## Antonio Somaini (2019). *The Screen as “Battleground”: Eisenstein's “Dynamic Square” and the Plasticity of the Projection Format*. : meson press. > [!INFO] > Type:: [[Chapter]] > Title:: The Screen as “Battleground”: Eisenstein's “Dynamic Square” and the Plasticity of the Projection Format > Author(s): [[Authors/Antonio Somaini]] > Year:: 2019 > Tags:: > DOI:: 10.25969/MEDIAREP/13665 > Citekey:: somaini_screen_2019 > ZoteroURI:: [Open in Zotero: The Screen as “Battleground”: Eisenstein's “Dynamic Square” and the Plasticity of the Projection Format](zotero://select/items/@somaini_screen_2019) > ReviewedDate:: [[2022-09-26]] ## Citation ```latex [@somaini_screen_2019] ``` ## Related ```dataview TABLE file.aliases AS "Title" FROM [[@somaini_screen_2019]] and -"Plans" and -"resources" ``` ## Summary - 포맷 (미디엄, dispositif) 에 대한 두가지 생각 방식: pre- and post-digital - - 포맷을 셀룰로이드의 감광성 프레임과 프로젝트 된 이미지의 aspect ratio로 읽어들여, from the point of view that is at the same time figurative, perceptual, psychological, anthropological, art-historical, and, we could say today, media-archaeological ## Other Comments ### Annotation 포맷 (미디엄, dispositif) 에 대한 두가지 생각 방식: pre- and post-digital이 존재할 수 있다: 셀룰로이드의 프레임 ratio, (8mm, 16mm, 35mm, 70mm, etc.) 그리고 디지털 포맷 (encoded for storage, compression) 1. size of the photosensitive area of a frame within a celluloid film 2. aspect ratio of a projected image 3. encoding of a digital image file define some of the "protocols"" [[Jonathan Sterne]]의 경우 포맷을 "what specifies the protocols by which a medium will operate" ([[@sterne_mp3_2012]], p. 8)으로 정의한다. - [?] 이 말은 하나의 룰로 존재한다는 것일까? - 포맷과 프로토콜을 연결시켜서 [[Antonio Somaini]]는 포맷의 의미를 미디엄과 dispositif에서 확장시키며 디지털 안으로 안고 온다. 그렇게 그는 전통적인 의미에서의 미디엄에 대한 질문을 던지며 figurative, perceptual, psychological, anthropological, art-historical, and, we could say today, media-archaeological에 의한 의미에 대해서도 태클을 건다 (119) 예를 들어 [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]]의 The Dynamic Square[[@eisenstein_dynamic_1982]] 20년대에서 다양한 포멧의 와이드스크린 widescreen 이 소개되었다. - Natural Vision (developed by Geoge K. Spoor and P. John Berggren) 63.5mm film 2:1 projection aspect ratio, 1.83 negative ratio. - Fox Grandeur, (developed by Fox Film Corporation in 1929) 70mm film, 2:1 projection, 2.07:1 negative - Vitascope (developed by United Artists in 1930) 65mm film, 2:1 negative, 2.05:1 projection [[Sergei Eisenstein|Eisenstein]]의 경우 어떠한 standardised form을 거부했다. 대신 자유를 줄 수 있는 square frame → “a part of the shape of the film square, the frame” (Eisenstein 2010b, 209) → "opening up a maximum degree of freedom in spatial and figurative composition, without privileging either the horizontal dimension or the vertical one." (223) - [?] 여기서 사각형은 스크린 프레임이 아닌 필름의 프레임. 그렇기의 최대한의 자유는 프로젝션에 의해서 form 하게 되는 것이다. 이러한 자유는 가로와 세로 형태의 사각형을 동시에 쓸 수 있도록 만들어주고, empathic (감정이입 경험) Of space, August Schmarsow와 Heinrich Wölfflin에 의해 이론화된 이러한 공간을 psychological contrast로 줄 수 있다. - Mallgrave, Harry Francis, and Ikonomou, Eleftherios, eds. 1994. Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873–1893. Santa Monica: The Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities. - 19세기 말과 20세기 초의 건축에 대한 독일 이론에 관한 책 - Nonindifferent Nature (1939-45)에서 더욱더 plasticity of the screen 에 대해서 주장 에이젠슈테인의 위의 예나 일본의 hanamachi가 예시인 것을 보면 그가 말하는 frame은 전적으로 공간적인 것이라는 것을 알 수 있다. > raised platform called hanamichi cuts across the space of the audience and is used for the main character’s entrances and exits. > One of the unrealized projects Eisenstein worked on first in Berlin in 1926 and then while under contract with Paramount in 1930, Glass House, was specifically conceived as an experiment in spatial frame composition. [Somaini 2019:226](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=8) > The diagram is accompanied by a concrete demonstration of how three films could be projected at the same time, overlapping onto one another within the semi-spherical screen of the Polykino: [Somaini 2019:229](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=11) - ![[Screenshot 2021-03-14 at 17.08.07.png]] > Eisenstein’s lecture on the “dynamic square” comes, therefore, at the end of a decade that had seen many experiments on the format of image projection: through masking, multi-screen dispositives, and variations on the shape and size of the screen itself. Well aware of all these experiments, Eisenstein presents us with a unique example of how the question of the projection format and of its relationship with cinema as a medium and a dispositif might be tackled from a series of different points of view: figurative, perceptual, psychological, anthropological, art-historical, and media-archaeological. [Somaini 2019:231](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=13) 에이젠슈테인은 이러한 프레임에 대해서 각각 다른 방면 모두 이야기한다. - **figurative** - 오직 Dynamic projection may enhance "the