Layered images : the desire to see more than the obvious

• Main Authors: Reinhuber, Elke, Rall, Hannes, Pelz, Sebastian
• Other Authors: School of Art, Design and Media
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Visual arts and music::General; Moving Images; Film Studies
• Online Access: https://journal.animationstudies.org/elke-reinhuber-hannes-rall-sebastian-pelz-layered-images-the-desire-to-see-more-than-the-obvious/; https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145331
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

As a general observation, since the appearance of moving images, audio-visual input has increased exponentially: From the static camera observing an action, for instance in Méliès’ pioneering works, escalated to faster and faster cuts as pioneered in Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera, concurrently with Abel Gance’s approach to spread the images over more than one screen. Audio added another layer of information, emotion or sometimes even distraction. The screens became bigger and more immersive, from Cinescope to Omnimax, until moving images became ubiquitous, omnipresent and shrank down to pocket- or even watch-sized. Fast-forward and repeat options add a new way of watching films in a non-linear manner, which were Not possible for movie-goers a century ago. As James Monaco observed: “Films are a lot more like books, now” (Monaco 2000, p. 13). We can even see how the screen now enhances our real world through augmented reality and location-based services. And not only for our physical existence: the information of our fictitious onscreen reality does not suffice anymore either. The modern multitasking human being is able to cope with more information simultaneously (Baxter 2013) and even seems to desire and demand it: From capturing of our real world to suggestive editing, as Kuleshov (Mobbs et al. 2006) has proposed, this has extended to an enhanced flow of information on multiple levels, which can provide insight to what is not visible with the naked eye.