The piece is about progression, loosely based on de Chardin and Vernadsky’s concept of the noosphere, starting with geosphere - biosphere - to noosphere, using technology and style to show the concept of progression.

The use of technology also re-enforces the notion of progression, starting with cinefilm, moving on to VHS and finishing with HD.The style choices also mirror this concept of progression, starting with the early computer styles of John Whitney, using Conway’s Game of Life to show evolution and interaction, transitioning from the Geosphere to the Biosphere. The Stop Motion Biosphere section then takes style influences from pioneers such as Svankmajer and The Quay Brothers. This section shows the evolution of the Biosphere, also showing interaction.The final section, The Noosphere, symbolises how we have evolved through technology, this time on a more cognitive level, taking inspiration from The Global Consciousness Project and using personal and collaborative HD footage, showing the global links technology brings.The various pieces of equipment all play automatically in sequence, to raise the question,

Is Technology controlling us or are we being controlled by Technology?

This sketchbook shows the progression of my work.Towards the back of the book I have also enclosed my Dissertation.The Dissertation subject was chosen as the final section of this piece was meant to have a more affective approach, however, the Noosphere section changed as the piece evolved.

So who am I?

Originally I’m a print based Graphic Designer, having studied a ND and HND in Graphic Design. After spending 5 years in industry developing my Design skills and gaining knowledge of the print processes, I decided to modernise my skills and choose to study Multimedia Design. I’ve studied in South Korea twice, studying Fine Art, learning more traditional skills such as Oriental Painting, Etching and Silkscreen printing, having my work shown in various art shows in Seoul.My skills and passions range from the aforementioned traditional styles through to stop motion, short films/Motion Design, 3D and Arduino/Processing. My recent works in some way take influence from the concept of Noosphere and how technology is shaping us.

John WalkerTel: 07980 864666jwalkersgotseoul@googlemail.com

http://www.jwalkercreative.com/http://jwalkercreative.tumblr.com/https://vimeo.com/user3119145

Vladimir Vernadsky

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863 – 1945) was a Russian/Ukrainian and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and of radiogeology.

His ideas of noosphere were an important contribution to Russian cosmism. He also worked in Ukraine where he founded the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.

He is most noted for his 1926 book The Biosphere in which he inadvertently worked to popularize Eduard Suess’ 1885 term biosphere, by hypothesizing that life is the geological force that shapes the earth.

Having worked on radiation, crystallography, and founded the science of biogeochemistry, he contributed novel ideas about the make-up and functioning of our planet.

Two of his most famous ideas are a scientific understanding of the "Biosphere"--the thin strata where life exists on the Earth and the "Noosphere"--the realm of the activity of human thought.

Working with Theilard de Chardin and other philosophers, Vernadsky came to understand humanity as another form of life establishing itself as a geological force. He elaborated on these ideas in his The Biosphere and Noosphere, where he addressed the ability of humans to transfer elements and concentrate them in the biosphere to an unprecedented extent. He described the Noosphere as "the final stage in the evolution of the biosphere being driven by humanity as the dominate force." He also believed "in the strength of human reason" and that scientific thought would overcome the negative results of technogenesis and would secure "the rational transformation (and not annihilation) of the natural components of the biosphere." This would satisy mankind's increasing material and spiritual demands.

Published in Russian in 1926, The Biosphere, has waited until 1998 for an English translation and commentary by modern geologists, geophysicists, and geochemists. Vernadsky's experiments and summations -- way ahead of their time -- attracted considerable attention, but the Communist revolution threw a pall over his researches and conclusions. The 1998 English edition includes the views of several well-known modern scientists in related fields, which support his thesis. They hail his text as a "discovery" shedding light on many problems emerging today and leading contemporary scientists to further discoveries.

Vernadsky's thesis is summarized in his usage of the word biosphere, for he thought that life is innate in every particle of the planet and, by extension, in the cosmos at large. It was not something added to or arising from the interaction of Earth's physical components.

As he said:Life remains unalterable in its essential traits throughout all geological times, and changes only in form. All the vital films (plankton, bottom, and soil) and all the vital concentrations (littoral, sargassic, and fresh water) have always existed. Their mutual relationships, and the quantities of matter connected with them, have changed from time to time; but these modifications could not have been large, because the energy input from the sun has been constant, or nearly so, throughout geological time, and because the distribution of this energy in the vital films and concentrations can only have been determined by living matter -- the fundamental part, and the only variable part, of the thermodynamic field of the biosphere.

But living matter is not an accidental creation. Solar energy is reflected in it, as in all its terrestrial concentrations. -- p. 149Vernadsky's views are stated in the Foreword to the English-language edition as follows:

1. Life occurs on a spherical planet. Vernadsky is the first person in history to come [to] grips with the real implica-tions of the fact that Earth is a self-contained sphere.

2. Life makes geology. Life is not merely a geological force, it is the geological force. Virtually all geological features at Earth's surface are bio-influenced, and are thus part of Vernadsky's biosphere.

3. The planetary influence of living matter becomes more extensive with time. The number and rate of chemical elements transformed and the spectrum of chemical reactions engendered by living matter are increasing, so that more parts of Earth are incorporated into the biosphere.

What Vernadsky set out to describe was a physics of living matter. Life, as he viewed it, was a cosmic phenomenon which was to be understood by the same universal laws that applied to such constants as gravity and the speed of light. Still, Vernadsky himself and many of his fundamental conceptions remained largely unknown. -- p. 15

Vernadsky teaches us that life, including human life, using visible light energy from our star the Sun, has transformed our planet over the eons. He illuminates the difference between an inanimate, mineralogical view of Earth's history, and an endlessly dynamic picture of Earth as the domain and product of life, to a degree not yet well understood. No prospect of life's cessation looms on any horizon. What Charles Darwin did for all life through time, Vernadsky did for all life through space. Just as we are all connected in time through evolution to common ancestors, so we are all -- through the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and these days even the ionosphere -- connected in space. We are tied through Vernadskian space to Darwinian time. -- pp. 18-1

Contains portions of Earth -- A Biosphere By I. M. Oderberg(From Sunrise magazine, August/September 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Theosophical University Press.)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (May 1, 1881 – April 10, 1955) was a French philosopher and Jesuit priest who trained as a paleontologist and geologist and took part in the discovery of both Piltdown Man and Peking Man. Teilhard conceived the idea of the Omega Point and developed Vladimir Vernadsky's concept of Noosphere. Some of his ideas came into conflict with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church, and several of his books were censured.

In his posthumously published book, The Phenomenon of Man, Teilhard writes of the unfolding of the material cosmos, from primordial particles to the development of life, human beings and the noosphere, and finally to his vision of the Omega Point in the future, which is "pulling" all creation towards it. He was a leading proponent of orthogenesis, the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way, argued in terms that today go under the banner of conver-gent evolution. Teilhard argued in Darwinian terms with respect to biology, and supported the synthetic model of evolution, but argued in Lamarckian terms for the develop-ment of culture, primarily through the vehicle of education.

Teilhard makes sense of the universe by its evolutionary process. He interprets complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, into consciousness (in man,) and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point.)

Teilhard himself claimed his work to be phenomenology. Teilhard studied what he called the rise of spirit, or evolution of consciousness, in the universe. He believed it to be observable and verifiable in a simple law he called the Law of Complexity / Consciousness. This law simply states that there is an inherent compulsion in matter to arrange itself in more complex groupings, exhibiting higher levels of consciousness. The more complex the matter, the more conscious it is. Teilhard proposed that this is a better way to describe the evolution of life on earth, rather than Herbert Spencer's "survival of the fittest." The universe, he argued, strives towards higher consciousness, and does so by arranging itself into more complex structures.

Teilhard here proposed another level of consciousness, to which human beings belong, because of their cognitive ability; i.e. their ability to 'think', and to set things to purpose. Human beings, Teilhard argued, represent the layer of consciousness which has "folded back in upon itself", and has become self-conscious. So in addition to the geosphere and the biosphere, Teilhard posited another sphere, which is the realm of human beings, the realm of reflective thought: the noosphere. The noosphere has been compared to C. G. Jung's theory of the collective uncon-scious.

Finally, the keystone to his phenomenology is that because Teilhard could not explain why the universe would move in the direction of more complex arrangements and higher consciousness, he postulated that there must exist ahead of the moving universe, and pulling it along, a higher pole of supreme consciousness, which he called Omega Point.

http://satucket.com/lectionary/pierre_teilhard_de_chardin.htm

3D/Modern Style References

For the Noosphere section of my piece I would like to use a combination of 3D, HD and Motion Graphics. I’ve been looking at a variety of people in a similar genre (Sci-Fi ) for style references. Two of the artists who’s work and style i admire are J P Frenay and Dr Strangeloop.Jean-Paul Frenay is a Belgian director, visual artist and musician working across disciplines in art direction, graphics design, photography, interactive media, film and motion.Strangeloop is an LA based A/V artist on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label. He makes short films, music videos amongst other things and also performs as a live visual artist. He has collaborated with WARP records and 2Oth Century Fox. Both these artists, as well as the orther artists featured on this page, work with a very futuristic, technological style which fits perfect with the Noosphere concept of my final section.

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71. J P Frenay: ARTIFICIAL PARADISE, INC2. J P Frenay: ARTIFICIAL PARADISE, INC

3. J P Frenay: RESONANCE // Destructive Oscillation4. Strangeloop: 2010 : [or] How I Learned to Stop Worrying

and Love the Technological Singularity’5. Strangeloop: Astral Landscapes : audio/visual experience

6. Strangeloop, adifferentworldhttp://drstrangeloop.wordpress.com/7. Strangeloop: experimental still

8. DAT DAT DAT: Egyptrixx - Start from the Beginning9. Mathieu Gérard - Steel Life

10. Selfburning: Field

John Whitney Style Reference

For the Geosphere section, I’d like to use cinefilm and I have looked at the work of John Whitney for style reference.

John Whitney:From his earliest experiments with the medium of computer graphic systems, John Whitney Sr. has balanced a cutting edge use of technology with a strong sense of artistic control and integerity.

