciones" del barroco que aparecen en Maravall, creo que sería bueno que lo siguiera haciendo semanalmente según las definiciones que vayan apareciendo en los distintos autores: esta semana, Wölfflin.
Además, puesto que Urani ha mencionado las primeras técnicas, sería interesante ir creando una lista con tres columnas: autores, técnicas y efectos, a lo largo de todo el curso, para realmente saber cuál es la infraestructura técnica que permite "barroquizar" las expresiones artísticas o sociales. Como en el caso anterior, ¿lo sigue el que empieza?
Se trata simplemente de dar la frase, o las dos o tres palabras que describen la técnica considerada como "barroca" en cada caso.
Saludos,
Juan Luis
martes, 22 de enero de 2008
lunes, 21 de enero de 2008
Técnicas barrocas
Hola a tod@s:
Empecemos por la última parte del libro de Maravall. Según este último capítulo, ¿cuáles serían las principales técnicas propias de la cultura del barroco y qué efectos producen?
Además, sería preciso determinar cuáles de estas técnicas son exportables en el tiempo y en el espacio, es decir, al paisaje "barroco" latinoamericano y al del mucho más tecnológico "neobarroco".
Saludos,
JL
jueves, 17 de enero de 2008
Las dos definiciones de Maravall
(El contenido original de esta entrada se encuentra como comentario a la misma. Gracias por entender que si seguimos escribiendo acá esta página se hará enorme.)
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