Manovich (2001) argues that spatial montage, in contrast to temporal montage in cinema, shifts the focus from sequentially connecting one shot to another to spatially arranging shots within the dimensions of the screen.
In Manovich’s (2001) evaluation of spatial montage, the argument for working with moving imagery both temporally and spatially on a computer is based on the affordances of the Graphic User Interface (GUI). A computer enables manipulation of the surface of the screen as a fluid, non-static form of interface. The multiple window configuration of the GUI provides a model to design the display of moving images both temporally and spatially. The design of the rhizome templates, as a diptych composition, responds to the affordances of the GUI. In this doctoral research, this time within the architecture of the network, I continue to explore the concept of spatial montage in the rhizome sketches and other digital artefacts produced in the practice inquiry.
Keen, Seth. “Netvideo Nonvideo Newvideo Designing a Multilinear Nonnarrative Form for Interactive Documentary.” Doctorate. RMIT University Print. p. 64
From a draft of an article that puts forward propositions for documentary designers (Seth Keen, 2016)
12. The documentary designer knows that spatiality is as important as temporality, and that spatial montage as an affordance provides opportunities to collage shots together in space and time.
Manovich (2001) proposes that spatial montage is the manipulation of the screen as a fluid, multi-windowed interface. The spatial composition of multiple windows in the screen is due to what Murray describes as “virtual space” (2012, 70). On a computer and in the network independent shots held in a directory or database can be called into windows within the screen using programming and action scripts. The composition of multiple windows can also change. In Korsakow, for example, each video clip can be assigned to a different interface and multiple window compositions designed. Virtual space provides the producer with different ways to collage shots, both temporally and spatially, compared to fixed split-screen compositions in cinema and television. Dovey and Rose, using Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker to demonstrate their case, argue that this tool gives a “foretaste of how spatial montage that includes types of web data can become a vernacular, a ‘camera stylo’ for web documentary” (2012, 14). This vernacular is yet to be developed.
References:
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Murray, Janet Horowitz. Inventing the Medium: Principles of Interaction Design as a Cultural Practice. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2012.
Dovey, Jon, and Rose Mandy. “We’re Happy and We Know It: Documentary: Data: Montage.” Studies in Documentary Film 6, no. 2 (2012): 159–173.