Movie / Cinema: Rearrangements of the Apparatus in Contemporary Movie Circulation

This thesis investigates how cinema’s specificities are defined in relation to technological developments. I propose that the most appropriate way to do this is by taking the whole cinematographic circuit into account – that is, the complete set of socio-technical operations that are involved in the medium, as remote as they might seem to be from actual cinematographic practices. I depart from the definition of circulation as a socio-technical continuum of the production, distribution, exhibition and evaluation of movies, explaining how these activities might be enacted in three different technological regimes: film, video and digital computation. Then, following an account of the early history of the pirate film society Cine Falcatrua (2003-2005), I show how the specificity of the medium is constituted and preserved throughout its technical progress. Acknowledging the limits of traditional film and screen studies to deal with these questions, I attempt to find an alternative research approach by engaging in practice-based investigation using curatorial strategies. By bringing together and analysing different film and art pieces in an exhibition entitled Denied Distances (2009), I propose a framework that allows an understanding of how media technology are defined in relation to one another, exposing how seemingly expanded practices such as installations and performances might be contained within conventional cinematographic apparatus. I conclude by suggesting that, in order to keep up with the ever-changing nature of the medium, the study of cinema would profit from engaging the extremes of scientific criticism and art practice.