Theorizing Film Through Contemporary Art

the long version

As the cinematic experience becomes subsumed into ubiquitous technologies of seeing, contemporary artworks lift the cinematic from the immateriality of the film screen, separating it into its physical components within the gallery space. How do film theorists read these reformulations of the cinematic medium and their critique of what it is and has been? 'Theorizing Cinema through Contemporary Art: Expanding Cinema' considers artworks that incorporate, restage, and re-present cinema's configurations of space, experience, presence/absence, production and consumption, technology, myth, perception, event, and temporality, thereby addressing the creation, appraisal, and evolution of film theory as channeled through contemporary art. Taking film theory as a blueprint for the moving image, and juxtaposing it with artworks that render cinema as a material object, this book unfolds a complex relationship between a theory and a practice that have often been seen as virtually incompatible, heightening our understanding of each and, more pertinently, their interactions. "As the cinematic experience becomes subsumed into today's ubiquitous technologies of seeing, contemporary artworks lift the cinematic out of the immateriality of the film screen and separate it into its physical components within the gallery space. How to read these reformulations of the cinematic medium--and their critique of what it is and has been? In 'Theorizing Film through Contemporary Art: Expanding Cinema', leading film theorists consider artworks that incorporate, restage, and re-present cinema's configuration of the key categories of space, experience, presence/absence, production and consumption, technology, myth, perception, event, and temporality, so interrogating the creation, appraisal, and evolution of film theory as channeled through contemporary art. This book takes film theory as a blueprint for the moving image, and juxtaposes it with artworks that render cinema as a material object. In the process, it unfolds a complex relationship between a theory and a practice that have commonly been seen as virtually incompatible, renewing our understanding of each and, more to the point, their interactions."--Back cover.