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old media is redundant media – reframing how we view old media

 

The subject of this film is the zoetrope; one of the earliest forms of the motion picture. It works through the basic principles of animation. The zoetrope spins at twelve frames per second, and the brain interprets the spinning stills through the moments of darkness created by the zoetrope slits, creating the illusion of movement.

This film was created to be beautiful; to bring into question the supposed redundancy of old film techniques. Presenting the zoetrope in a cinematic way illustrates its beauty and validity as a media form, pushing against the supposed redundancy that accompanies older media technologies. The piece furthermore illustrates its connection to modern film techniques, through the modern mode by which it has been recorded, and alludes to older film technologies through the use of a projector tick as the backing track, thereby bringing the viewer’s attention to the zoetrope as a film form, automatically relating it to other film technologies. The use of red lipstick was an homage to the makeup of 1920s silent films, intended to evoke classic imagery of old Hollywood glamour and further reinforce the zoetrope as a valid part of the history of film technology.

Seminal philosopher, Martin Heidegger, argues that ‘the essence of technology is revealing’ (Heidegger, 1977). Media technologies achieve precisely this; their cultural space is dedicated to revealing the world through representations – projections on a screen (Loon, 2008). Although we speak about digital technologies supplanting analogue, as film is replaced by pixels, academic David Thorburn commits to the notion that rather than view old media as redundant media, we should reframe our thinking to understand older technology within its broader historical context. For example, while ‘specific delivery technologies (the eight-track cassette, say, or wax cylinder) may become moribund, the medium of recorded sound survives’ (Thorburn, 2004).

Further, media historian Brian Winston, states that assertions of a ‘media revolution,’ created by the advent of popular digital technologies, are unfounded. The road to digital has been long paved by the technology that came before it, and all we are simply developing new media techniques by building upon the knowledge of technology we already have (Winston, 1998). While the dispute between film and digital video are near constant, both arguably achieve the same outcome, and may coexist in the film landscape simultaneously.

Indeed, as Winston suggests, all technology is simply new ways of doing the same old thing. The zoetrope created for this project illustrates this idea: it delivers the viewer a moving image. Hence, while technology has certainly advanced since the zoetrope’s creation, the basic outcome remains the same. The piece thus highlights the connections between primitive motion picture technologies and analogue film, as well as digital recording. It simultaneously illustrates precisely how far film technologies have come, whilst reinforcing the notion that while technology has evolved, the basic principles of motion picture have not. While emerging technologies may diminish the popularity of some older techniques, they are simply occupying the cultural space of their media ancestors. (Winston, 1998)

 

Reference List

Heidegger, M 1977, The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, Harper and Row, USA.

Loon, J 2008, Media Technology: Critical Perspectives, Open University Press, USA.

Thorburn, D, Jenkins, H 2004, Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Transition, MIT Press, USA.

Winston, B 1998, Media, Technology and Society – A History: From the Telegraph to the Internet, Routledge, UK.