This progressive thinking was later incorporated into my Breaking Cinema podcast project and study focus of my MTA portfolio.
Re-thinking Our Thinking: Basically, giving it a kick up the backside
Most film-related people (film snobs) find a great deal of comfort in cinema, something that is positively saturated in nostalgia, symbolically and literally. The smell of popcorn, anyone? On the whole, nostalgia is something that everyone likes to engage in - the re-experience of a better and more idealised event - and film people are especially prone to this indulgence: film is nostalgia!
Unless you are George Lucas, a film text is the embodiment of a fixed set of circumstances that come together to create a usually euphoric and fulfilling impression of nostalgia; even more so when the spectator re-visits that spectacle after a great elapse of time.
As I have already commented, moving out of the cave-like comfort zone means embracing broader concepts and areas of study outside of the theoretical thought of Film Studies! The inherent empiricism of cognitive film theory requires a hands-on approach to the study of film - it requires us to get out into the field. The problem with producing a theory based purely on theoretical thought is it steers itself dangerously close to being a psychoanalytical proposition - against which cognitive film theory is opposed.
My view is that a thorough understanding of the spectator and the spectacle relationship and what they can reveal about our ways of being requires theorectical thought and practical exploration in equall measure.
Following the lead of Elsaesser and Hagener and John Mallarkay's masterly conceived Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image, one of the main points I established in Ways of Being is that, in addition to other fields, we need to unite the classical film theory fields of psychoanalysis and cognitive thought with philosophical reasoning:
EYES of a New Perspective
EYES is an experimental, dramatic, surrealistic, cognitive web series concept proposal package that is a reflexive expression of contemporary networking attitudes and their implications on our ways of being.
With the project I endeavoured to create a highly progressive concept for a web series story-world; in addition to providing an example of the storytelling potentials offered by the emerging web series medium and of a larger transmedia entity.
However, the hands-on approach I utilised for EYES, not only inspired me to conduct some non-empirical investigation for Ways of Being throughout the 2012 Christmas break, it also informed the broader conclusions I produced for the submitted paper.
Ultimately, the main concept of the EYES' story-world dealt with was telepathy and how different character points of view and storylines would become muddled a.k.a how the spectator's mindset and worldview become muddled through the process of interfacing with a spectatcle's preset mindset and worldview.
Why am I fascinated by the process of looking? Search me...
Furthermore, the actual process of making the EYES pilot enabled me to properly understand gaze theory and how film entities/text contain a preset mindset/ideology as informed by the main autuerial presence. Before orchestrating Ways of Being, the gaze was something I had avoided like the plague and, as part of my research for the project, I had to teach myself gaze theory.
In July, 2013 I had a discussion with Dr Terence Rodgers, the head of the film and media department at my univeristy (and the second marker of Ways of Being), and he told me how a couple of years previouly he had discontinued a module on the gaze because the students found it too boring. I did not really find it boring (only marginally), but I did find it incredibly hard to get my head around the concepts of the gaze and the apparatus. However, as soon as I got my head out of the books and put it into practice with EYES, all the knowledge I needed for Ways of Being clicked into place and was saturated with a greater perspective!
Both Ways of Being and EYES were awarded the highest marks of their modules and these achievements I trace back to the mutually beneficial relationship the projects had on one another, as dictated by the practical and theoretical explorations of both their pursuits. Therefore, my feeling is that Film Studies and other media theoretical fields need to get out of the classroom and need to start getting their hands dirty.
Gaining a thorough understanding of the interfacing relationship of the spectator and the spectacle requires theoretical thinkers who have both a strong understanding of practical applications and the theoretical implications of those applications.
Neurocinematics
Fortunately, this cross-disciplinary approach is starting to happen more and more so in the film and media studies field. One such prominent example of this is Neurocinematics - the neurological (or neurobiological) study of the influences of spectacle content on the brain:
Neurocinematics is very much the saviour of Cognitive Film theory because it offers a means to empirically prove or improve its theoretical claims.
Additionally, gaining a thorough understanding on how different types and formulations of spectacle content and its effects on the human brain and personality holds many advantages from the content creators and marketers point of views.
