Closed Circuits

Johannes Binotto Closed Circuits ImmanenceasDisturbanceinHigh Definition Cinema “everythingthat is switchable also becomes feasible” Friedrich Kittler (2010:226) Near the end of his second cinema book, TheTime-Image from 1985, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze famouslymuses about the new electronic images, which will eventuallyreplaceanalogue, photomechanical film. He states: The electronic image, that is, the tele- and video-image,the numerical image coming into being, either had to transform cinema or to replaceit, to mark its death. […]The new images no longerhaveany outside (out-of-field), anymorethan they areinternalized in a whole; rather,they have aright side and areverse, reversible and non-superimposable, likeapowertoturn back on themselves. They arethe object of aperpetual reorganization, in which anew imagecan arise from anypoint whatever of the preceding image. […]And the screenitself, even if it keeps avertical position by convention, no longer seems to refer to the human posture, like awindow or apainting, but rather constitutes atable of infor- mation, an opaque surfaceonwhich areinscribed “data.” (1989:265) 1Outside as lack and the lack of the outside In order to fullygrasp Deleuze’sclaim, one has to recapitulatewhat is meant by this “outside” of the cinematic image, of which the electronic imagesupposedly is devoid. In his earlier book, TheMovement-Image, Deleuze describes the out-of- field [hors-champ]ofthe cinematic imageasdesignating, on the one hand,what is simplyoutside the frame (the natural extensionofthe space onlypartiallyde- picted on screen), while, on the other hand,alsotestifying to a “disturbing pres- ence, one which cannot even be said to exist,but rather to ‘insist’ or ‘subsist,’ a more radical Elsewhere, outside homogenous space and time” (1997: 17). Lookingfor examples for this disturbing second aspect of the out-of-field as an ominous presencelurkingatthe borders of the image, one might think imme- diatelyofthosemysterious scenes in the modernist cinema of Michelangelo Antonioni. Time and again, characters in Antonioni’sfilms disappear completely, when they are steppingoutside the frame, like Anna in L’Avventura (1960), who gets lost on atinyisland, which in reality would be impossible to escape; or,like the two lovers in L’Eclisse (1962),who promised to meet at theirusual spot in the city,but never show up. In both cases, it seems like the characters gotswallowed https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110580082-010 Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 172 Johannes Binotto by that “radical Elsewhereoutside homogenous space and time.” As Ihavear- gued in adifferent context,this movement into thatabsolute outside could be seen as an encounter with what Lacan calls “the real,” that frightening void, which resists both imagination and symbolization (Binotto 2009). The real, understood as lack, makes itself felt as that invisibleoutside, situated beyond the border of the frame. The electronic images, however,asthey are, accordingtoDeleuze,devoid of anyout-of-field, are therefore – to borrowthe Lacanian phrase – lacking the lack itself. Whatisfelt here as adisruption, is no longer what is absent from the imageand can be felt as insistinginthe out-of-field. Rather,what is disruptive in and about the electronic image, is its suffocating plenitude. Instead of not enough,the electronic images seem to show far too much. While Antonioni’s films wereconcernedwith a melancholia for that which transcends the film image, the electronic images are governed by the no less disturbing maniacal paranoia of immanence. In contrast to its photochemical precursors,electronic images are no longer orientedtowards an outside, which they can never capture; rather,they are obsessed with their own plenitude and their internal, immanent “perpetual reorganization.” This, at least,isthe philosopher’sclaim. 2Transformation image While Deleuze in his textsonfilm rarelydiscusses specific technicalaspects of filmmaking, his thoughts about digital imaging, as vagueand far-fetched they mayseem on first sight,are in fact very aptlydescribing the actual technological properties of these new images. In ascribing to the electronic images a “power to turn back on themselves,” he is quite accurate in delineating what reallytakes place in the cathode raytube (CRT), which first producedthese electronic images. Indeed, CRTisbyits very technology bound to turn the images “back on themselves,” by constantlydestroyingand reconstructing them. In analogue film projection in cinema we wereshown every frame of the film strip as acom- plete picture, following one after another.The cathode raytube in aTV, however, never shows the pictures as awhole. Instead, it