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Themesicon: navigation pathOverview of Media Articon: navigation pathPerception
Technological Constructions of Space–Time
Aspects of perception
Heike Helfert
 
 
 
 
 

 

With the development of technical media of representation, these media simultaneously moved into the scope of artistic debates. Not only were the new communications technologies extensively studied and even further developed; the use of audiovisual media has also introduced numerous new aspects to the aesthetic engagement with questions of perception. In this fashion, new possibilities are opened up in particular for the use of temporal-spatial contexts, which are artistically explored in many new ways and forms. Using selected examples, this text describes various aspects of the aesthetic engagement with questions of perception in connection with the technical media of reproduction in the twentieth century. The first part, «Media Possibilities,» is dedicated to developments like absolute film, structural film and experimental film, each of which deals with the particular make-up and materiality of the medium. Time, a key factor in the area of audiovisual perception, will then be examined as a constitutive element of perception. The artistic representation of temporal structures is here primarily linked to the engagement with the illusion space of the cinema. In the second part of the text, the

 

«Video Medium» is brought center stage. Here, the engagement with fundamental phenomena like time, space, and the human body will be discussed, as well as their mutual influence on the perception of these elements. Subsequently, the relationship between video and television and the contingent relation of our possibilities of perception to media technology as well as the search for perceptive experiences that transcend individual media will be explored. The third section, «Spaces of Perception,» describes examples of an extended concept of media and the extension of artistic fields of action into three-dimensional space. Here, particular emphasis will be placed on the perspectives of mobile spectatorship and the inclusion of the body in the process of perception. The fourth and final part, «Perception Apparatuses,» deals with approaches in the area of perception studies that are influenced by science. In so doing, examples of the development and application of perception instruments under different technological conditions will be described. Finally, by way of analog and digital technologies, the phenomenon of vision with the help of technological aids will be discussed.

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