The outcomes of this growing area of study promises to turn first-class content creation into more than just a fine art, it holds the promise of turning it into an exacting science.
The Media Rises
Re-thinking Our Thinking: Basically, giving it a kick up the backside
While this project is born from of a passion, it is equally the result of a frustration. The disciplinary focus from which I started this research was of course Film and Media Studies and while the film and media discipline will not form the sole focus of this research project, it is the focus from which Ways 2 Interface finds its inception.
I am very blunt in my views and, furthermore, while this project may come across as a blunt instrument based on the humble academic who is orchestrating my aims is to turn it into a very formidable weapon.
However, this is not really the problem I have with it; it is concerned with a more fundamental problem with human civilisation as a whole - complacency. We need complacency, but we do not want it to lock us into strait jackets.
This is not a view I expressed while I was at university, but all the way through my graduate degree, I tried keep myself half inside academic and half outside of it. The truth is I was always been slightly suspicious of academics and the academic sphere as a whole. Why? It always seemed too soft; too self-indulged in the concerns of itself, too cut off from the practicalities of day-to-day life and too indifferent to the practicalities of turning your degree into something knowledge support the practicalities of day-to-day life. The worst part of this is most of the time it does not realise how indifferent it is being because it has become so accustomed to its standard ways of doing things that it is not capable of realizing the actual practicalities external to it.
In and of itself, it is useless.
University should educate students how to think while also training them how to go about being proactive in whatever field of study takes their focus.
What academia is doing at the moment still is not enough, not by a long shot!
That is exactly what I am endeavouring to do with my degree and that is why I am orchestrating Ways 2 Interface, it dips in and out of academia, but it is not pure academia.
However, now that I have slightly revised that view, because it really needs to shape up, because in its traditional and completely detached presence, I can not see a purpose for it. However, right now, this is the passionate radical presence having a rant and, equally, there is a cold reasoner who says that we need an entity that is detached.
I am very blunt in my views and, furthermore, while this project may come across as a blunt instrument based on the humble academic who is orchestrating my aims is to turn it into a very formidable weapon.
However, this is not really the problem I have with it; it is concerned with a more fundamental problem with human civilisation as a whole - complacency. We need complacency, but we do not want it to lock us into strait jackets.
This is not a view I expressed while I was at university, but all the way through my graduate degree, I tried keep myself half inside academic and half outside of it. The truth is I was always been slightly suspicious of academics and the academic sphere as a whole. Why? It always seemed too soft; too self-indulged in the concerns of itself, too cut off from the practicalities of day-to-day life and too indifferent to the practicalities of turning your degree into something knowledge support the practicalities of day-to-day life. The worst part of this is most of the time it does not realise how indifferent it is being because it has become so accustomed to its standard ways of doing things that it is not capable of realizing the actual practicalities external to it.
In and of itself, it is useless.
University should educate students how to think while also training them how to go about being proactive in whatever field of study takes their focus.
What academia is doing at the moment still is not enough, not by a long shot!
That is exactly what I am endeavouring to do with my degree and that is why I am orchestrating Ways 2 Interface, it dips in and out of academia, but it is not pure academia.
However, now that I have slightly revised that view, because it really needs to shape up, because in its traditional and completely detached presence, I can not see a purpose for it. However, right now, this is the passionate radical presence having a rant and, equally, there is a cold reasoner who says that we need an entity that is detached.
Theoretical and Practical in Equal Measure: Get Up, Get Out and Get Busy
A common and understandable misconception of Film Studies is that it is a discipline that purely examines films and, while this is essentially true, the knowledge which is sought from those examinations is actually directed towards attaining a vastly more deeper cultural and ideological understanding of human existence.
It's time the theory got its hands dirty.
It's time the theory got its hands dirty.
When you realise that Film Studies actually developed out of Cultural Studies, the true focus of the discipline becomes all the more apparent. However, like the film industry itself, Film Studies and its much earlier (and disparate) manifestation as film theory is in desperate need of an upgrade for the 21st century.