figurative potential of the screen" > therefore allow a reconsideration of “the whole aesthetic of figurative composition in cinema which for thirty years has been rendered inflexible by the inflexibility of the proportions of a screen frame determined inflexibly once and for all” ([[@eisenstein_dynamic_1982]], 206) - **perceptual** - 가로와 세로 dimensions of human visual experience, without privileging exclusively the lateral vision (Eisenstein 2010b, 207). - **psychological** - “a gigantic new agent of impression” - “the rhythmic assemblage of varied screen shapes” (Eisenstein 2010b, 218), - anthropological - art-historical - media-archaeological > **Anthropological**, since the to-and-fro between vertical and horizontal views allowed by the “dynamic square” leads the spectator to reexperience the transition from horizontal to vertical life forms that, according to Eisenstein, characterizes both the development of the single human individual and the development of entire societies, according to a vision of history based on the parallelism between ontogenesis and phylogenesis, which appears throughout Eisenstein’s late writings. [Somaini 2019:232](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=14) > **Media-archaeological**, finally, because the plastic, malleable, unstable projection format that Eisenstein suggests with his “dynamic square” is a way of acknowledging the fact that cinema, rather than having any kind of medium-specificity that isolates it from other moving-image and projected- image media, is firmly rooted within the longue durée of a whole series of forms of light and image projection, each of which produced different kinds of formats. [Somaini 2019:234](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=16) - long duration, 다른 미디엄 시페피시티 가 아니라 > Cinema’s dispositif is not a fixed set of elements deployed in space according to a stable configuration, but rather a dispositif that never stops transforming in time. [Somaini 2019:234](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=16) ## Notes: #LiteratureNotes > The question of the relations between the three concepts of format, medium, and dispositif is raised by different, pre- and post-digital ways of understanding the term “format.” [Somaini 2019:1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=1) > format [Somaini 2019:1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=1) > Jonathan Sterne’s (2012, 8) definition of the format as “what specifies the protocols by which a medium will operate” [Somaini 2019:1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=1) > “Battleground [Somaini 2019:1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=1) > In this essay, I will study the relations between format, medium, and dispositif taking as a reference point a text that tackles the question of format (both in the sense of the photosensitive area of the frame within a celluloid film and in the sense of the aspect ratio of a projected image) from a point of view that is at the same time figurative, perceptual, psychological, anthropological, art-historical, and, we could say today, media-archaeological. [Somaini 2019:2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=2) > The memorandum distributed before the meeting organized by the Technicians Branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences did not mention specifically any of these widescreen formats, but rather a broader idea of “Wide Film and Wide Screen formats” with aspect ratios of 3:4, 3:5, and 3:6 (Eisenstein 2010b, 206). [Somaini 2019:4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=4) > Loyd A. Jones, pleaded in favor of wide, horizontal formats based on what he considered to be a prevalence of the horizontal format in the history of painting: his contribution was accompanied by a series of statistical considerations, mainly based on pre-Impressionist landscape paintings, according to which the dominant ratio of base to altitude in the history of painting was 1:1.5 ( Jones 1930). [Somaini 2019:4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=4) > “a part of the shape of the film square, the frame” (Eisenstein 2010b, 209) [Somaini 2019:5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=5) > The plasticity of this square film format, according to Eisenstein, would allow the medium of cinema to adapt to the multiple spaces, objects, and shapes that could be represented within a film, opening up a maximum degree of freedom in spatial and figurative composition, without privileging either the horizontal dimension or the vertical one [Somaini 2019:5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=5) > a flexible screen shape capable of visualizing the contrasts between “vertical and horizontal tendencies” that can be found in the visible world and that—through a kind of empathic experience of space that had been theorized in the field of art history by figures such as August Schmarsow and Heinrich Wölf- flin 5 —become psychological contrasts in the spectator. [Somaini 2019:5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=5) - 여기서 사각형은 확실히 스크린 프레임이 아니라 필름의 프레임일 것이다. 