Post Cinematic Affect 1 7/21/2010 8:57 PM Page 16 Post-Cinematic Affect or time outside of the processes that define them… Processes do not occur space but define their own spatial frame. The concept in of space is embedded in or internal to process” (Harvey 2006, 123). Relational space varies from moment to moment, along with the forces that generate and invest it. It continually alters its curvature and its dimensions; it does not persist as a stable, enduring container for objects that would be situated solidly within it.15 This means that the space presented by Cannibal” “Corporate is radically different from any sort of cinematic space. Analog photography and film are indexical; as David Rodowick puts it, they or document rather than represent” (Rodowick “transcribe 2007, 58). Their very materiality consists in the persisting chemical traces of objects that actually stood before the camera at a particular time, in a particular place. Cinema therefore always assumes because it always refers back to some sort of absolute, – – pre-existing space. And this referentiality, or at a distance “see[ing] in time” (Rodowick 2007, 64), is what allows it to be, as well, a record of duration. But such is no longer the case for digital video. As we have seen, Grace Jones’ hyperbolic figure in “Corporate Cannibal” generates its own space, in the course of its modulations. And these modulations happen in time,” in a “real perpetual present, even though the video is prerecorded. It is true, of course, that Jones actually did stand before the camera, at one point in the production of Cannibal.” “Corporate But the video’s ontological consistency does not depend, in the way that a film would, upon the fact of this prior physical presence. Cannibal” does not point us back to what André Bazin “Corporate described as the fundamental stake of all photography and cinematography: object itself… the image of things [that] is “the likewise the image of their duration” (Bazin 2004, 14-15). In contrast to analog photography as described by Roland Barthes, digital video no longer offers us certificate of presence”; it can “a no longer that what I see has indeed existed” (Barthes “attest 16
Post Cinematic Affect 1 7/21/2010 8:57 PM Page 16 Post-Cinematic Affect or time outside of the processes that define them… Processes do not occur in space but define their own spatial frame. The concept of space is embedded in or internal to process” (Harvey 2006, 123). Relational space varies from moment to moment, along with the forces that generate and invest it. It continually alters its curvature and its dimensions; it does not persist as a stable, enduring container for objects that would be situated solidly within it.15 This means that the space presented by “Corporate Cannibal” is radically different from any sort of cinematic space. Analog photography and film are indexical; as David Rodowick puts it, they “transcribe or document rather than represent” (Rodowick 2007, 58). Their very materiality consists in the persisting chemical traces of objects that actually stood before the camera at a particular time, in a particular place. Cinema therefore always assumes – because it always refers back to – some sort of absolute, pre-existing space. And this referentiality, or “see[ing] at a distance in time” (Rodowick 2007, 64), is what allows it to be, as well, a record of duration. But such is no longer the case for digital video. As we have seen, Grace Jones’ hyperbolic figure in “Corporate Cannibal” generates its own space, in the course of its modulations. And these modulations happen in “real time,” in a perpetual present, even though the video is prerecorded. It is true, of course, that Jones actually did stand before the camera, at one point in the production of “Corporate Cannibal.” But the video’s ontological consistency does not depend, in the way that a film would, upon the fact of this prior physical presence. “Corporate Cannibal” does not point us back to what André Bazin described as the fundamental stake of all photography and cinematography: “the object itself… the image of things [that] is likewise the image of their duration” (Bazin 2004, 14-15). In contrast to analog photography as described by Roland Barthes, digital video no longer offers us “a certificate of presence”; it can no longer “attest that what I see has indeed existed” (Barthes 16