Film 170 Flashcards (in progress)

The Poor Image

A low-quality, low-resolution copy of an image that is constantly moving, sharing, and changing across the internet. It trades image quality for wide public access.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

The Rich Image

A high-resolution image that looks more brilliant, impressive, mimetic, magic, scary, and seductive than a poor one

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Class Society of Images

A system where images are ranked and valued based on their sharpness or resolution. High-quality (rich) images are at the top, like expensive products in a fancy store, and poor images are at the bottom.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Wretched of the Screen

A dramatic name for poor images, calling them the trash or debris of the film and video industry. They are constantly moved and displaced by the capitalist system.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Imperfect Cinema

(Based on a historical manifesto): A type of filmmaking that is deliberately low-quality (blurred, amateurish, full of artifacts). It aims to break down the barrier between the professional artist and the general audience.

-Julio García Espinosa, "For an Imperfect Cinema"

-Kata Szita, "New Perspectives on an Imperfect Cinema: Smartphones, Spectatorship, and Screen Culture 2.0"

Visual Bonds

The connections or shared history created between people worldwide because they are all circulating and viewing the same poor images. The images bring dispersed audiences together in a shared digital space.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Copy in Motion

The poor image's core nature: it is a copy that is always circulating, traveling, and transforming across digital networks.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Technological Reproduction

The actions that create the poor image: it is compressed, reproduced, ripped, remixed, and copied and pasted into new channels.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Massive Circulation

The image's wide, free, and continuous spread. This includes being uploaded, downloaded, and shared by countless users.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Illicit

The poor image's status as an unauthorized or "ripped" file that escapes traditional channels. It is often distributed for free.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Rag or a Rip

A metaphor for the poor image's low value and illegal origin. A "rip" suggests piracy, while a "rag" suggests something worthless or tattered.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Lumpen Proletarian

A political metaphor that casts the poor image as the lowest-class member of the "class society of appearances" because of its low resolution.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Exhibition Value into Cult Value

The shift in an image's worth. Exhibition value is the worth of a film when formally shown in a cinema, while cult value is the worth it gains simply by being available, shared, and experienced by a dedicated community.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Abstraction

The end-state of the poor image, where its technical degradation is so severe that it becomes less about its visual content and more about a basic visual idea in its very becoming.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Lure or Temptation

Describes the poor image's function as a digital placeholder. The low-quality file is passed on as a decoy or a reminder of the richer, original image, tempting the viewer to search for the better version.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Environmental Dimensions

This refers to the hidden, physical costs of the poor image's vast digital circulation. While the image itself seems weightless and free, it relies on massive, power-hungry servers, cables, and e-waste—the material infrastructure of the internet.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Indecipherability

This is the state where the visual quality is so poor that the image becomes difficult or impossible to clearly make out. Paradoxically, even when blurred and messy, these images still manage to spread powerful or unbelievable ideas, like death threats or conspiracy theories.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Migration

This is the poor image's global journey as it is freely dragged around the globe across digital borders. It is a constantly moving entity that circulates as a commodity, a gift, or a piece of visual trash, never staying in one place.

-Hito Steyerl, "In Defense of the Poor Image"

Aura

The unique quality of a traditional, non-reproduced work of art. It is the "unique apparition of a distance, however near it may be," rooted in the artwork's authenticity, its history of ownership, its physical preservation, and its embeddedness in a tradition or ritual context.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Authenticity

That which is lost in reproduction. It encompasses the artwork's history, physical integrity, age, evidence of wear, and all the documents testifying to its origin and transmission. The copy, by its nature, lacks the authentic aura.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Cult Value

The original, early value of art, where the artwork's existence and purpose were tied to ritual (magic, religion, or tradition). Art's function was to be present, often hidden, rather than to be publicly seen or exhibited.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Exhibition Value

The value of art based on its capacity to be seen, displayed, and viewed by the masses. This value increases as the means of reproduction advance, leading to the politicization of art and its shift from the service of ritual to the service of mass culture.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Aestheticization of Politics

The term used to describe Fascism's strategy. Since Fascism refuses to change the material conditions of the masses (i.e., property relations), it offers the masses a mere aesthetic pleasure—the spectacle of mass rallies, uniforms, and ultimately, war—as an expressive outlet for their discontent.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Politicization of Art

Benjamin's proposed counter-strategy to Fascism, exemplified by revolutionary film. It means utilizing the new reproductive technologies to assign art a new, conscious political function in the service of social change, rather than letting it serve as a mere spectacle.

-Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility"

Machinic Copy Twice Over

Early cinema's original sin. Film was disliked because it was a copy in two ways: 1) The camera mechanically copied reality (no artist's hand), and 2) The film prints were endless copies (no single original).

-Erika Balsom, "The Promise and Threat of Reproducibility"

Ethos of Access

A principle, especially strong in experimental film and video art, that valued making art open and available to everyone, often through rental and distribution cooperatives rather than sales.

-Erika Balsom, "The Promise and Threat of Reproducibility"

Economy of Scarcity

The traditional art market's system where objects get their value from being rare and hard to find. Reproducibility works against this system.

-Erika Balsom, "The Promise and Threat of Reproducibility"

Kino-eye

The mechanical camera; a "mechanical eye" that is "more perfect than the human eye". It is freed from the limits of human perception and time/space to record reality in a new, revolutionary way.

-Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution"

Kinoks

The name given to the revolutionary filmmakers (Vertov and his collaborators, the Council of Three) who opposed traditional, fictional cinema.

-Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution"

Revolution-Through-Newsreel

Vertov's demand for the total replacement of fictional cinema with the documentary format, making the "sensory exploration of the world through film" the main and essential thing.

-Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution"

Literary Skeleton

Vertov's dismissive term for traditional films, which he saw as just a plot borrowed from books and theater, making the entire system "poisoned with the terrible toxin of routine".

-Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution"

Builder

The title Vertov assigns to the filmmaker-editor, who uses montage to construct a "new, perfect man" or a new reality from collected film fragments.

-Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution"

Kinopravda

The concept for the visual, fact-based revolutionary cinema; the newsreel or film-newspaper that organizes and presents reality, contrasting with "artistic cinema". (film truth)

-Dziga Vertov "Kinopravda and Radiopravda"

Database Filmmaker

A description of Vertov, particularly the director of Man with a Movie Camera, who is seen as a major figure (alongside Greenaway) whose artistic output functions as an organized, retrievable collection of elements rather than a traditional, linear narrative.

-Lev Manovich, "Vertov's Dataset"

Visual Esparanto

A goal of early cinema (preoccupying artists like Griffith and Vertov) which the computer interface fulfills today; it is a universal visual language that allows millions of users to communicate and interact through a common, shared set of symbols and structures.

-Lev Manovich, "Vertov's Dataset"

Operative/Operational Images

Pictures that are made "neither to entertain nor to inform," but are instead "part of an operation". These images do not represent an object for human viewing but are functional data for a machine.

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

-Trevor Paglen, "Operational Images"

Phantom-Subjective Image

A film perspective, exemplified by the camera plunging toward its target in a cruise missile, that is filmed from a position a human cannot normally occupy. It is characterized by an "ill-considered notion of intelligence with an equally ill-considered subjectivity".

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Suicidal Camera

Farocki's descriptive term for the film footage destroys itself (or risks itself) to get the shot — a camera that goes into danger, or even dies, to show us something.

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Automated Eye

The sensory automatons, such as the computer-guided warheads, that are designed to "replace the work of the human eye" by autonomously scanning and processing images to track and verify targets.

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Objective Language

Borrowing from Roland Barthes, this refers to pictures (like operative images) that are part of an operation (like a lumberjack naming the tree he is chopping down).

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Meta-language

Borrowing from Roland Barthes, this refers to pictures (like traditional war reporting or propaganda) that are about the operation, or about the image itself.

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Unconscious Visible

A term used to describe the sort of non-intentional meaning or uncalculated beauty that can be found in the operative pictures, challenging artists interested in meaning that is not "authorial and intentional".

-Harun Farocki, "Phantom Images"

Meat-Eyes

A dismissive term (used in the context of machine vision) for the human visual system. Paglen highlights that humans are now "far too inefficient" to see what is happening in the machinic landscape of operational images.

-Trevor Paglen, "Operational Images"

Algorithmic Images

The overarching term for images that have been profoundly transformed by deep-learning algorithms (AI). Their primary function has shifted from being objects for human contemplation to being machine-readable data that is analyzed, modified, or generated by other machines.

-Antonio Somaini, "Film Theory and Machine Vision"`

Machine Vision

A form of automated perception where computer vision technologies use AI to systematically detect, recognize, and classify objects, faces, and scenes within images. This process decenters the human gaze, as it can analyze billions of images, including those "not visible to human eyes."