그때도 프로젝터를 쓰지 않았나? 아, 디지털 프로젝터가 아니라 프레임이 분리되기 전일테구나 > plasticity of the screen. [Somaini 2019:7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=7) > , raised platform called hanamichi cuts across the space of the audience and is used for the main character’s entrances and exits (fig. 3). [Somaini 2019:7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=7) - 이건 현재 캣워크랑 다를게 뭐지? > One of the unrealized projects Eisenstein worked on first in Berlin in 1926 and then while under contract with Paramount in 1930, Glass House, was specifically conceived as an experiment in spatial frame composition. [Somaini 2019:8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=8) > The diagram is accompanied by a concrete demonstration of how three films could be projected at the same time, overlapping onto one another within the semi- spherical screen of the Polykino: [Somaini 2019:11](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=11) > Eisenstein’s lecture on the “dynamic square” comes, therefore, at the end of a decade that had seen many experiments on the format of image projection: through masking, multi-screen dispositives, and variations on the shape and size of the screen itself. Well aware of all these exper- iments, Eisenstein presents us with a unique example of how the question of the projection format and of its relationship with cinema as a medium and a dispositif might be tackled from a series of different points of view: figurative, perceptual, psychological, anthropological, art-historical, and media-archaeological. [Somaini 2019:13](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=13) > Figurative [Somaini 2019:13](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=13) > “the figurative potential of the screen” [Somaini 2019:13](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=13) > Anthropological, since the to-and-fro between vertical and horizontal views allowed by the “dynamic square” leads the spectator to reexperience the transition from horizontal to vertical life forms that, according to Eisen- stein, characterizes both the development of the single human individual and the development of entire societies, according to a vision of history based on the parallelism between ontogenesis and phylogenesis, which appears throughout Eisenstein’s late writings. [Somaini 2019:14](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=14) > Media-archaeological, finally, because the plastic, malleable, unstable projection format that Eisenstein suggests with his “dynamic square” is a way of acknowledging the fact that cinema, rather than having any kind of medium-specificity that isolates it from other moving-image and projected- image media, is firmly rooted within the longue durée of a whole series of forms of light and image projection, each of which produced different kinds of formats. [Somaini 2019:16](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=16) - long duration, 다른 미디엄 시페피시티 가 아니라 > we find the idea that filmic projections are part of a history to which belong the light filtered through the stained- glass windows of the Gothic cathedrals and producing different color light plays through the space of the nave and onto the interior walls, the light projections of magic lanterns and phantasmagorias, the various traditions of shadow theater and shadow projections (the Javanese Wayang and the Turkish karagöz), the projected light of the Dioramas, Loïe Fuller’s light shows, the revolving lighthouse on the Palais de l’Industrie in 1889 and the centuries-long tradition of fireworks. [Somaini 2019:16](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=16) > Cinema’s dispositif is not a fixed set of elements deployed in space according to a stable configuration, but rather a dispositif that never stops transforming in time. [Somaini 2019:16](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=16) > Peters, John Durham. 2015. The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. [Somaini 2019:17](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=17) [Link](https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226253978.001.0001) [Somaini 2019:17](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/LK9TMCKI?page=17) ### Related ```dataview LIST FROM [[<% tp.file.title %>]] and -"Plans" and -"resources" ``` ## Related: - [[@eisenstein_dynamic_1982]] - [[@peters_marvelous_2015]] - [[@sterne_mp3_2012]] - [[@somaini_walter_2016]] - 미디엄을 감각적 환경, 분위기로 읽은 millieu or [[Umwelt]] 벤야민 [[@somaini_walter_2016]] 참조 ^349093