Cinema and Technology

Within Film Studies and Media Studies, interest in technology has grown in recent years in response to rapid developments in digital and computer media. Cinema’s relationship with the technological, however, remains contested. Many contemporary writers describe these technological shifts as alarmingly disruptive, threatening either to destroy or disfigure cinema. This collection of essays does something different. It seeks to situate changes in, for instance, film stock, animation, the depiction of robots and the development of ‘synthespians’, fire regulations in cinemas, or neurological accounts of spectatorship within more broadly defined technocultural processes around cinema. In order to understand the relationship between cinema and technology, the book draws on media and cultural studies, media anthropology, science and technology studies, philosophy and film theory. Analysing examples that range from cutting-edge Hollywood blockbusters to internet viral films, and from Victorian cinema to the present, this volume brings technology into debates around cinema’s forms, meanings and audiences.