1. Catalog (1961)

2. Catalog (1961)

3. Catalog (1961)

4. MATRIX III (1972)

5. MATRIX III (1972)

6. Arabesque (1975)

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6Considered by many to be the "father of Computer Graphics", John Whitney, and the entire Whitney family, have successfully linked musical composition with experimental film and computer imaging. Since his recognized works in the first International Experimental Film Competition in Belgium, 1949, to his masterpiece Arabesque in 1975, John Whitney remained a true pioneer until his passing in 1996 at age 78.

Players

For the first section of the film, Geosphere, I will aim to use a cinefilm projector and project this section onto a screen or wall. The problems I might encounter with this part is how to get the fim to repeat.The solution to this problem could be to use and arduino and try and trigger the projector to rewind when finished and then play again when it is time for the first section again. I realise this could somewhat problematic so I will research this process in more detail.

For this section, Biosphere, the natural progression would be to use VCR as this was the technology that became very popular for homeviewing. It also seems to act like a bridge in technology from cinefilm to HD. I feel I will have the same problems with the VCR as I will with the cinefilm, trying to find a way to automatically play when needed and rewind after viewing.With the cinefilm, an arduino/trigger might be the solution to this problem.

For Noosphere, a HD screen/Computer seems the natural selection, as it is becoming the modern way to view films, tv etc.I don’t envisage any problems with the rewinding/playback of this section.The film can be either made at a certain length so that it contains extra time (blank visuals) at the end of the section and then reloops or it could even be triggered by processing to play and rewind at a pre-set time.

*If this idea of using the three different types of viewing technology is too problem-atic I will have to come up with another solution, possibly transfering all the film and outputting everything digitally.*

To mirror the idea of the progression of the Earth through technology, I want to try and carry this idea through in the way the films are presented,using the advancements in personal viewing technology to show this,going from Analog to Digital, showing the complexities of modern technology.

GEOSPHERECinefilm Projector

BIOSPHEREAnalogue TV/VCR

NOOSPHEREHD/Digital Screen

Motion Experiments 1

I will also be using After Effects for the Noosphere section, so I will also be experimenting with styles and techniques to gain further knowledge of After Effects and 3rd Party Plugins.As the sections will be using sound and music, recently I have been experimenting with audio/visual reactions.This is a list the recent techniques/plugins I have been using:

1. Particular (bottom pictures)2. Sound Keys (bottom pictures)3. Newton (2D Physics Engine) (top right picures)

I feel that these techniques may come in useful for the Noosphere section.As with the 3D experimentation, I will continue to experiment and document the process. Future experiments will include the integration of the two pieces of software.

Conway's Game of Life

One way I might be able to show the idea of evolution is to do an animated version of Conway's Game of Life.The animation could start (in Geosphere) with a less complex start shape and showing the progression of that, then moving on through to a slightly more complex shape (Biosphere), moving through to the final start shape being the most complex (Noosphere). Symbolising the changing in the complexities of life.Each section will utilize the different technologies to approach this, for example, the first part could be hand drawn or filmed on 8mm cinefilm, the next, possibly using 3D hand-made shapes and the final using 3D software.So what is Conway’s Game of Life?

Game of Life

The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970.The "game" is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves.

Rules

The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent.

At each step in time, the following transitions occur:Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed—births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick (in other words, each generation is a pure function of the preceding one). The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations.

Ever since its publication, Conway's Game of Life has attracted much interest, because of the surprising ways in which the patterns can evolve. Life provides an example of emergence and self-organization. It is interesting for computer scientists, physicists, biologists, biochemists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, generative scientists and others to observe the way that complex patterns can emerge from the implementation of very simple rules. The game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer.

For example, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has used the analogue of Conway's Life "universe" extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex philosophical constructs, such as consciousness and free will, from the relatively simple set of deterministic physical laws governing our own universe

Examples of patterns

The earliest interesting patterns in the Game of Life were discovered without the use of computers. The simplest static patterns ("still lifes") and repeating patterns ("oscillators"—a superset of still lifes) were discovered while tracking the fates of various small starting configurations using graph paper, blackboards, physical game boards (such as Go) and the like. During this early research, Conway discovered that the F-pentomino (which he called the "R-pentomino") failed to stabilize in a small number of generations. In fact, it takes 1103 generations to stabilize, by which time it has a population of 116 and has fired six escaping gliders (in fact, these were the first gliders ever discovered).Many different types of patterns occur in the Game of Life, including still lifes, oscillators, and patterns that translate themselves across the board ("spaceships"). Some frequently occurring examples of these three classes are shown below, with live cells shown in black, and dead cells shown in white.

These are just some of the basics, I’ll show more examples after further research and analysis into this subject.

Block Beehive Loaf Boat Blinker (period 2) Toad (period 2)

Still LifesO scillators

Flatland

I’ve been researching Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. I like the idea of using shapes to signify class and evolution, the below text and diagrams are excerpts from the book and will give you a brief look at what Flatlands is about.

I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.Imagine a vast sheet of paper on which straight Lines, Triangles, Squares, Pentagons, Hexagons, and other figures, instead of remaining fixed in their places, move freely about, on or in the surface, but without the power of rising above or sinking below it, very much like shadows -- only hard and with luminous edges -- and you will then have a pretty correct notion of my country and countrymen. Alas, a few years ago, I should have said "my universe": but now my mind has been opened to higher views of things.In such a country, you will perceive at once that it is impossible that there should be anything of what you call a "solid" kind; but I dare say you will suppose that we could at least distinguish by sight the Triangles, Squares, and other figures, moving about as I have described them. On the contrary, we could see nothing of the kind, not at least so as to distinguish one figure from another. Nothing was visible, nor could be visible, to us, except Straight Lines; and the necessity of this I will speedily demonstrate.Place a penny on the middle of one of your tables in Space; and leaning over it, look down upon it. It will appear a circle.But now, drawing back to the edge of the table, gradually lower your eye (thus bringing yourself more and more into the condition of the inhabitants of Flatland), and you will find the penny becoming more and more oval to your view, and at last when you have placed your eye exactly on the edge of the table (so that you are, as it were, actually a Flatlander) the penny will then have ceased to appear oval at all, and will have become, so far as you can see, a straight line.The same thing would happen if you were to treat in the same way a Triangle, or Square, or any other figure cut out of pasteboard. As soon as you look at it with your eye on the edge on the table, you will find that it ceases to appear to you a figure, and that it becomes in appearance a straight line. Take for example an equilateral Triangle -- who represents with us a Tradesman of the respectable class. Fig. 1 represents the Tradesman as you would see him while you were bending over him from above; figs. 2 and 3 represent the Tradesman, as you would see him if your eye were close to the level, or all but on the level of the table; and if your eye were quite on the level of the table (and that is how we see him in Flatland) you would see nothing but a straight line.

When I was in Spaceland I heard that your sailors have very similar experiences while they traverse your seas and discern some distant island or coast lying on the horizon. The far-off land may have bays, forelands, angles in and out to any number and extent; yet at a distance you see none of these (unless indeed your sun shines bright upon them revealing the projections and retirements by means of light and shade), nothing but a grey unbroken line upon the water.Well, that is just what we see when one of our triangular or other acquaintances comes toward us in Flatland. As there is neither sun with us, nor any light of such a kind as to make shadows, we have none of the helps to the sight that you have in Spaceland. If our friend comes closer to us we see his line becomes larger; if he leaves us it becomes smaller: but still he looks like a straight line; be he a Triangle, Square, Pentagon, Hexagon, Circle, what you will -- a straight Line he looks and nothing else.You may perhaps ask how under these disadvantageous circumstances we are able to distinguish our friends from one another: but the answer to this very natural question will be more fitly and easily given when I come to describe the inhabitants of Flatland. For the present let me defer this subject, and say a word or two about the climate and houses in our country.

The greatest length or breadth of a full grown inhabitant of Flatland may be estimated at about eleven of your inches. Twelve inches may be regarded as a maximum.Our Women are Straight Lines.Our Soldiers and Lowest Classes of Workmen are Triangles with two equal sides, each about eleven inches long, and a base or third side so short (often not exceeding half an inch) that they form at their vertices a very sharp and formidable angle. Indeed when their bases are of the most degraded type (not more than the eighth part of an inch in size), they can hardly be distinguished from Straight Lines or Women; so extremely pointed are their vertices. With us, as with you, these Triangles are distinguished from others by being called Isosceles; and by this name I shall refer to them in the following pages.Our Middle Class consists of Equilateral or Equal-Sided Triangles.Our Professional Men and Gentlemen are Squares (to which class I myself belong) and Five-Sided Figures or Pentagons.Next above these come the Nobility, of whom there are several degrees, beginning at Six-Sided Figures, or Hexagons, and from thence rising in the number of their sides till they receive the honourable title of Polygonal, or many-y-sided. Finally when the number of the sides becomes so numerous, and the sides themselves so small, that the figure cannot be distinguished from a circle, he is included in the Circular or Priestly order; and this is the highest class of all.It is a Law of Nature with us that a male child shall have one more side than his father, so that each generation shall rise (as a rule) one step in the scale of development and nobility. Thus the son of a Square is a Pentagon; the son of a Pentagon, a Hexagon; and so on.

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Ideas - Shapes

Leading on from the Flatland idea of shapes symbolising different aspects of life and evolution and Conway’s Game of Life, I might consider using these ideas to show the evolution of life through technology.

have backgrounds and shapes interact

shapes = people, technology

backgrounds show a narrative of conditions -

geosphere - gas - cinefilmbiosphere - nature - vhs camera shooting/or (hand-made) stop motionnoosphere - technology/architecture/modern cities (perhaps shoot London) - 3D

geosphere - simple shapes simple patterns and interaction between shapesbiosphere - middle advanced shapes and patterns and interaction between shapesnoosphere - most advanced shapes and patterns and interaction between shapes

noosphere - 3d - 3d modelling based on polygons adds to the idea of advancementstarts with shapes (polygons) and evolves into much more complex shapes of no discernible name.