"This dissertation was written for a Film Studies course entitled ‘Film and Screen Studies’ and, therein with the addition of ‘Screen’, lies an acknowledgement of the need to study a much wider field, e.g. television, video games, internet content, etc. Therefore, while progressive thinking is not dominant, it is something that is gradually being nurtured. The plethora of audio-visual content that now exist means that Film Studies is no longer just about films. It can be speculated that as Film Studies developed out of Cultural Studies, a new discipline will develop out of Film Studies to focus on the wider areas that are much more widely linked with the cultures of humanity."- Ways Of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle, 2013:107
In Ways of Being, I argued that the aversion against the upgrade of cinema was a product of the complacency that had developed from the relatively stable period over the last 80 years or so; in addition to this, I also argued that the same was true of Film Studies and the majority of film theory:
"An attitude of indifference has largely found its way into Film Studies, as it puts too much emphasis on the past, it is an academic subject that is increasingly feeling very dusty. It does not invest enough energy into progressive thinking or into examining the practical aspects of how film entities are constructed [or recieved]... However, this result is not surprising when it is considered that nostalgia is an integral component of cinema"
- Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle, 2013:103-4
Most film-related people (film snobs) find a great deal of comfort in cinema, something that is positively saturated in nostalgia, symbolically and literally. The smell of popcorn, anyone? On the whole, nostalgia is something that everyone likes to engage in - the re-experience of a better and more idealised event - and film people are especially prone to this indulgence: film is nostalgia!
Unless you are George Lucas, a film text is the embodiment of a fixed set of circumstances that come together to create a usually euphoric and fulfilling impression of nostalgia; even more so when the spectator re-visits that spectacle after a great elapse of time.
As I have already commented, moving out of the cave-like comfort zone means embracing broader concepts and areas of study outside of the theoretical thought of Film Studies! The inherent empiricism of cognitive film theory requires a hands-on approach to the study of film - it requires us to get out into the field. The problem with producing a theory based purely on theoretical thought is it steers itself dangerously close to being a psychoanalytical proposition - against which cognitive film theory is opposed.
My view is that a thorough understanding of the spectator and the spectacle relationship and what they can reveal about our ways of being requires theorectical thought and practical exploration in equall measure.
Following the lead of Elsaesser and Hagener and John Mallarkay's masterly conceived Refractions of Reality: Philosophy and the Moving Image, one of the main points I established in Ways of Being is that, in addition to other fields, we need to unite the classical film theory fields of psychoanalysis and cognitive thought with philosophical reasoning:
“I will propose that film be seen instead as an immanent set of processes, specifically as a series of relational processes and hybrid contexts comprising the artists’ and audience’s psychologies, the cinematic ‘raw data’, the physical media of the film, the varied forms of its exhibition, as well as all the theories relating themselves to these dimensions. This is a stratified approach to film as textual and material artefact, visual cognition and ontological world-view. As such, each partial view will also be partially accepted and incorporated into the meaning of film” (Mullarkey, 2009:10).
EYES of a New Perspective
While orchestrating Ways of Being, I was also very fortunate (or unfortunate) to be able to to do a practical dissertation: EYES, a web series concept proposal package; unsurprisingly, it explored many of the same ideas of Ways of Being and, as such, it is no accident that it is called EYES - I refer to EYES as being the practical expression of Ways of Being.
EYES is an experimental, dramatic, surrealistic, cognitive web series concept proposal package that is a reflexive expression of contemporary networking attitudes and their implications on our ways of being. With the project I endeavoured to create a highly progressive concept for a web series story-world; in addition to providing an example of the storytelling potentials offered by the emerging web series medium and of a larger transmedia entity.
However, the hands-on approach I utilised for EYES, not only inspired me to conduct some non-empirical investigation for Ways of Being throughout the 2012 Christmas break, it also informed the broader conclusions I produced for the submitted paper.
Ultimately, the main concept of the EYES' story-world dealt with was telepathy and how different character points of view and storylines would become muddled a.k.a how the spectator's mindset and worldview become muddled through the process of interfacing with a spectatcle's preset mindset and worldview.
Why am I fascinated by the process of looking? Search me...
