The Cinema as a Model for the Genealogy of Media

Abstract

This article outlines a dynamic model whose goal is to make a contribution to the understanding of the genealogy of media. We will suggest a few avenues of investigation which may be able to account for the identity processes followed by different media. In this respect we think it is important to understand how a new medium gradually finds its 'identity' while at the same time expressing, in a more-or-less unique manner, a quality of intermediality, whose presence is constant and irrepressible. When a medium appears, an intelligible media culture already exists. When a medium comes into the world, it must also get to grips with pre-established codes (genres, institutions, other media, etc). What we hope to demonstrate here is the extent to which the very concept of the birth of a medium is problematic and paradoxical, at least if we consider birth as a unique and circumscribed event that punctuates the unfolding of history. Our task here is thus to propose a dynamic model that can contribute to our understanding of the genealogy of media.

The Modalities of Media II: An Expanded Model for Understanding Intermedial Relations

“…It may also be the case that new technology only slowly gives rise to new qualified media types. It has been argued that 'cinema' did not become 'cinema' the day the technique was invented (Gaudreault and Marion 2002). It took a while before a sufficient number of media products, created through cinematographic techniques, were original and characteristically similar enough to be thought of as a new media type.…”

0. Introduction

“…As Rajewsky points out, "researchers have begun to formally specify their particular conception of intermediality through such epithets as transformational [Spielmann 1998], discursive, synthetic, formal, transmedial, ontological [Schröter 1998], or genealogical intermediality [Gaudreault and Marion 2002], primary and secondary intermediality [Leschke 2003], or so-called intermedial figuration [Paech 2002]" (Rajewsky 2005, 44-45 fn. As Rajewsky points out, "researchers have begun to formally specify their particular conception of intermediality through such epithets as transformational [Spielmann 1998], discursive, synthetic, formal, transmedial, ontological [Schröter 1998], or genealogical intermediality [Gaudreault and Marion 2002], primary and secondary intermediality [Leschke 2003], or so-called intermedial figuration [Paech 2002]" (Rajewsky 2005, 44-45 fn.…”

“The Swarming of Life”: Moving Images, Education, and Views through the Microscope

“…In Pfeffer's case, cinema provided a new possibility that was superior in certain cases, but often nothing special. 24 On the topic of intermediality from the perspective of cinema history, see Musser 1990, Gaudreault and Marion 2002, and Gunning 2005 The equivalence among media is particularly evident in the following passage where Pfeffer links the magnification of space to the magnification of time. As in Marey's work, where the moving image could be produced by a zoetrope or a projector, for Pfeffer the appearance of movement on a screen could come about via the projection of living organisms or via the projection of a time-lapse film.…”