Neon Signs

As I’m considering making the end piece an installation, I am toying with the idea of placing neon signs next to the corresponding screens. This is something I will look into as an on going process, as I feel the size and placement of each screen will come with some constraints and will probably be a deciding factor for the look and layout of the final installation.

To the right is just a photoshop mock up of the sign placements, the screens would be to the right of the signs and the each sign could be on a timer so that it lights up when that sections video is playing.

Through recent costing research into neon signs, I have found them to be a bit expensive, so even the use of LED type based screens could be an alternative.

I have also come across these:

http://www.ledneon-sign.com/china-neo_link_letters_create_your_own_neon-102679.html

They are not as stylish as having my own purpose made, but the price is far cheaper.I could even look into housing them in something more stylish, to give the end finish a better look.

3D Experiments 1

The Noosphere section is going to rely heavily on Cinema 4D work, so I am currently learning new techniques that I think will enable me to finish this work to a high standard.

Some of the things I have been looking at recently are:

1. Lighting2. Textures3. Abstract shapes4. Shatter object, fracture object and dynamics (procedural, not plugins).5. Modelling6. Landscapes

This will be ongoing, so I will document the process of learning and experimentation.

3D Shape (Noosphere) Concept

One Idea I have been thinking of to tie in with the shape representing humans is the idea of incorporating the shapes floating above the humans, constantly animating and possibly linking with each other in some way, eg. lines forming between each shape to symbolise interac-tion.

To the right (Fig.1) is a mock up of such scene and below (Fig.2) is a possible idea for the shapes.The three examples are all from the same piece of animated 3D work, where the shapes continuesly changes.(Fig.3) Shows how each person’s shape could link together

Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

3D Experiments 2

Here are a few more Cinema 4D experiments I have made recently using a variety of new techniques. I aim to animate and integrate these shapes into HD footage, hovering above peoples heads, constantly mutating. Future videos will show the progression of these experiments.

Biosphere - Diorama’s

For the Biosphere/Stop Motion section, I would like to make this section show how technology starts to shape the landscape. So one way I was thinking I could do this is by adopting a style like I showed earlier in the Stop Motion Style Reference section, looking at Svankmajer, The Quay Brothers and Osbert Parker.

I have been looking at making diorama’s.I could make a nature scene in this way and then have the nature be then taken over by modern materials, using physical materials and stop motion to show this progression. Below you can see some examples of Diorama’s that contain nature, it’s certainly an approach I would like to explore.

1. David Hoffos - House Dream: http://davidhoffos.com

2. landscape diorama from Flickr user F/28,

the creator of the No Country For Small Men series

http://floriantremp.1x.com/

3. Kim Boske - Decay can be very small: www.kimboske.com

4. www.treemendusmodels.co.uk

5. www.treemendusmodels.co.uk

6. MatthewAlbanese - Fields, After the Storm.

http://www.behance.net/MatthewAlbanese/frame

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Noosphere Inspiration - OFFF Festival 2011 Title Sequence

The title sequence for the OFFF Festival in Barcelona by PostPanic contains a great idea that has inspired me to think about a concept for the Noosphere section.The idea of a virus taking over humans could work well, in my case, using the idea of the shapes evolving and taking over the humans and landscape (following on from the Biosphere section).In the stills taken from the Title sequence (shown below), you can see this happening.I also really like the style used in PostPanic’s piece of work. You can see the piece here: http://vimeo.com/24982650

Using digital tools, I think this is certainly an idea I can explore and would work extremely well with my concept.

Michel Gondry

I’m a big fan of Gondry’s work and I really like his use of incorporating hand-made objects into his work. I feel it gives it a very human feel.I think this approach could work very well in certain stages of my work and it is certainly a style I would like to experiment with.Gondry also likes to play with camera angles and various other filming techniques, as can be seen on his youtube channel.So this is another aspect I could possibly research. Below you can see examples of his work and how he incorporates hand-made into digital work.

1. Björk - Crystalline 2. Radiohead - Knives Out

3. The Science of Sleep4. The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl

5. Björk - Human Behaviour

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Sound 01

For the audio for this piece I will mirror the concept of progression through technology, using different styles and techniques.Here are my initial ideas:

GEOSPHERE: I think for this section I will not use and sound at all, just simply leaving the sound of the projector to be the only thing heard. The thinking behind this is to hark back to the old silent movies and to also give the real feeling of watching an old family cinefilm.

BIOSPHERE: For the biosphere section, my initial thoughts are to use field recordings and maybe vinyl. Trying more of an analog approach to the score. I would like to make the sound fit to the images seen.

NOOSPHERE: I think to fit with the idea of technology making our lives progress, I might sample old iconic pieces of technology, for example, old dial up sounds, fax machines, windows and apple sounds, possibly researching the dates in which these pieces of technology were first released (or when they were at their most popular) and make a sound

piece using the sounds in order of their release/popularity. This section I will make the images fit with the sound.

Biosphere Inspiration

Below are a few screen shots of various videos I researched for inspiration.They helped in order to mimic the movement or animals or plants.From Starfish, to seeds growing, to how an ant walks or the way in which a baby evolves in the womb, these all proved to be extremely useful when making this work.

Life - Timelapse of swarming monster worms and sea stars - BBC OneSeed timelapse: http://youtu.be/fPTJ3qD1ikkGreen Bean Germination: http://youtu.be/TJQyL-7KRmwAnts - Attenborough: Life in the Undergrowth - BBCFrog eggs turn into tadpole: http://youtu.be/B3d48VfQHbYBaby process from 0 month to 9 months: http://youtu.be/mVutXcycUjQ

Biosphere Cont. Diorama Set up 4 - Time Lapse

Over the past year I have been experimenting with Time Lapse. Below you can see a few stills from the videos I shot. I will upload these experiments to my blog. Whilst conducting these experiments I was particularly pleased with some of the results. This led me to the idea of having the background of the stop motion as a sky time lapse (Fig. 3). I also liked how the light position changed as the sun moved around (Fig.1 and 4) I will try and experiment with lighting in the stop motion to replicate this effect.This should give it a more natural feel

1. Kookmin University, Seoul

3. York sky

2. London to Doncaster Train Journey

4. View from Ramien Apartment, Seoul

Concept - Colour Psychology

Red is a very strong colour. It is a noticeable colour that is often used on caution and warning signs. It is often associated with stop or "beware". It’s a hot colour that evokes a powerful emotion of passion, lust, sex, energy, blood and war. Red is a good colour to use for accents that need to take notice over other colours. Red is often used in flags for nations, as it is a symbol of pride and strength. It is also a sporty colour that many car manufactures choose to showcase their signature vehicles.

Orange is a combination of Red and Yellow. It is also a bright and warm colour. It represents fire, the sun, fun, warmth and tropical images. It is considered a fun light colour that has appetizing qualities to it. Orange increases oxygen supply to the brain and stimulates mental activity. It is highly accepted among young people. As a citrus colour, orange is associated with healthy food and stimulates appetite. Any design relating to the tropics, something fun, easy going and youthful should incorpo-rate some type of orange into the design. A darker, richer shade of orange can be associated with autumn.

Yellow is the brightest colour to the human eye. It represents youth, fun, happiness, sunshine and other light playful feelings. It is a cheerful energetic colour. Yellow is often used for children’s toys and clothes. Yellow is often hard to read when placed on a white background so designers must be careful when using yellow, that it isn't too difficult to read or notice. Though yellow is a bright cheerful colour, as it starts to darken it, however, quickly becomes a dirty and unpleasant colour. Yellow can also be associated with being scared and, cowards. The term "yellow belly" is proof of that.

Green is the colour of nature and health. It represents growth, nature, money, fertility and safety. Green is a relaxing colour that is easy on the eye and has a healing power to it. It is often used to represent anything having to do with health. Many pharmaceutical and nutritional companies use green in their logos and material to advertise safe natural products. Dark green is commonly associated with the military, money, finance, and banking. However it can also be associated with being new or inexperienced as being green or a "green horn". Green is becoming a very popular colour in design for web sites.

Blue is a cool calming colour that shows creativity and intelligence. It is a popular colour among large corporations, hospitals and airlines. It is a colour of loyalty, strength, wisdom and trust. Blue has a calming effect on the psyche. Blue is the colour of the sky and the sea and is often used to represent those images. Blue is a colour that generally looks good in almost any shade and is a popular colour among males. Blue is not a good colour when used for food as there are few blue foods found in nature and it suppresses the appetite.

Purple combines the stability of blue and the energy of red. Throughout history purple has been associated with royalty, nobility and prestige. It symbolizes mystery, magic, power and luxury. Purple is often used to portray rich powerful kings, leaders, wizards and magicians. Purple combined with gold can be flashy and portray wealth and extravagance. Light purple and pink is good for a feminine design and is a popular colour among teenage girls. Bright purple along with yellow is commonly used in promoting children's products. It gives the appearance of something that is fun and easy to do.

Black is often a colour used to portray something evil, depressing, scary or even death in western civilization. It has negative imagery with it at times such as "black mail" "black list" "black hole" etc. Black is also a very powerful colour that also portrays one of class elegance and wealth. Classy clothing is designed in black from the "power suit" to the "sexy black dress" to formal "black-tie attire". Black combined with other colours can have a very strong statement. Black is a colour that can fit into almost every design to add contrast, type, and make the other colours stand out more.

White is often associated with being pure, clean, fresh and good. The colour of a fresh snowstorm brings up images of a peaceful and pure winter scene. White is a common background for Webster's as it is easy to read black or dark text on it. When used with a design using lots of negative space it gives a very clean look to it. White is also used lots for charities and non-profit organizations to denote something good and positive. Hollywood often portrays their characters in white as being good; the white horse, the cowboy with the white hat, the white wizard etc. White usually is associated with being pure and almost heavenly. White is associated with hospitals, doctors, and heaven.

