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 technology's effects upon it.

Specific topics covered will include the concepts and technology that underlie virtual reality, computer generated effects, interactive video/CD-ROM and the impact of computers on cinema. In the cultural sphere, we will be investigating Cyberpunk, Post-Fordism, and Post-structural theories of reproduction and information. Readings will include texts by Benjamin, Baudrillard, 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 including articles from Wired and Mondo 2000, New Media. Among the films to be discussed: Metropolis, A Clockwork Orange, Blade Runner, Videodrome, Terminator II, Robocop, Survival Research Laboratories and Computer Generated short films.

Midterm exam and final paper/project required.

Required Books:

  1. Course Reader --> available at University Copy Service 2425 Channing Way, Tel. 549-2335
  2. Baudrillard: Simulations
  3. Gibson: Neuromancer
  4. Guy Debord: Society of the Spectacle
  5. Paul Virilio: Lost Dimension

Cinema & Beyond Syllabus:

Please Note: the dates below are obviously not correct as they represent a typical Fall semester. This course will be taught Spring Semester of 1996 and will be slightly different than this sylabus below. I will be altering this page later this week.

August 26: Introduction to the course, discussion.

September 2: 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

September 9: The Individual in Cyberspace

Reading: Georges Canguilhem: "Machine and Organism," Gilbert Simondon: "The Genesis of the Individual." Supplemental: From Scientific American: "Civil Liberties in Cyberspace," Common Law for the Electronic Frontier." Film: Blade Runner / Scott

September 16: Cyberspace and Digital Communication

Reading: William Gibson: Neuromancer Also: Larry McCaffery: "An Interview with William Gibson" Anthony Wilden: "Analog and Digital Communication" From Scientific American: "Networked Computing in the 1990's," "The Computer for the 21st Century," "Infrastructure for the Global Village."

September 23 : Ideology, Fetishization & Commodification

Reading: Marx: From Capital Vol.1, Benjamin: "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" and Joel Snyder: "Benjamin on Reproducibility and Aura" Film: Metropolis / Lang

September 30 : Administration and Rationalization:

Reading: Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno: "The Culture Industry" in Dialectic of Enlightenment, Miriam Hansen: "Introduction to Adorno, "Transparencies on Film." Adorno: "Transparencies on Film" Film: Clockwork Orange / Kubrick

October 7: The Spectacle:

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

October 14 : Repetition, Industrialization, Technization of Perception

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

October 21: Technology and Society

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 October 28 : **** Mid-Term **** Take-home, due Monday the 31st. Review of course to date

November 4: 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

November 11: Post-Fordism

Reading: Simon Clark: "The Crisis of Fordism or the Crisis in Social-Democracy," and essays from Socialist Review on Post-Fordism. Film to be discussed: Terminator II / Cameron

November 18 : Simulacra

Reading: Baudrillard--Simulations and selected portions from Baudrillard excerpts (in reader). November 25 : **Vacation**

December 2: Artificial Life

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

December 9: Informal meeting and conclusion.

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