dissolvesthe imageinto lines, which the wandering dot of the cathoderay writesonto the TV screen’ssurface. While analogue film was projected imagebyimage, electronic video is written line by line.e It is onlydue to our inertvisual perception that we believewe This can be made visible by filmingTVscreens with ultraslow motion. See for instancethe Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 Closed Circuits 173 see completeimages on TV,when in fact we have been shown nothing but frag- ments. This lack of detail is also the reason whyMarshall McLuhan would list television among those “cool media,” which ask for alarge amountofaudience participation: The TV image is not astill shot.Itisnot photoinany sense, but aceaselesslyformingcon- tour of things limned by the scanning-finger.The resulting plastic contour appears by light through,not light on,and the image so formed has the quality of sculptureand icon, rather than of picture. (McLuhan 2001:341). It is due to this completelydifferent technology of electronic imagingthat theo- rists such as Yvonne Spielmann have raised the question of whether what we see on aCRT monitor can even be called an image: The status of the imagechangesinvideo:itiselectronicallyrecorded, transferred to another device,and finallytransmitted to amonitor.Infact,itcan properlydescribedasimage onlyifwekeep in mind that the electronic imageisaconstantlyflow of signals.[…] So video is best understood as “transformation image,” that is, because of the line-signal process,video produces an image that is constantlyundergoingtransformation. (Spielmann 2006: 57–58). Although thereare,ofcourse, crucial technological differences between the video images produced by CRT and thoseproduced by computers, and seen on liquid-crystal displays (LCD), Spielmann’sdefinition of the electronic image as transformation imageholds truefor both. Also in digital formats, the image is broken up into lines, this time into rows of pixels, playedback on an LCD screen line by line. The electronic images produced both by CRT as well as LCD are never static, even if (due to progressive scan,increased refresh rate of the screen and backlight strobing) they maylook more and more stable to us. Even if the screen shows us astill image, the computer is constantlyrewriting this sameimage, pixel by pixel onto its screen. Electronic images, therefore, are in aconstant process of taking and losing shape. The analogue logic of se- quencing completeimages one after another thus givesway to alogic of morph- ing,whereone images melts into the other.AsGarrett Stewart puts it: “In post- filmic cinema, no imageprecedes the one we see – or follows from its sequence. All is determined by internal flux [of the single frame]” (Stewart 2007:6). Paradoxicallyenough, it is preciselythis internal flux that ensures the immanence of the electronic image. Since the electronic imageisinaconstant process video “TV screen refresh in Slow motion @10,000 FPS in UltraSlo”:<https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lRidfW_l4vs> (accessed 3January 2016). Bereitgestellt von | UZH Hauptbibliothek / Zentralbibliothek Zürich Angemeldet Heruntergeladen am | 08.07.19 12:05 174 Johannes Binotto of change, it can become everything. Deleuze’sseemingly contradictory claim thereforealso means that the electronic images neither have an outside, nor can be internalized in awhole. Never complete, the electronic imageshows (po- tentially) everythingatonce. The outside is always alreadyincluded in the fluc- tuating inside of the image. While these internal fluctuations were strikingly (and oftenpainfully) visible in earlyTVand video experiments (Spielmann 2008:131–224), as for example in the art installations by NamJune Paik or the films by Steina and WoodyVasul- ka,b the advent of moredetailed digital film images, shot and viewed in highdefinition,lets us forgetthe digital image’sfundamental instability.While video experiments,such as those mentioned above, highlighted the fractures and disruptions inherent to electronic imaging, the vast majority of contemporary commercial movies use highdefinition digital images, not to disrupt but to en- hance and stabilizecinema’sillusionism. However,Iwould arguethathighdefinition in fact intensifies the disruptive aspect of digital imaging,preciselybytrying to conceal it.There is an inherent paradoxtothe fact,thatfor rendering the digital imagemore detailed, one has to increase its pixel density.The extremelysharp images thus produced are in fact more pixelated, more fragmented and cut up than ever.Similarly, higher refresh rates of modern computer monitors,TVscreens, or digital projec- tors,which make the images appear sharper,are in fact interruptingthe flow of

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