I want to show how in life we come across subtle changes, so to symbolise these changes I am thinking of using colour, that will perhaps be subtly added to an object, that the viewer may not be aware of when they first see the footage. I might use this idea throughout all the sections of the piece. I could possibly change the order of something etc when the colour is added, so it acts as a catalyst for change. I would like to use a colour that is either not too noticeable or evokes a feeling in us, here is a look into basic colour psychology:

Processing - Conways Game of Life 001

Here you can see the original code I based my Conway’s Game of Life on.With Processing being an Open Source based community, it allows for the sharing of code.Here, Mike Davis’s original code is included in the examples section of Processing: Examples - Topics - Cellular Automata - ConwayBelow left you can see the processing window and the example of Conway’s Game of Life in action,Below right you can see the code.However, I felt the look was quite right for what I wanted as I wanted it to look more visually appealing, computer based but more organic, to look more like cells forming and dieing. I will show examples of how visually my GoL evolved and explain how the code changed and works in later pages. /**

* Conway's Game of Life * by Mike Davis. * * This program is a simple version of Conway's * game of Life. A lit point turns off if there * are fewer than two or more than three surrounding * lit points. An unlit point turns on if there * are exactly three lit neighbors. The 'density' * parameter determines how much of the board will * start out lit. */ int sx, sy; float density = 0.5; int[][][] world; void setup() { size(640, 200, P2D); frameRate(12); sx = width; sy = height; world = new int[sx][sy][2]; // Set random cells to 'on' for (int i = 0; i < sx * sy * density; i++) { world[(int)random(sx)][(int)random(sy)][1] = 1; } } void draw() { background(0); // Drawing and update cycle for (int x = 0; x < sx; x=x+1) { for (int y = 0; y < sy; y=y+1) { //if (world[x][y][1] == 1) // Change recommended by The.Lucky.Mutt if ((world[x][y][1] == 1) || (world[x][y][1] == 0 && world[x][y][0] == 1)) { world[x][y][0] = 1; set(x, y, #FFFFFF); } if (world[x][y][1] == -1) { world[x][y][0] = 0; } world[x][y][1] = 0; } } // Birth and death cycle for (int x = 0; x < sx; x=x+1) { for (int y = 0; y < sy; y=y+1) { int count = neighbors(x, y); if (count == 3 && world[x][y][0] == 0) { world[x][y][1] = 1; } if ((count < 2 || count > 3) && world[x][y][0] == 1) { world[x][y][1] = -1; } } } } // Count the number of adjacent cells 'on' int neighbors(int x, int y) { return world[(x + 1) % sx][y][0] + world[x][(y + 1) % sy][0] + world[(x + sx - 1) % sx][y][0] + world[x][(y + sy - 1) % sy][0] + world[(x + 1) % sx][(y + 1) % sy][0] + world[(x + sx - 1) % sx][(y + 1) % sy][0] + world[(x + sx - 1) % sx][(y + sy - 1) % sy][0] + world[(x + 1) % sx][(y + sy - 1) % sy][0]; }

Stop Motion 18 - Baby Developing

Here’s the Plan/Storyboard for the order of animations. The subject matter and transitions were all chosen to symbolise change and transactions, this was sometimes shown in the landscape or in the insects etc. For example, the metamorphosis of the caterpillar is something we associate with change.The transitions were carefully thought out subjectively and aesthetically. For example, the flower to bee transition symbolises the interaction from the flowers pollen to the bee and the white flowers and the white wings of the bees worked on an aesthetic level.With the Ladybird to ants transition, the ant movement was originally left to right, but since I added the ladybird animation later, I flipped the ant animation so the eye would follow the movement better, with the ladybirds leaving the frame top left, the ants then enter the frame top left.The order of the animations was always considered before I made them, this way I could think about the scene that followed it and make allowances for that. However, sometimes through new inspiration from looking at wildlife videos, I decided to add things. Although as stated earlier, the order was considered from the start, it was nice to let the idea progress naturally as I received new forms of inspiration, after all the whole piece was about progression.

1.

Rock Forming

2.

Star Fish 01

3.

Star Fish 02

4.

Rock Shift/Soil

5.

Plants Growing

6.

Seed

7.

Flower Growing

8.

Flower Heads

9.

Bees

11.

Caterpillar

11.

Caterpillar to Chrysalis

12.

Chrysalis Changing

13.

Ladybirds

14.

Ants

15.

2 Ants Close up

16.

Single Ant Close up

17.

Frog Spawn to Tadpole

18.

Tadpole to Sperm

19.

Sperm/Egg

20.

Baby

Noosphere Filming 001

For the Noosphere section, I decided to make this a collaborative piece.The reason for this decision was to strengthen the idea of the evolution of our minds through technology.After explaining my concept briefly to selected people based around the world, I asked them to send me footage based on their interpretation.The keywords I mentioned were movement, progression through technology and interaction.To my surprise, I received very similar subjects that I had been shooting myself, namely people on escalators and people sharing technology.I believe this showed how similar our thoughts are becoming, even people of different cultural backgrounds in different places can still have similar thoughts, influences and references.Below you can see examples of footage from India, Canada, South Korea, Dubai, Manchester and Tenerife.When I started this project, this section was becoming quite cynical, however after consulting with tutors and exploring my own feelings on this subject, due to the travel I have done recently, I have seen how technology can be a force for good and bring us together in a positive way.I want the work to reflect this, but to also still have that option to be taken the opposite way, in that technology can be controlling us and not the other way around.The piece is not being made to provide answers, I want the viewer to judge this point for themselves.

My first step was to make decisions on which footage to use and to edit it down to manageable sections. I had to try and keep the length of this section down, otherwise this section would have been much longer than the other two, so a lot of footage was left out. In the end I chose to use footage from Seoul, Jodhpur, Dubai, and Vancouver and I would go on to film my own footage from York.

Noosphere Filming 003

My next step was to work with the footage. Below you can see the steps I followed with all the footage I chose.(1) Shows the initial footage, next (2), I edited the footage and applied a colour grade using a variety of methods in After Effects (built in and plugins).(3) I made a 3D Wifi logo in Cinema 4D (5&6) that rotates, exported it as an image sequence (with transparencies) and composited it into my scene. I then motion tracked the footage so the logo would follow the person using the technology. (4) I then motion tracked two different points on the footage (technology and the persons head) and used two dots and a line to join the dots. I did this treatment on all the footage from the various places in the world.The reason for the connection and the wifi logo is to symbolise the connectivity between us and technology and to show the connections between people from all corners of the globe. The question which arises from this is just exactly who or what is in control, us or the technology?Which influences which?The style of this came from adverts that seem to be en vogue at the moment, adverts for companies such as Orange, that show how by using their products, you are always connected. Although on the surface it appears to be quite playful (and indeed may be taken that way), there also appears to be a dark undercurrent running through this, it all depends on the viewers perspective on the subject matter.

1. Initial Footage

2. Colour Grade

3. 3D Wifi Logo Motion Tracked and Comp'd

4. AE Motion trackingConnection Beams added

5. C4D Wifi Logo (Low quality image).3D Logo rotates.Transparent Blue finish

6. C4D Wifi Logo (Low quality image).3D Logo rotates.Transparent Blue finish

Installation Setup

This would be the ideal setup for the installation, as a tower, with the screens enclosed in a custom made shelving unit.Ideally I would like the whole thing to be sectioned off, as the room in which it will be placed is extremely bright.This is a problem when projecting the cinefilm. As there are more physical installations this year, a few of us were thinking of pitching to have a small sectioned ‘room’In the time between final hand in and the actual show, I will use this time to try to solve these problems, as we are all governed by space.

HD SCREEN

TV SCREEN

PROJECTION

Shelving unit

Projector

Stand to loop

Tablewith computer, VHS/Remote conArduino hidden underneath

Shelving side view

studio doors

stoothing

plaster board

computer screen

portable tv

screen to project on

computer, VCR, arduino etc ** ALL HIDDEN**

projector

entrancewill be looped around a poll

HD SCREEN

TV SCREEN

PROJECTION

Shelving unit

Projector

Stand to loop extented

Tablewith computer, VHS/Remote conArduino hidden underneath

The order needs to appear as I’ve stated with:

Computer Screen - Top

Portable TV - middle

projector/screen on the bottom

With the projector, of course we will need to have enough space so that the projector doesn’t obscure the view of what’s been projected and it needs the projector to be far enough forward so that it projects a big enough image (doesn’t have to be huge).

The last thing is that a computer, VCR, arduino and power all need to be accessible but hidden underneath

John Walker U0862104

BA (Hons) Multimedia DesignUniversity of Huddersfield

More to Cinema than meets the eye:The Embodied, The Cognitive

and The Embodied Cognitive Theories of Cinema

CONTENTS

Introduction

Steven Shaviro and Embodied Cinema

Shaviro’s Persuasive Style

Focus on David Cronenberg

Cronenberg’ Stereo

Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises

Method Acting

Building a Character

David Bordwell’s Cognitive approach to Cinematic Studies

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Embodied Cognition

Conclusion

References

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

There is much more to cinema than meets the eye, I aim to look at the effect of cinema on the body. I will focus particularly on the work of Steven Shaviro and his Embodied approach to cinematic studies. To counter-balance this, I will also look at the Cognitive approach to cinematic studies, in particular, the theory of David Bord-well. We could say that these two approaches are oppositional and that as such there is a tension between them. The embodied approach focuses on body, sensation and affect, whereas the cognitive approach focuses upon the mind, on concepts, conventions and on representation. The Embodied theorists suggest that cinema is something that transforms us on a personal level, no one reaction is the same, that there is a uniqueness and specificity to sensation, something that is ever changing, whereas the Cognitivists believe that our experiences are already conditioned by innate factors. Thus experience is in some sense generic to everyone and can be categorised and classified from the outset.

“Before there are auteurs, there are constraints: before there are deviations, there are norms.”Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985) The Classical Hollywood Cinema. p4.

