Research Project B3. On the Significance of Illusion and Fiction in Aesthetics and Film Aesthetics
Eija-Liisa Ahtila: "If 6 was 9" (video still, 1995)
Head
Research Associates
Thomas Hilgers, Ph.D. / Dr. des. Lisa Åkervall / Dr. des. Chris Tedjasukmana
Student Assistant
Objective
Based on the results of our research on the significance of illusion and fiction, which we arrived at during previous periods of funding, we now investigate perspective as a generic form of pictorial representation. That is, we now analyze and discuss the notion of a perspective from a philosophical and a film-theoretical point of view. Our objective is to determine to what extent the notion of a perspective may help us to arrive at a better understanding of our aesthetic experiences of film. In particular, we attempt to show that the construction and adoption of different perspectives plays a very important role for the creation and experience of cinematic illusion and of cinematic fiction.In general, we believe that movies are multi-perspectival phenomena of a very special kind. Every shot of a movie usually opens up a different perspective. These different perspectives are also presented in a most complex manner, because the geometric space of central perspective, as the optical system of the film camera evokes it, is put into a dynamical order through the moving objects in front of the camera as well as through the moving camera itself. Moreover, a film as a whole always opens up a meta-perspective on other perspectives. That is, by means of its montage, a film behaves in a meta-perspectival way towards the perspective that each of its shots presents. Finally, we believe that a recipient generally also adopts certain perspectives while watching a film. This adoption of certain perspectives in the context of watching a film requires a recipient to perform various conative and cognitive activities. Whether these activities are completely determined by the given film, or whether they are also free and playful in a certain way, remains a question to be answered. In any case, we suspect that the mentioned activities constitute an important part of our aesthetic experiences of film. It is our goal to specify these activities, and to disentangle the complex web of perspectives that is relevant for our aesthetic experiences of film. Our project is divided into two sub-projects. SP1 critically discusses the philosophical debates that deal with the relationship between perspectivism, the imagination, illusion, fiction and aesthetic experience. The objective here is to see what answers these philosophical debates might suggest with respect to our questions. By means of analyzing concrete films, SP2 further discusses perspective as a main form of cinematic articulation.
SP1: The Notion of a Perspective within Philosophy, Aesthetics and Film Theory
(Prof. Dr. Gertrud Koch and Thomas Hilgers, Ph.D.)
In this sub-project, we first critically discuss the modern philosophical debate on perspectivism, starting with Nietzsche. In particular, we attempt to answer the following five questions: (a) What does the term „perspective“ in general mean? (b) What does the position of perspectivism exactly stand for? (c) Are there different versions of perspectivism, and if yes, how shall we judge each of them? (d) What may we learn from the debate on perspectivism as philosophers of art and as philosophers of film? (e) Do we have reason to conceive of a perspective as a generic (aesthetic) form? In a second step, we specifically focus on a debate that has been taking place in analytic philosophy since the time of Wittgenstein. This debate deals with the relationship between the adoption of a perspective, the imagination, fiction, and the aesthetic experience. We discuss this debate and also investigate its relation to certain issues in Gestalt psychology and cognitive science.
Finally, we discuss various philosophical notions of space and time in relation to the notion of a perspective that they entail, and we see how these notions may contribute to a better understanding of the creation and the experience of cinematic illusion and cinematic fiction.
SP2: Perspectival Transitions in Experimental Film and Post Cinematography
(Dr. des. Lisa Åkervall and Dr. des. Chris Tedjasukmana)
This subproject investigates the perspective as a key element of filmic articulations in different film historical moments (from early cinema to art installation) and from concrete aesthetic configurations (from experimental film to mainstream movies). Thereby we will follow two objectives: firstly questions regarding the cinematic dispositif and alternative performance spaces such as museums, and secondly questions of digital recording and projection technologies. Our hypothesis is that film techniques of the moving-image and the montage on the one hand, and the variable position of the viewer on the other hand both initiate a spatial dynamic, which significantly complicates the problem of perspectivity in comparison to painting and photography. A problematization of perspectivity can therefore cause an increase of the illusion as well as a limitation of the fictional space. Following the investigation of transgressions between the auditorium and the fictional space from the last period, we will analyze the multiperspectivity both on the part of film techniques as well as on the part of the viewer’s experience. Subsequent to our previous analysis of “post cinema” in the preceding period, we will focus on new forms of spacial perspectivity and narrative perspectives, which come along with digital production and projection technologies. Thereby the ‘over-precise’ images in video art and Hollywood movies raise again the question of realism as the flipside of the notion of illusion.