Alexander J. Cohen Film 140 Cinema and Beyond: The Digital Revolution

Spring 1996

The aim of this course will be to provide students with the critical apparatus and the conceptual means necessary to articulate the shift from mechanically based cinematographic media to the new digital forms. We will read key critical texts alongside films and new media in order to delineate their changing social and cultural functions. A medium already indelibly marked by technology, the further technization of cinema through digital technologies will alter the very meaning of cinema, a transformation that reflects the fundamental changes going on in other cultural spheres. In order to understand these aesthetic and technical shifts we will be examining the depiction of technology by cinema and technology¹s effects upon it.

Specific topics covered will include the concepts and technology that underlie virtual reality, ray-tracing, morphing, and other computer generated effects, interactive video/CD-ROM and the impact of computers on cinema. In the cultural sphere, we will investigating Cyberpunk, Post-Fordism, and Post-structural theories of reproduction and information. Readings will include texts by Benjamin, Baudrillard, De Lauretis, William Gibson, Jameson , McLuhan, Avital Ronell and Paul Virilio as well as more recent writings on the technical aesthetic, and political implications of the new media. Among the films to be discussed: Metropolis, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, Videodrome, The Terminator, RoboCop, Survival Research Laboratories and Computer Generated short films.

Additionally, all students will soon have accounts on our class Web Server, cinemaspace.berkeley.edu, where it will be possible to produce hypertextual and multi-media papers‹this is not a requirement. Midterm exam, Final Exam and final paper required.

Midterm exam, Final Exam and final paper/project required.

Required Books:

  1. Course Reader --> available at University Copy Service 2425 Channing Way, Tel. 549-2335

Cinema & Beyond Syllabus:

Jan 27: Introduction to the course, discussion.

Feb 3: Cyborgs, Technology and Human/Machine Interfaces

Reading: Donna Haraway: "Cyborg Manifesto" (Chapter 8 of Simians, Cyborgs & Women), Claudia Springer: " The Pleasure of the Interface" (Screen 32:3, Autumn 1991). Film: Robocop / Verhoeven

Feb 10: The Individual in Cyberspace

Reading: Claudia Springer: ³ The Pleasure of the Interface² (Screen 32:3, Autumn 1991) Kaja Silverman: "Back to the Future" (Camera Obscura, 1991 Sep, N27:108-133) Film: Blade Runner / Scott

Feb 17: **HOLIDAY**

Feb 24: Ideology

Film: further discussion of Blade Runner

March 3: Ideology, Fetishization & Commodification

Reading: Marx: From Capital Vol.1 Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" Supplemental: Joel Snyder: "Benjamin on Reproducibility and Aura" Film: Invasion of the Body Snatchers / Siegel (1956)

March 10: Administration and Rationalization:

Reading: Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno: "The Culture Industry" in Dialectic of Enlightenment Film: Clockwork Orange / Kubrick

March 17: The Spectacle

Reading: Society of the Spectacle / Guy Debord Film: A Face in the Crowd / Kazan

March 31: Repetition, Industrialization, Technization of Perception

Reading: Walter Benjamin: "Some Motifs on Baudelaire" Film: portions of Modern Times / Chaplin, and Eraser Head / Lynch

April 7: Technology and Society

**** Take Home Mid-Term **** Reading: Paul Virilio: Lost Dimension and for background reading: Habermas: from Toward a Rational Society -"Technology and Science as "Ideology"" and "Modernity-An Incomplete Project."

Film: 20 Minutes into the Future, The Max Headroom Story Review of course to date

April 14 Postmodernism

Reading: Jameson: from Postmodernism: introduction and essays, also Jameson: from The Geopolitical Aesthetic, Andreas Huyssen "Mapping the Postmodern." (All essays in Reader) Film: Videodrome / Cronenberg

April 21: Post-Fordism

Reading: David Harvey, from The Condition of Postmodernity and essays from Socialist Review on Post-Fordism. Film: Terminator II / Cameron

April 28: Simulacra

Reading: Baudrillard--Simulations and selected portions from Baudrillard excerpts (in reader). Film: Portions of various films depicting "Virtual Reality."

May 5: Artificial Life

Reading: 1980 NASA/ASEE Summer Study: Advanced Automation for Space Missions. Film: Survival Research Laboratories, The Will to Provoke.

May 12: Informal meeting and conclusion.Discussion of final papers

--Alexander J. Cohen, xcohen@garnet.berkeley.edu Copyright Alexander J. Cohen. All rights reserved. Redistribution for profit prohibited. Copies must include this notice.