“The flesh is intrinsic to the cinematic apparatus, at once its subject, its substance, and its limit. All the films I have been discussing display a mute insistence of the body, beyond or beneath the limits of linguistic articulation and (social and cinematic) representation.”Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p255

The Cognitivists believe that in cinema, there are many conventions in place, narrative, the structure of a shot and the way in which music is used all arguably follow certain conventions. Conversely, the Embodied theorists believe that cinema is a force for change, for transformation, it doesn’t follow conventions and should constantly evolve, it is something that can’t be classified as it contains many personal meanings.

“The first, and crucial, step is to assume that classical filmmaking constitutes an aesthetic system that can characterize salient features of the individual work. The system cannot determine every minute detail of the work, but it isolates preferred practices and sets limits upon invention.”Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985) The Classical Hollywood Cinema. p4.

The two perspectives differ in their choice of film selections for analysis, in Shaviro’s The Cinematic Body, he chooses the films of George Romero, known as “The Godfather of all Zombies” who is best known for his gruesome horror movies, Jerry Lewis, best known for his “slapstick” style of comedy and David Cronenberg, best known for being one of the originators of body horror/venereal horror genre. The common thread between them being that they could all be considered to be heavily bodily orientated in style and content, even when he analyses comedy, “slapstick” comedians use their bodies in their act, often using violent actions such as physical punishment. For Bordwell and his Cognitive approach, the analysis differs, his choices for analysis are more narrative, ‘classic’ examples of Cinema, less modern and less abstract. In Bordwell’s The Classical Hollywood Cinema, the era of films he chooses are from 1917-60. Even in his later work, The Way Hollywood Tells it, his choices are again more mainstream, less Avant Garde examples, for example Jaws, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Die Hard and Spider-Man are all considered to be “Blockbusters”, a term that implies popularity. The Embodied theory is more concerned with the raw sensations emanating from the screen, how they affect us and how they likewise influence the body. This approach is less concerned with what is represented through film and more concerned with how it can transform the viewer - often the focus is upon the breaking of conventions in cinema. These theorists are less concerned with the conservative traditions of what is commonly thought of when we think of ‘cinema’.

“But in any case, I do not actively interpret or seek to control; I just sit back and blissfully consume. I passively enjoy or endure certain rhythms of duration: the passage of time, with its play of retention and anticipation, and with its relentless accumulation, transformation, and destruction of sounds and images. There is no structuring lack, no primordial division, but a continuity between the physiological and affective responses of my own body and the appearances and disappearances, the mutations and perdurances, of the bodies and images on screen.”Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p254

Embodied Theorists tend to look at cinema with strongly affective qualities to strengthen their approach, horror, pornography and violence being amongst the favourites. Shaviro’s approach tends to dwell on the fact that things have a singular, uniqueness to them, that no two faces are the same and each block of sensation possesses its own unique power.

“By fore- grounding my own “taste” in this manner I seek to emphasize the roles of singularity and chance, against the objectifying scholarly tendency, which seeks to reduce particulars to generals, bizarre exceptions to representative patterns, specific practices to the predictable regularities of genre.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). preface

“Film is a vivid medium, and it is important to talk about how it arouses corporeal reactions of desire and fear, pleasure and disgust, fascination and shame. I try to evoke these pre-reflective responses in my own discussions of various movies. I also argue that such affective experiences directly and urgently involve a politics. Power works in the depths and on the surfaces of the body, and not just in the disembodied realm of “representation” or of “discourse.” It is in the flesh first of all, far more than on some level of supposed ideological reflection, that the political is personal, and the personal political.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). preface

We can see from this how Shaviro frames his approach to cinematic studies and how it differs from the Cognitive approach that he seems to be rejecting when mentioning “objectifying scholarly tendency, which seeks to reduce particulars to generals” and “the disembodied realm of “representation””

When we think of ‘affect’, we can think of it in two ways - the quality of sensation/what is felt and the behavioural aspect “what the body does’ for example, the affect of revulsion (as seen on screen) on the body, could, in extreme cases, cause shaking, recoil or even vomiting (the promotional material for horror films often emphasis this aspect). The emphasis here is upon a physical ‘encounter’ between the screen, the sensations released by it, and the affected organism.

In contrast, the Cognitive approach, primarily concerns itself with ‘conservative traditions’. This approach focuses primarily on narrative conventions, focus of the shot, all examples of what we consider to be the ‘natural’ way of making a film. This is a very conservative approach, emphasizing predefined structure and conventions. These Cognitive theorists tend to look at what we would consider ‘classic’ cinema to strengthen their approach. Whilst Shaviro would emphasise the unique and particular qualities of any face presented on screen Bordwell would position then as instances of a general type. In the same way, Bordwell also sees mainstream Hollywood movies as following a genetic, instance of type, thus creating a Hollywood Industry.

“A mode of film practice, then, consists of a set of widely held stylistic norms sustained by and sustaining an integral mode of film production. These norms constitute a determinate set of assumptions about how a movie should behave, about what stories it properly tells and how it should tell them, about the range and functions of film technique, and about the activities of the spectator. These formal and stylistic norms will be created, shaped and supported within a mode of film production - a characteristic ensemble of economic aims, a specific division of labor, and particular ways of conceiving and executing the work of filmmaking.” Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985) The Classical Hollywood Cinema. p4.xiv. preface

As we can see, this very conservative, rigid framework that the cognitivists argue is present in cinema is in stark contrast to the unique, transformative, embodied theory. The Cognivist’s theory almost seems like it could represent the business practices of the manufacturing industry - applying a general conception of human nature and a strong sense of the teleology for a given domain to produce an idea of a product being ‘fit’ for purpose - although in this case the product in question being manufactured is film.

Bordwell has suggested that even avant-garde cinema follows cognitive conventions, even though these films don’t necessarily follow the conventions of ‘classic’ cinema, he argues that they are still conditioned by their own genre conventions. It makes sense to examine both the embodied and cognitive approaches to cinema in an attempt to ascertain their respective degrees of explanatory power.

Steven Shaviro and Embodied Cinema

The Embodied approach emphasizes that in order to think we need a body in which to do so. Even if we are deeply engrossed in watching a film, we are always very aware of our surroundings. If, for example, you are watching a film at the cinema and the person next to you brushes your arm, both your mind and body respond. You would probably move your arm away, the other person might do likewise and you could possibly be less engrossed in the film. Your body is also affected by what is seen on screen.

Steven Shaviro’s book, The Cinematic Body (1993), coming from a somewhat Deleuzian perspective, covers this topic, and he is primarily concerned with how the body is affected by what it sees on screen, in the way we are repulsed, excited or even ‘turned on’. Shaviro was the first to admit that it was a ‘personal’ book, but one of his aims was to show how:

“Film is a vivid medium, and it is important to talk about how it arouses corporeal reactions of desire and fear, pleasure and disgust, fascination and shame.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). preface

In the Cinematic Body, Shaviro looked at the work of some of his favourite directors, Fassbinder, George Romero and Cronenberg and used the work of these directors to show his theory of the Cinematic Body. As we look more into Shaviro, we can start to see that aspects of the kind of cinema that he favours resonate closely with the theoretical concerns of the embodied perspective.

“Revulsion and excitement are emotions that are in fact quite close to one another, which is why books, movies, etc trafficking in sex and/or violence are both the most popular ones, and the ones most frequently subject to censure and taboo. It’s often been observed, for instance, that few things are more luridly pornographic than writings denouncing the evils of pornography. (It is no surprise that several of Andrea Dworkin’s books were recently banned in Canada on the basis of the Dworkin-inspired anti-pornography law). And of course spectacle, which is to say artifice or fakery, is a big part of what makes things like horror and porno films enjoyable. That shudder of simultaneous pleasure and fear, when a grotesque murder or an outlandish sexual act takes place on screen, is entirely dependent upon exaggeration, upon a kind of theatrical grandiosity. This is something the literal-minded opponents of pornography, or of violence on TV, are simply unable to understand. Just like s&m, violence and pornography on screen have this hyperreal, larger-than-life quality, which is extremely absorbing and yet at the same time always being placed “in quotation marks”. That’s the way fantasy works, isn’t it?” Novella Carpenter. (date unknown). Avant-Prof: An Interview With Steve Shaviro. Available: http://www.altx.com/int2/steven.shaviro.html. Last accessed 2nd Nov 2011.

The examples of cinema that Shaviro cites are typically hyperbolic and the directors of these films play on a continuum of sensation, with pleasure and pain standing at the extremes. For the embodied theorists, pleasure and pain may sit at opposing ends of a scale, but they are not entirely dissimilar in the sense that they evoke a strong bodily reaction within us. In exaggerating these senses, the director can take us to a place that narration couldn’t possibly take us. It could make us have a deeper hatred for a character based on the extreme cruelty we see on the screen or even desire a character more, it all depends on how you perceive the acts shown, based on your own thoughts, fantasies or experiences. For the embodied cinema theorists, this is not something that we simply ‘compute’ in our brains, but it is driven by affect and our personal responses. It makes cinema much more of a subjective experience. What repulses one person could excite another. In contrast, the cognitivists would argue that these reactions are typical reactions and part of the very formula that they say predetermines, reactions which are themselves in some sense generic.

Shaviro’s own concept of ‘reading’ cinema is derived from Deleuze’s anti-cognitivism and places the personal interpretation of what is seen, firmly as a singular event. Here, as Ronald Bogue has suggested, for Deleuze,

“Modern Cinematic images must be “read,” in the sense that they must be construed through an active interrogation of the forces connecting the images. For each se-quence, the audience must ask, What specific difference motivates this connection? What new movement is created through this juxtaposition? How does this sequence interact with other sequences?.......”Inna Semetsky (Ed.) (October 2008). Variations on a Theme by Deleuze and Guattari. p12.

Shaviro dwells upon movies that obviously re-enforce his point, movies that deal with extreme cases of body and flesh shown within cinema and which are often themed around notions of bodily transformation Movies that contain violence and sex are in some sense too obvious a choice as they of course deal with extreme scenarios in which the body is shown on screen.

