New "Aesthetics" In Digital Age-An Ontological Analysis Of Digital Cinema

Since film s invention in the late19th century, the rapidity and tremendousness of its development have far exceeded many other contemporaneous cultural forms within a hundred years. As digital technology infiltrated, digital cinema has greatly challenged classic filmic aesthetics:the concepts of indexicality and realism have gradually disappeared, whereas the "hyper-reality" is being created all the time. Digital cinema is endowed with marvelous paradoxes, and generates infinite possibilities. Although a large number of researches involve with digital cinema, many arguments simply attribute it to the technological innovation, or linger on the discussions of spectacles. The in-depth mechanism of this new medium remains untapped. Unveiled the sensory mask, the present thesis proposes to detect the "aesthetic" revolution of cinema in digital age, and attempts to answer ontologically "what is digital cinema".Introduction sketches the progress and the current condition of digital cinema, and briefly presents the literature review and the thesis statement. Since film is closely related to representation, Chapter I examines the basic representational theory-the theory of Imitation, as well as Andre Bazin’s realism in the classic filmic aesthetics. By reviewing those two theories, this thesis expects to prove that until the late1960s, film and other representational arts had the same goal:they all aimed at revealing and reflecting the real-life experience.Chapter II enters the analysis of "what is digital cinema". The first section consists of the rationale of the computer graphics (CG):by moving pixel or changing its values, the color, the perspective or the angle of a digital image can be altered at will in order to composite different visual effects. The digital image radically challenges the photographic ontology of the traditional film-the indexicality between the image and the object is on its way out. Bazin’s impassive and objective realism is also disappearing, which further arouses the reflections on the ontology and the aesthetics of digital cinema. The guidance of new "aesthetics"-the "virtual realism"-requires digital cinema to be equipped with the "physical reality" as well as the "logical reality". The audience’s viewing experience demands the "physical reality" of the moving image from beginning to end. That is to say, even though each frame is composited by digital technology, the standards of the digital outputs are highly accordant with those in film age, pursuing the "photo-realistic" effects. Further, estimated in the light of the correspondence theory, the digital scenes should also abide by laws of nature, such as universal gravitation, seasonal cycle and optical imaging. The "logical reality" denotes that as long as a hypothetic premise is rationally deduced, the audience will acknowledge the coherence of the narration. Despite the whole story is filled with probable impossibilities, the narration’s rationality can be recognized provided it is flawless and coherent. Especially in some science fiction (sci-fi) films, by means of digital technology, many directors’sci-fi ambition can be realized instead of being mere idiotic nonsense. Through rationally making sense out of the non-linear and fragmented narration, plus the experience of "being there" supported by3D display, the audience, collaborating with the filmmakers, can generate the popular or the private "logical reality" in the "intertextual" viewing activity, in order to actively enrich their own film experience. At the end of this chapter, digital cinema is re-defined and reflected on the basis of its underlying paradox-an ontological unease resulting from both the inheritance and the transition from the traditional film.Chapter Ⅲ discusses the existential problems of cinema. The film has already dead, but the "impermanent" core of cinema reminds that the current and the future state of digital cinema must be centered on. Digital technology is catalyzing the "post-humanism" in each link of the film industry, which urgently needs the assessing criteria so as to avoid the "hyper-reality" excessively affecting people’s judgments. Furthermore, digital cinema’s new interactivity, which is produced by hybridizing with other audio-visual forms, should be paid much attention to as well, in case to announce "the death of cinema" in a real sense.Digital cinema is concluded in a dialectic way at the end of this thesis: under the guidance of the "virtual realism", the ontology of digital cinema is a paradoxical existence, and it further points out that the study of digital cinema can be established only in the steadfast accumulation of and ceaseless critique on its aesthetic experience.