Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Ackowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Video Surveillance versus the Affected Personal Cam
- 2 Post-Panopticism and the Attention Economy
- 3 From Cinematographic to Cinematic Apparatus
- 4 Cinematic Chronotopes : The Temporality of the Cinematic Mode of Existence of the Webcams
- 5 Webcams and the Archive
- 6 Appropriating the Cinematic Apparatus
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- List of Images
- Index of Authors
- Index of Makers
- Index of Subjects / Artworks
- Film Culture in Transition
4 - Cinematic Chronotopes : The Temporality of the Cinematic Mode of Existence of the Webcams
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Ackowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Video Surveillance versus the Affected Personal Cam
- 2 Post-Panopticism and the Attention Economy
- 3 From Cinematographic to Cinematic Apparatus
- 4 Cinematic Chronotopes : The Temporality of the Cinematic Mode of Existence of the Webcams
- 5 Webcams and the Archive
- 6 Appropriating the Cinematic Apparatus
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- List of Images
- Index of Authors
- Index of Makers
- Index of Subjects / Artworks
- Film Culture in Transition
Summary
Abstract
I analyse the specific temporality of these cameras and introduce the term “realtime,” which is instrumental for the study of the cinematic potential of webcams, including the aesthetic capabilities setting them apart from other media, such as live television. Webcam temporality engulfs the real time of the single shot in traditional cinema, as well as the real time of its data transmission over the Internet. This expression of time and space composes narrative units that I identify as cinematic chronotopes. The documentation of real live action in the streets is constituted by hubs of chronotopes complying with the choices made by those who own the cameras and/or control the means of access to the network.
Keywords: temporality, transmission, realtime, cinematic chronotopes
After establishing a distinction between the types of surveillance cameras in existence in chapter one, I identified the continuities between these cameras and the original Panopticon in chapter two and examined the webcam's technical components that define it as a cinematic medium in chapter three. To examine the specific aspects of filmmaking with webcams further, I now turn to the analysis of the temporality of this medium by building upon the knowledge my experiments as an artist have originated. This combines information I have gathered from observation but have also acquired in dialogue with others when academic sources did not provide me with answers. In order to situate webcams within the context of preceding media, I will compare their simultaneous audiovisual capture and transmission with film and television production of content. To begin with the latter, television represents one particular medium that has altered notions of production and perception of cinematographic content before the age of webcams. Besides recycling ideas about the format, duration, acting style, and editing rhythm inherited from cinema, television marks the advent of a new form of viewing that was named “flow” by Raymond Williams in Television: Technology and Cultural Form (2003). This term encompasses the way in which programmes, advertisements, and intermissions are presented and viewed. As television programming is intertextual, so is its flow of 24/7, continuous sequences.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Webcam as an Emerging Cinematic Medium , pp. 127 - 148Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018