Shaviro himself points this out,

“I do not claim that my choice of works and directors is typical and representative of cinematic process in general, or of postmodern culture as a whole. I attempt rather to be postmodern enough so as to reject the very notion of typicality. I have deliberately sought to make my choices as heterogeneous, as singular and idiosyncratic, as possible.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p265

Shaviro’s distaste for generality is not limited to traditional cinema. In The Cinematic Body, when comparing Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner (more usually presented as a groundbreaking example of postmodern cinema) to Kathryn Bigelow’s Blue Steel, he say with respect to Bladerunner:

“The desire for outmoded scenes and situations, for the easy legibility of conventions of genre and gender, is validated - rather than frustrated - by the irrelevance and unattainability of such scenes and conventions, and by the ostentatious artificiality of their postmodern reproduction.”Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p2

Of Blue Steel he suggests that:“Bigelow’s painterly compositions, to the contrary, are disorientingly tense and unstable, always potentially explosive, and filled with suggestions of movement. Her nightmarishly lighted cityscapes are not beautiful, illusory tableaux displayed before the camera’s gaze, but danger zones within which the camera itself is forced to move ...... Blue Steel exhibits a flagrant, salutary disregard for normative standards of plausibility. It displays a logic of contamination and repetition, rather than one of linear, psychological causality.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p3

Shaviro would seem to imply that the former is the less significant and less interesting film due to it being formulaically postmodern, but this is the very thing that he himself could be considered guilty of.

We could possibly argue that Shaviro is perhaps guilty of ‘Post Modernism by numbers’. The Deleuzian theory that he applies in his writing is arguably much more sensitive and nuanced than Shaviro’s more popularist approach.

Similarly, when Shaviro is using avant-garde examples, he tends to cite avant-garde directors who’s work has been somewhat canonised by ‘cinefiles’, and this would seem to raise an issue of generality and popularity. Although these directors could certainly be deemed to be different from the norm, they are still accepted and as such can not be as avant-garde as other directors, so In this sense we can see how Shaviro is himself taking a safely postmodern approach, and generally using popular film to re-enforce his position.

“I have shunned generality, and have instead “universalized” exceptions, counterexamples, and extreme cases.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p265

But Cinema is a huge field and can’t be defined by a few genres, arguably cinema indeed has a generality to it. It is true that when we look at many mainstream Hollywood movies they would seem to follow a generality, in the way they approach set rules, from certain styles of narration, editing etc, However, Shaviro is less captivated by convention and more interested in the performative dimension of cinema.

Shaviro’s Persuasive Style

Much like his choice of filmic examples, Shaviro’s style of writing itself expresses or embodies his theoretical concerns. His writing style employs persuasive strategies and he seems to be concerned with the affective dimension of words. This can be seen as a very deliberate attempt to communicate by another means. When Shaviro presents the reader with a passage of text, the informational content can sometimes only make up a small percentage of the content. That is to say, he often makes use of a very affective vocabulary in order make the reader ‘feel’ something. For example, in this paragraph we can pick out certain ‘affective’ words and styles:

“I have moved among a range of styles: from the still camera and unedited long takes of Warhol’s early films to the fragmented, hyperkinetic action editing of Bigelow’s genre revisions, and from Warhol’s and Fassbinder’s fixations upon the surfaces of bodies to Romero’s and Cronenberg’s attempts to penetrate those bodies’ depths, to pull out the viscera, and to render visible the mysteries of inferiority. But through all these variations and transformations, I have returned over and over again to the notion of cinema as a technology for oxymoronically intensifying corporeal sensation, for affecting and transforming the body, for at once destabilizing and multiplying the effects of subjectivity. I have insisted upon a primordial passivity and ambiguity, an unsurpassable, promiscuously undecidable intermingling of body and image, of reality and artifice, of passion and subjection, of pleasure and pain.” Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). p266

I would like to draw particular attention to the presence of the following in the passage above:fragmentations, bodily connections, transformations, intensifying, bodily sensations, peculiarities, ambiguities (In the sense that information isn’t settled)

There are a number of core terms and synonyms that recur throughout Shaviro’s work, affectively manipulating the reader and conferring a persuasive dimension upon his writing. They serve as an ambient affective background that constantly asserts itself. Much as with the juxtaposition of shots in a film, certain juxtapositions of words in Shaviro’s writing are open to a very personal interpretation. In this sense, Shaviro’s writing very much mimics the films in which he dissects. For example, concepts such as bodily connection, transformation and ambiguity are as much thematics of Shaviro’s writing and they are of Cronenberg’s work - or at least a style that we have come to associate with Cronenberg. Shaviro only seems to look at the middle period of Cronenberg’s corpus, so in some way’s he himself is guilty of generalisation again, taking the notion of the so called ‘Cronenberg-esque’ style, which fits perfectly with Shaviro’s theory. Given the diversity in Cronenberg’s corpus it makes sense to examine it broadly to see how his style has evolved over time and look at Shaviro’s theory in regards to these styles.

I have chosen two Cronenberg films from his catalogue:

Stereo (1969)Eastern Promises (2007)

I chose these two films for different reasons. They are early and late works in Cronenberg’s catalogue, so by this I could see how his style has changed. As stated above, I wanted to steer clear of the middle section, as Shaviro had already covered that and this section could perhaps be considered to be Cronenberg-esque, in the sense that it is perhaps stylistically what people associate Cronenberg with. Another reason was that, we could also perhaps say that Cronenberg’s later films have a greater accessibility to them. That is to say, they still contain his usual subversive themes, but they tend to be more polished, possibly more narrative driven. This could perhaps even account for why his later works appears to be more accessible to the mainstream. When watching these movies I watched with the Embodied Cinema approach in mind and how these films might be taken from the Cognitive perspective.

STEREO (1969)Director: David CronenbergWriter: David CronenbergStars: Ronald Mlodzik, Jack Messinger and Iain Ewing

The First film of Cronenberg’s I have chosen to study, to give a more rounded look at his work in regards to the embodied theory is Stereo (1969). This was Cronenberg’s first feature length movie.

“The film purports to be part of a “mosaic” of educational resources by the Canadian Academy of Erotic Enquiry. It documents an experiment by the unseen Dr. Luther Stringfellow. A young man (Ronald Mlodzik) in a black cloak is seen arriving at the Academy, where he joins a group of young volunteers who are being endowed with telepathic abilities which they are encouraged to develop through sexual exploration. It is hoped that telepathic groups, bonded in polymorphous sexual relationships, will form a socially stabilising replacement for the “obsolescent family unit”. One girl develops a secondary personality in order to cope with her new state of consciousness, which gradually ousts her original personality. As the volunteers’ abilities develop, the experimenters find themselves increasingly unable to control the progress of the experiment. They decide to separate the telepaths, which results in two suicides. The final sequence shows the young woman who developed an extra personality wearing the black cloak.”written by Daeha Ko <dko@u.washington.edu> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereo_(film)

With the characters being telepathic, the film relies on the bodily and facial gestures from the actors, as we don’t ever hear the actors speak. With the idea of the film using sexual encounters between the characters being important, then the physical actions of what we are seeing screen becomes very important. We also see the pain being caused by the experiment, we see this through the actions of the characters. Man A can be seen in many instances writhing around on the floor. To be human and to see somebody in that state of pain, to reduce them to be laying on the floor, we know from our own physical experiences that this must be an extreme pain. We cannot simply just ‘compute’ this in the cognitive sense, so in this case I think Shaviro’s Embodied Theory work’s very well. We also see different people’s reactions to violence, some caused by themselves, some by others. In one instance, we see a woman being struck by Man A in the face, the woman barely flinches. From this we can gather that she is very much in control of her emotions. Again, in this instance, we cannot simply rely on the Cognitive stance of Bordwell to understand this. We must know what this encounter feels like and we must judge, based on our own understanding, what we can take from the woman’s reaction, ‘reading’ again from the embodied perspective.

EASTERN PROMISES (2007)Director: David CronenbergWriter: Steven Knight (screenplay)Stars: Naomi Watts, Viggo Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl

A tragic crime thriller movie starring Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassel. The story centers around a British-Russian midwife, Anna, who starts to delve into what happened to a young Russian girl who dies after giving birth. The midwife begins searching for the dead girl’s family to find a home for the baby, and starts to trace the origins of events after searching for the girl’s family for help in translation of a diary, found on the dead girl. A business card leads Anna to a restaurant that belongs to a boss within the Russian Mafia, Semyon. He and his son has ties to the dead girl, and to Nikolai, who is like a bodyguard for Semyon’s son Kirill. Things get complicated when Nikolai starts to ascend the ranks within the Russian Mafia, and Kirill attempts and fails to kill a rival Chechen vory leader.www.easternpromisesthemovie.co.uk

Through the physical actions of Viggo Mortensen’s character, we see how he can be a monster, capable of extreme violence when he is commanded to or when he needs to, however, we also see the tenderness in which he kisses the woman and strokes the baby at the of the film. The narrative does not give us this insight into the character, only the actions of which we see. From this we can see how although this man is capable of such evil, beneath that lies a man capable of goodness, although the narrative does also tell us he is just doing a job. But we can also see in the end scene, we can tell from Viggo Mortensen’s facial expression that has deep feelings about something, possibly the recollection of the woman’s diary (which we hear being read out in the voice over). Of course the voice over gives us a hint of this, but we still perceive from his facial expressions how we think he feels about everything

There are moments of extreme violence, but this is not just the driving factor of the film, its the subtle silences and the facial expressions of the characters that give us a subtle insight into the characters. Not everything is told to us in the narrative, but it’s the subtleness of the acting that makes us feel something for these characters, even when we see that they are capable of such evil, we still ‘route’ for them (especially Viggo Mortensen’s character). This shows that the manipulation of our emotions can be heavily nuanced.

