In-Flight Entertainment or the Emptying Process of Art in the Air

Abstract

Despite a series of material changes to the medium throughout its history, cinema has remained a “common immersive experience” insofar as it was based on the illusion of reality. However, the most important change is that this is no longer true: post-cinema, writes Christophe Génin, can be considered a defection of the original experience of watching movies. This situation has to do with social and economic transformations, implying the conversion of cultural industry to service to the person and a deep variation in the aesthetic experience, which Génin proposes to understand through an analysis of the experience of individual screens in aircraft. A confined space such as an aircraft seat isolates the individual to whom it is offered in a moment of “solipsism of caprice.”