John A. Woodward wrote:
>While watching _Jurassic Park_ and reading on Lukacs concept of the
>specificity of the filmic image I begin to wonder whether the recent
>restructuring of the theoretical space of film studies towards an
>understanding of the filmic image as indexical (and here I am thinking of
>both Doane's _Cinematic Time_ and Rosen's _Change Mummified_) is
>misleading. While even Lukacs makes reference to the indexicality of the
>filmic image, based on Peirce's concept of the same, I wonder whether the
>specificity of the cinematic image is not infinitely more applicable to
>understanding the relationship between the subjectivity and cinema than an
>understanding of the 'evidentiary' quality of film.
>
>This comes from seeing something as fantastic as J.P., surely, wherein I
>find it hard to see anything evidentiary in the images... That is to say
>that the images 'pull me in' and convince me to some extent as to
>the 'reality' of the image, but I am fully aware, even cognizant, of the
>falsity of the images and the narrative structure of the film. The images
>lose evidentiary specificity and simply have the specific appearance of
>reality. The same can be said for something as 'vague' as Haneke's _The
>Piano Teacher_ and the rather horrendous rape scene therein. While I am
>repulsed by the violence of the scene, I do not feel as though this image
>is evidence of an actual rape. In other words, I wonder if the internal
>construction of the narrative (that is the extra-diegetic construction of
>the diegetic reality, an action taken on by the subject) does not work to
>overcome any notion of 'indexicality.' The filmic image is fundamentally
>different from the video image of a man in mask robbing the local 7-
>Eleven, isn't it? Whereas the latter would be indexical of an actual
>event, the former is indexical of a narrative structure. Does that mean
>that indexicality plays into documentary narrative? Can indexicality
>be 'turned on and off?' How much does indexicality depend on the larger,
>structuring semiotical system of the 'cinema'?
>
>Part of this comes from a philosophical issue I have with Peirce's
>categories, in that I feel that the indexicality of the footprint is
>inherently different from the situation of the photograph; the former is
>positioned within the universal sphere of referentiality, an unending
>frame of reference, and the latter is positioned complexly on the border
>of the temporal present and the past...
>
>Does anyone else have an opinion on this matter?
>
>Best,
>JohnAW
>
>
My starting point was more generally concerning images created through (new) media coming from an interest into
indexicality from the point of representation and thus the created 'acknowledged' knowledge.
Indexicality usually is to be assumed for the traditional photograph, though framing, subjectivity etc influences on the created evidence
still hardly get acknowledged.
The stated loss of indexicality following digitization (in the bginning concerning mainly video, but as well TV .. and nowadays
further inventions of 'realistic' animation) is also not that easily to be answered, as it would neglect the power the visual obviously has.
The interest in the problem of indexicality - thus claim of evidence and authenticity lead me to books and discussion with L.U.Marks (The
Skin of the Film, Touch) .. as she especially follows an unfamilar road in the essay 'How electrons remember' (
http://mfj-online.org/journalPages/MFJ34/LUMframeset_horiz.html ) to reestablish indexicality through matter in times of digital
representations.
Her attempts to define the term of 'haptic vision' introduced an interesting approach to deal with visual predefinitions and attempts
made by film makers and artists to break with strict readings. It as well points to the nowadays necessary re-coding (beneath en/decoding)
emerging from algorythmic transformations.
Still it is one approach and can not be transformed that easily within this difficult field as a general aproach.
Interested in further comments to follow ....
m.jaeckel
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