The subtlety of the acting in Eastern Promises draws attention to a question concerning bodily affect. That is to say, if we only watch cinema using our brains as a ‘sort of computer’ in the cognitive sense of cinema, then why does the performance of an actor matter so much to us? Surely if that was the case, then an actor could ‘go through the motions’ and simply speak his/her part and just drive the film on through dialogue. However, we feel for the actor as we see how they act and react. If they show fear, we in turn feel their fear. As a human, we respond to gestures we see in other humans. We have empathy. If the character falls or is hit by something, do we see it as just a point in the narrative or do we empathise with them and the pain they would be feeling? Again, are these just the cognitive examples of predetermined, generic reactions or is this my own unique “reading” and reaction?

Method Acting

Some of the most successful actors have been method actors. Method acting is where an actor draws on personal experiences and emotions from their own life. It was developed by a Russian Theatre Director named Konstantin Stanislavski, who wrote what is now called The Stanislavski System. Stanislavski saw that actors were preparing mentally for their roles, however, when they came to act of the role, the physical side of their acting did not mirror the emotional side. So he developed a ‘system’ that would draw upon the actors own life. Here are a few points from his system:

• Emotionandmood.Soundsandsurroundingsaffectmoodandemotion,thebetterthesurroundings,thebettertheperformance.

• Ifyougivetheactorsomesimplephysicalactiontosolveandwrapitupininteresting,affectingconditions,theywillsetaboutwithoutalarmor thinking too deeply.

Here you can see how Stanislavaski thought that the surrounding world was important for the actors to draw upon, to give more ‘realism’ to their performances.

When method acting is used, the actors are transforming themselves, they are ‘becoming other’, this idea resonates with the Deleuzian concept that underpins Shaviro’s work. The real issue is once of examining the degree to which experiences change us – and the level at which this change can occur? For embodied theorists, these so-called innate structures might have less fixity than the congnitivists suggest.

Sonia Moore, a renowned acting teacher and author and covered The Stanislavski System in many of her books. Here we can see how the body also becomes are very important part of the actors performance, the actor can not simply stand and read their lines, they must do more in order for us to ‘believe’ and feel something for the character we are viewing.

“BUILDING A CHARACTER:“A character is a human being with his own thoughts, actions, appearance, mannerisms, experiences, habits, and so on. Though conceived by the author, the character must express the actor’s individual ideas, his emotions, his intuitions - analogous, of course, to those of the character. The quality of an actor’s performance depends not only upon the creation of the inner life of a role, but also upon the physical embodiment of it.... Spectators learn about the characters on the stage the way we learn about people in life - through their physical actions, which are dictated by their aims .... If an action helps to express the character, it is artistically right; if it does not, it is wrong. An action cannot be accidental or superfluous. The choice of actions must be guided by the main idea of the play, and of the role..” Moor, S (1984). The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor;

The style in which something is shot, the editing, or where it takes place also has an affective quality. For example, in Aronofsky’s PI, the editing is of a very fast and fragmented style, mirroring the fragmented mind of the protagonist, whilst he is working out mathematical problems. This has a very visceral affect on us and affects us in such a way that we feel overloaded. The location can also affect us, the director could pick a very sterile setting (offices etc) as Assaya does in Boarding Gate (2007), the scenes moving back and forth between such similar settings, we, as the viewer, feel no attachment to this sterile environment. The Director, by doing this, brings us into this world of capitalism and makes us feel a part of the life we are viewing.

The strategies employed in this film are complex and ultimately exceed its narrative. The affective qualities of the film clearly exert an influence. However, given the narrative dimension that conditions much of popular cinema it seems only natural, if only to give balance to this study, that one should examine the other side of the argument, namely the Cognitive approach, in this case, represented by David Bordwell.

David Bordwell’s Cognitive approach to Cinematic Studies

The Cognitivist Theorist David Bordwell, takes a more scientific and generalist approach to ‘reading’ cinema, suggesting that our mind works as a device that makes sense of what we see, making a number of predefined categories.

“It was through middle-level, piecemeal thinking that I first became interested in the cognitive sciences. During the early 1980s, I was concerned to understand how films told their stories. This process was usually called narration. From the start it seemed clear to me that filmic storytelling doesn’t work unless the spectator does certain things. We make assumptions, frame expectations, notice certain things, draw inferences, and pass judgments on what’s happening on the screen.” Bordwell, David. (Wednesday | March 5, 2008). Minding movies.

Bordwell argues that we come into this world with some sort of mental conditioning. That we have this mental make-up in our DNA. The cognitivist stresses that not all knowledge is based on our experiences living in the world, and that our sensations and experiences are preconditioned by mental categories. Bordwell is sometimes guilty of exaggeration or illegitimate extrapolation. There is a large leap from the observation that babies have innate depth perception to the claim that there might be innate catagories for the construction of film and its genres.

“It now seems overwhelmingly evident that humans come into the world with many predispositions, some broad and vague, some quite concrete. Some of these are primed in the womb, as with a newborn’s preference for mother’s smell. Other predispositions require only a few confirming encounters to be locked in. A baby is sensitive to a certain range of phonological and prosodic patterns, and so she is ready to fasten on those characteristic of a specific language. Babies seem as well to have an intuitive physics; they are surprised when objects disappear or turn into something else. Babies also are sensitive to eye contact and smiling, both crucial to social interaction and reading others’ intentions.” Bordwell, David. (June 16, 2009 ). Invasion of the Brainiacs II Who will watch the movie watchers?

I think the term “overwhelmingly evident” itself overreaches, and Bordwell doesn’t explore this theory or the legitimacy of its extrapolation to cinema in any detail. In turn, the Embodied theorists could argue that Bordwell’s suggestion that babies “are surprised when objects disappear or turn into something else” is supports an embodied leaning theory - that we learn from ‘being’ in our surroundings through experience and our own encounters. That we learn from experience is not really under dispute. Might we also suggest, however, that experience more fundamentally change us? Deleuze has suggested that in the encounter with the cinema screen the brain is shocked into forming new synapses and connections. In light of this, the real issue is concerned with the permanence and fixity of cognitive structures.

“One implication for film is that humans would be likely to recognize film images without extensive training or even a lot of exposure. Some understanding of the actions and emotions we see on screen may have quite specific neural sources, with “mirror neurons” as currently good candidates for grounding recognition and empathy. Other patterns of storytelling and style could be quickly learned, as they piggyback on our understanding of real-world knowledge of social interactions.”Bordwell, David. (June 16, 2009 ). Invasion of the Brainiacs II Who will watch the movie watchers?

Again, isn’t there a sense in which Bordwell strengthening the Embodied Theory? He suggests that in order to recognize these ‘film images’, we are basing them on what we have learnt from the “real-world knowledge of social interactions.” Even in his Cognitive approach, there is somewhat of an overlap between Cognitivism and Embodiment. He says that we fill in missing information, but we do this by perceiving things based on the relationship between us (perceiving agent) and our surroundings:

“Perception has built-inassumptions and hypotheses, it fills in missing information, and it draws a conclusion based on but not reducible to incoming data. Consider as an example Irwin Rock’s study of vision. Rock shows that the distal stimulus, say a tree, is registered initially on the retina as a proximal stimulus. From this raw material the visual system starts to generate formal descriptions of the stimulus in terms of part/whole relations, regions, and figure/ground relations. Eventually there emerges a “preferred percept,” a mental description of the tree as a three-dimensional object. The cognitivist tint of this account comes largely from Rock’s insistence that perceiving anything involves description, problem-solving, and inference - all constructive processes we would normally associate with higher-level activities. The senses are engaged in an “effort after meaning” that is both structurally analogous to more abstract thought and intimately bound up with it. Hence the title of Rock’s book: The Logic of Perception (1983). (See also Rock1984.) The importance of perception within the cognitive perspective should help dispel the potential objection that this view constitutes an “idealism” that ignores the existence of, say, the environment (and the text to be interpreted in it) or the human body. This is not the case. As constructivist accounts, cognitive explanations assume that perception involves a give-and-take, or feedback, between the perceiving agent and the surroundings. Furthermore, many cognitive researchers give bodily factors pride of place in explanation of mental activity, some by making bodily experience the source of organizing schemata (Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987; Piaget 1959/1977);others by linking cognitive processes with neurophysiologically determinate ones (Patricia Churchland 1986; PaulChurchland 1988)” Bordwell, David. “A Case for Cognitivism.” IRIS Spring 1989, No. 9, pp. 11-41

It could be said that Bordwell, much like Shaviro, ‘cherry picks’ movies to re-enforce his point. Bordwell has a tendancy to look at classic and popularist contemporary cinema, cinema that most closely follows a mold.

“It remains, however, a system..... The classical tradition has become a default framework for international cinematic expression.... most traditions of commercial movie making adopt or recast classical premises of narrative and style.” Bordwell, David (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. p12.

“since the late 1910s American narrative norms have been very export friendly. The plots rely on physical movement, vigorous conflicts, escalating dramatic stakes, and a climax driven by time pressure. The visual style, contoured to maximize dramatic impact, is likewise easily understood”Bordwell, David (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. p13

All the things mentioned above can be shown through embodied cinema, we can gain a lot of insight into what we see by ‘physical movement’ including ‘climax driven by time pressure’, if somebody’s bodily actions on screen are suddenly more frenetic, is it the narrative informing us of a ‘time pressure’ situation or is it the affective qualities of the body?

Compiling a list of some of the movies that Bordwell mentions in his later work, we find: Jaws, Star Wars, Back to the Future, Die Hard, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spider-Man. Such films hardly stand as ‘cutting edge’ examples of cinema. Of course, it is of course true that these movies follow “classical premises of narrative and style” but ‘Blockbuster’ movies as hardly represent the full spectrum of cinema. There is a habitual quality to these films and the ways in which they conform to industry expectations. In turn, the cognitive approach emphasizes the regularity of the film industry and the way in which it satisfies what they position to be our natural wants and desires., whereas the Embodied theorists would associate these generic qualities with with cliché - the Deleuzian perspec- tive that underlies the embodied perspective emphasised that there is no generic function of film - that we don’t know yet what cinema can do.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Embodied Cognition

Sitting somewhere in between the Embodied and the Cognitive theories, there is the Embodied Cognition of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Embodied Cognition sits midway between Shaviro and Bordwell due to Merleau-Ponty’s idea that the mind is in some sense conditioned by the form of the human body. We could say that this is a less extravagant or dramatic theory, one that is less polarised, but for this very reason it should not be overlooked.