-Antonio Somaini, "Film Theory and Machine Vision"

Hot Medium

A medium that is High Definition—it is "well filled with data," extending one single sense intensely. It requires Low Audience Participation because it gives the receiver all the necessary information.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Cool Medium

A medium that is Low Definition—it provides a "meager amount of information" and is often vague. It requires High Audience Participation because the receiver must actively "fill in or complete" the gaps to make sense of the message.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

High Definition

The state of a hot medium being saturated with data and detail (e.g., a high-fidelity radio broadcast).

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Low Definition

The state of a cool medium being minimal in detail and lacking clear information (e.g., a simple, sketchy cartoon or a flickering TV image).

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Detribalization

The social effect of Hot Media. By training individuals in single, specialized, intense sensory skills (like reading), the medium breaks down communal bonds and creates specialized, individualist patterns in society.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Retribalization

The social effect of Cool Media. By requiring high participation and involvement, the medium restores a collective, communal pattern of interaction, forcing people to come together to complete the message.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Concentric Spiral Pattern

McLuhan's term for the structure of life in the Electric Age. Because communication is instantaneous, everything is simultaneously connected in an "endless intersection of planes," replacing the lineal (straight-line, sequential) nature of the Mechanical Age.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Remediation

The content of any medium is always another medium.

-Marshall McLuhan, "Media Hot and Cold"

Thermopower

The central concept of the essay: the enactment of social and political power through the manipulation of thermal conditions (heat and cold). This is used to organize populations and enforce policies.

-Nicole Starosielski, "Media Hot and Cold"

Expansion

The central concept arguing that cinema is undergoing a fundamental transformation by moving outside the movie theater's boundaries (the "black box") and into new spaces, technologies, and viewing behaviors.

-Francesco Casetti, "Expansion"

Reproducibility

The inherent technological capacity of media like film and video to be copied quickly, easily, and infinitely without substantial loss of quality from the original. This is the condition that creates both the "promise" and the "threat."

-Erika Balsom, "One Hundred Years of Low Definition"

Imperfect Films

Films, like those made by Jonas Mekas, that intentionally use cinematic flaws to remind the viewer that they are watching a constructed artifact. This rejection of seamless immersion makes the film feel more authentic and closer to life and memory.

-Laura Ivins, "In Favor of Imperfect Films"

New Man

The philosophical and political ideal for whom the new cinema is created. This viewer/citizen seeks a wider range of truth—whether "practical" (in the supermarket), "tough" (in the subway), or "poetic" (in art)—and rejects the false narratives of the old system.

-New American Cinema Group, "The First Statement of the New American Cinema Group"

Cinema Novo

A Brazilian film movement (starting in the 1960s) committed to depicting the social, economic, and political realities of poverty and exploitation in Brazil. It aims to make the public aware of its own misery and opposes commercialism and the "tyranny of technique."

-Glauber Rocha, "The Aesthetics of Hunger"

Third Cinema

The truly revolutionary, militant filmmaking of the "Third World". It is a Cinema of Liberation made "outside and against the system" to transform not only images but also their modes of distribution and exhibition. Its focus is on documentary-based sociopolitical analysis.

-Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, "Towards a Third Cinema"

Economy of Waste

The capitalist system (especially in developed countries) that promotes unnecessary consumption and the constant expenditure of resources and labor power. Espinosa argued that a work of art should be rigorously analyzed by the extent to which it eliminates this wasteful culture.

-Julio García Espinosa, "For an Imperfect Cinema"

The Piratical

The ambivalent space of operation that emerges in the gap between what is legally sanctioned (licit) and what is considered morally or culturally justified (legitimate). It operates between legal and illegal, challenging global IP regimes.

-Bhaskar Sarkar, "Pedagogy of the Piratical"

Pirate Archive

A decentralized, unofficial, and illicit archive of film and video built largely by fans and cinephiles using illegal material (ripped, copied, uploaded). It is defined by accessibility over high quality and serves as the living memory for much of Global South cinema.

-Kuhu Tanvir, "Pirate Histories: Rethinking the Indian Film Archive"

-Kartik Nair, "An Archive of Failures"

Macrocinema

A term coined by Lev Manovich to describe his vision for the next stage of cinematic development—one that fully merges the principles of film with the interactivity and density of computer interfaces.

-Lev Manovich, “Vertov’s Dataset”