Furthermore, the actual process of making the EYES pilot enabled me to properly understand gaze theory and how film entities/text contain a preset mindset/ideology as informed by the main autuerial presence. Before orchestrating Ways of Being, the gaze was something I had avoided like the plague and, as part of my research for the project, I had to teach myself gaze theory.
In July, 2013 I had a discussion with Dr Terence Rodgers, the head of the film and media department at my univeristy (and the second marker of Ways of Being), and he told me how a couple of years previouly he had discontinued a module on the gaze because the students found it too boring. I did not really find it boring (only marginally), but I did find it incredibly hard to get my head around the concepts of the gaze and the apparatus. However, as soon as I got my head out of the books and put it into practice with EYES, all the knowledge I needed for Ways of Being clicked into place and was saturated with a greater perspective!
Both Ways of Being and EYES were awarded the highest marks of their modules and these achievements I trace back to the mutually beneficial relationship the projects had on one another, as dictated by the practical and theoretical explorations of both their pursuits. Therefore, my feeling is that Film Studies and other media theoretical fields need to get out of the classroom and need to start getting their hands dirty.
Gaining a thorough understanding of the interfacing relationship of the spectator and the spectacle requires theoretical thinkers who have both a strong understanding of practical applications and the theoretical implications of those applications.
Neurocinematics
Fortunately, this cross-disciplinary approach is starting to happen more and more so in the film and media studies field. One such prominent example of this is Neurocinematics - the neurological (or neurobiological) study of the influences of spectacle content on the brain:
"The relatively new field of neurocinematic studies seeks to untangle our neurological experience of film and, in doing so, learn not only the mechanisms behind movie watching but also how movies might teach us more about ourselves" (Nuwer, 2013).
This was an area of
study that I touched upon in Ways of Being; albeit, I was more focused
towards speculating on the additional neurological implications of the heart and
stomach brains, as being further influences in the body's role in the
experiencing of a spectacle.
"The cranial brain, the heart brain and the stomach brain all work in conjunction as one complex interconnected neural network, inherently influenced by the larger nervous and sensory systems of the human body... While the fields of neurocardiography (study of the heart brain) and neurogastroenterology (study of the stomach brain) are still very much in their infancy, the findings already compiled are highly suggestive of a deeper and vastly more complex role for human cognition. Therefore, beyond being an experience simulator, it can be speculated that the entirety of the human neurobiological system acts as a perceptual influencer in the film experiencing situation. We do not just watch films, we feel, simulate and become aspects of them"
- Ways of Being: The Spectator and the Spectacle, 2013:57
Neurocinematics is very much the saviour of Cognitive Film theory because it offers a means to empirically prove or improve its theoretical claims.
Additionally, gaining a thorough understanding on how different types and formulations of spectacle content and its effects on the human brain and personality holds many advantages from the content creators and marketers point of views.
The outcomes of this growing area of study promises to turn first-class content creation into more than just a fine art, it holds the promise of turning it into an exacting science.
The thought that there is a science to storytelling and content creation can make a lot of practitioners uncomfortable, but I do not think it is something we should fear, as the process of uncovering this exact scence will doubtless throw up a lot of tantaslising surprises.
The Media Rises
As a fast growing discipline, that will nurture new sub-disciplines within it, the film and media area of study is currently very ripe for new input and new thinkers.
The neurocinematic expansion is only one area in which the discipline is growing and the more and more it can provide knowledge that is highly beneficial for practical application and exploitation, the more and more the field of study will expand and be actively employed in the business and enterprise area of study, see Creative Technologies and Enterprise.
Ultimately, Film and Media Studies is the first iteration of a vastly more complex practical and theoretical cross-discipline that will become a science, as much as it is a study of art and culture.
This growing area of study strives to examine and explain something we actively engage in more and more so in our everyday lives - the process of being spectators and spectacles. It will reveal how and why interface between these roles and what truth that holds about our nature and our ways of being within reality.
The time when we sat in caves is over, because we are capable of so much more and this is why the Film and Media discipline is so important because in the 21st century it can teach us how to go about achieving our potential.
The time when we sat in caves is over, because we are capable of so much more and this is why the Film and Media discipline is so important because in the 21st century it can teach us how to go about achieving our potential.
That is Film and Media Studies Redux!