Merleau-Ponty says how “the movies are peculiarly suited to make manifest the union of mind and body, mind and world, and the expression of one in the other.” Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964) The Film and the New Psychology, Chapter 4, in Sense and Non-Sense, p58

Merleau-Ponty believed that film was not just the result of a series of images, it was a unified, collective entity. In order to see film, we have to look at the everything holistically.

“Let us say right off that a film is not a sum total of images but a temporal gestalt”Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964) The Film and the New Psychology, Chapter 4, in Sense and Non-Sense, p54

As Helen Fielding has suggested, for Merleau-Ponty, in order for us to see something we must “plunge oneself into it” - and this object appears from within a “system in which one [object] cannot show itself without concealing others” ..... Natural perception does not rely merely on either the empirical registration of sensation by the eye or a calculation or cognitive interpretation of what is perceived.” Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY: The Key Thinkers. p82.

From what has been said thus far, the reader should by now be familiar with these themes - we can clearly see an overlapping of the Embodied and the Cognitivist theo-ries coming in to play.

“To see is to enter a universe of beings which display themselves, and they would not do this if they could not be hidden behind each other or behind me.... to look at an object is to inhabit it, and from this habitation to grasp all things in terms of the aspect which they present to it”Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY: The Key Thinkers. p79.

We can see the Cognitivist’s systems and order and the part the body plays in helping to perceive.There is nevertheless a link between emotion and convention. Even inanimate objects in films can make us feel something? Staying with the kinds of films that are lauded by Bordwell, we might consider the affective qualities of Darth Vader’s mask in “emotional” scenes in Star Wars. The mask itself can’t show emotion, so can we at times feel that there is a sadness to Darth Vader? Much use is made of close-up, a particular lighting of the eyes and stirring orchestral music - all clichéd things that we associate with sentimental drama. This may link with Bordwell’s ideas of the cognitive mechanism of cinema. Alternatively, we may perceive these things to be emotional because they have become what we associated with particular emotions through conventions or cinematic devices.

“Merleau-Ponty’s insights into the phenomenal body reveal the logic of vision, and thus how embodied subjects experience film. In his challenge to mind-body dualism, he shows how our most abstract thinking is anchored in embodied perception. We think because we are embodied, and because our bodies have their own logic, their own ways of interpreting and moving into the world that are not processed through cogni-tive representation. Film, as he intuits, shows precisely how ideas are taken up corporeally in the film itself, and in the ways viewers experience and respond cor poreally. 5 This is not a world of interiority, but rather one of comportment.” Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY: The Key Thinkers. p87.

Merleau-Ponty argued that perception plays a key role in understanding as well as engaging with the world. It’s not just singularly our mind or our body that perceives things, it’s our mind and body together, it’s not something that is kept inwardly, it’s behavioural and responsive. We can see from Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, how his theory sits on the middle of the aforementioned theories. His discusses affect based concepts, but these concepts sit along side cognitive theories.

“The alleged self-evidence of sensation is not based on any testimony of consciousness, but on widely help prejudice. We think we know perfectly well what ‘seeing’, ‘hearing’, ‘sensing’ are, because perception has long provided us with objects which are coloured or which emit sounds. When we try to analyse it, we transpose these objects into consciousness.... which means that what we know to be in things themselves we immediately take as being in our consciousness of them. We make perception out of things perceived.”Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002). Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction. p5.

In regards to film, this embodied cognitive theory has it’s uses, it could be used to broadly cover cinema as a whole, scratching the surface of the avant-garde and classic cinema alike, never quite delving deep enough into either.

CONCLUSION

My approach/standpoint is that I agree with some points of the Cognitivist and Embodied theories, however I feel that you can’t just base the theory of cinema on one or the other. Both theories work on different levels but some kind of synthesis is required to accommodate the richness of cinema. Although we need to simplify in order to narrow down a subject in to be able to discuss it. Attempts to speak about cinema as a whole result in either simplified of chaotic kinds of conversation. It goes back to the richness of cinema and the complexities of ‘us’ as humans.

This is where the Embodied Cognitivism of Merleau-Ponty can be of service If we are wanting to give a more general overview, a less specific account on the many facets of cinema, then this approach may help. The problem with this approach is that it can lead to a very tame discourse. The tensions between Embodied and Cognitive approaches makes for a much more interesting level of conversation and also help us to analyse the medium of film in a much more detailed way, whereas the Embodied Cognitive approach of Merleau Point seems to never fully commit to one thing or the other - this is the nature of synthesis.

I think that there are certain elements of truth to the idea that there is a natural way to make films, that are driven by similarities, that have predefined structures and conventions, but in order to “notice certain things and pass judgement”, we need to have some sort of connection with what we are seeing. We make these judgements based on our own experiences, those experiences may not be exactly like what we are seeing on screen, but they let us gauge a situation. We base these judgments based upon our bodily interaction with the things around us.

There does appear to be a cinematic formula, as shown by the Cognitivists, a formula that dominates mainstream Hollywood Blockbusters. This is perhaps why these films can be considered successful, based on the monetary and popularity definition of success. But on the other hand, not everyone defines success in this way. The Embodied theorists champion avant garde films, by more maverick style directors, that try and push the boundaries of what is considered to be ‘film’ may be more revered and critically acclaimed, these can also be considered to be successful. I think this is also where the different theoretical perspectives can provide an interesting discourse.

Although Bordwell’s theory is more of a general conservative approach to cinema, I still feel he is perhaps guilty of a one-sided approach. He makes huge cross-contextual leaps, applying theory not grounded in cinema (i.e. studies in neonatal depth perception), to the cinematic situation. This must, to a degree, remain speculative. Shaviro’s has a very persuasive style, but he is sometimes guilty of the very things he accuses directors and theorists of. Although he bases a lot of his concepts on Deleuzian theory, he seems to lack the subtlety of Deleuze, using exaggerated examples of films to prove his point.Merleau-Ponty’s approach, although not without it’s merits, namely being good for giving a general over view of all aspects of theory, standing as a peacemaker, appeasing everyone at once, it cannot help but seem a little dull!

I believe Cinema does reach us on a personal level and affects us thus. Likewise as a form it is constantly changing and can’t be finally classified. Whilst one viewer may be revulsed by something, another may not. One, in their revulsion, may be physically sick, another may tremble, whilst another may be bored. These are ultimately personal reactions. The Cognitivists stress the limitations of our repertoire of reactions and ignore the nuances that constitute our personality. I would conclude that the debate between the Cognitivist and Embodied theorists is less of a discussion and more of a political debate - with two very opposing agendas and two very opposing audiences.

REFERENCES

Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985). The Classical Hollywood Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. p4.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p255.

Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985). The Classical Hollywood Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press. p4.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p254.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. preface.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. preface.

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger and Kristen Thompson (1985). The Classical Hollywood Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press xiv. preface

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. preface.

Novella Carpenter. (date unknown). Avant-Prof: An Interview With Steve Shaviro. Available: http://www.altx.com/int2/steven.shaviro.html. Last accessed 2nd Nov 2011.

Inna Semetsky (Ed.) (October 2008). Variations on a Theme by Deleuze and Guattari. Newcastle, Australia: The University of Newcastle, Australia. p12.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p265.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p2.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p3.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p265.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press. p266.

REFERENCES CONT.

Moor, S (1984). The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor; Second Revised Edition. 2nd ed. UK: Penguin Books.

Bordwell, David. (Wednesday | March 5, 2008). Minding movies. Available: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2008/03/05/minding-movies/. Last accessed 3rd Apr 2012.

Bordwell, David. (June 16, 2009 ). Invasion of the Brainiacs II Who will watch the movie watchers?. Available: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2009/06/16/who-will-watch-the-movie-watchers. Last accessed 20th Apr 2012.

Bordwell, David. (June 16, 2009 ). Invasion of the Brainiacs II Who will watch the movie watchers?. Available: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2009/06/16/who-will-watch-the-movie-watchers. Last accessed 20th Apr 2012.

Bordwell, David. “A Case for Cognitivism.” IRIS Spring 1989, No. 9, pp. 11-41.

Bordwell, David (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. California: University of California Press. p12.

Bordwell, David (2006). The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. California: University of California Press. p13.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964) The Film and the New Psychology, Chapter 4, in Sense and Non-Sense, trans. H. Dreyfus and P. Dreyfus. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press, p58

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1992). Sense and Nonsense. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. p54.

Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY The Key Thinkers. Durham: Acumen Publishing Ltd. p82.

Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY The Key Thinkers. Durham: Acumen Publishing Ltd. p82.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002). Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. p79.

Edited by Felicity Colman (2009). FILM, THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY The Key Thinkers. Durham: Acumen Publishing Ltd. p87.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (2002). Phenomenology of Perception: An Introduction. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. p5.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bordwell, David, Staiger, Janet and Thompson, Kristen (1985). The Classical Hollywood Cinema. New York: Columbia University Press.

Shaviro, S (1993). Cinematic Body (Theory Out Of Bounds). Minnesota: Univ Of Minnesota Press.

Novella Carpenter. (date unknown). Avant-Prof: An Interview With Steve Shaviro. Available: http://www.altx.com/int2/steven.shaviro.html. Last accessed 2nd Nov 2011.

Inna Semetsky (Ed.) (October 2008). Variations on a Theme by Deleuze and Guattari. Newcastle, Australia: The University of Newcastle, Australia. p12.

Moor, S (1984). The Stanislavski System: The Professional Training of an Actor; Second Revised Edition. 2nd ed. UK: Penguin Books.

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Thanks to the people that helped:

권진아Spencer Roberts

송나경Malcom & Lorraine Walker

Tim OxfordRob Lycett

Derek HalesAnneke Pettican

Jason PayneTracy Lannon

All my Professors at 국민대학교