Inventing Cinema: Machines, Gestures and Media History

Benoît Turquety

doi:10.1017/9789048550463

With machines mediating most of our cultural practices, and innovations, obsolescence and revivals constantly transforming our relation with images and sounds, media feel more unstable than ever. But was there ever a ‘stable’ moment in media history? Inventing Cinema proposes to approach this question through an archaeology and epistemology of media machines. The archaeology analyses them as archives of users’ gestures, as well as of modes of perception. The epistemology reconstructs the problems that the machines’ designers and users have strived to solve, and the network of concepts they have elaborated to understand these problems. Drawing on the philosophy of technology and anthropology, Inventing Cinema argues that networks of gestures, problems, perception and concepts are inscribed in vision machines, from the camera obscura to the stereoscope, the Cinématographe, and digital cinema. The invention of cinema is ultimately seen as an ongoing process irreducible to a single moment in history.

- Aa Reduce text
- Aa Enlarge text

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

Metrics

Total number of HTML views: 0

Total number of PDF views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

Total views: 0 *

Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Inventing Cinema

Machines, Gestures and Media History

This Book has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Contents

Frontmatter
pp 1-4

Dedication
pp 5-6

Contents
pp 7-8

Acknowledgements
pp 9-10

Introduction: The Problems of Digital Cinema
pp 11-24

1 - The Why and How of Machines
pp 25-74

2 - Invention, Innovation, History
pp 75-102

3 - The Invention of the Problem
pp 103-150

4 - The Invention of the Cinématographe
pp 151-208

5 - ‘Natural Colour Kinematography’, a New Cinema Invention : Kinemacolor, Technical Network and Commercial Policies
pp 209-230

6 - Epilogue: From the Trembling of Film to the Stability of the Digital
pp 231-248

Bibliography
pp 249-264

Index
pp 265-267

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information

Inventing Cinema

Machines, Gestures and Media History

Book description

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Save Search

Contents

Metrics

Full text views

Book summary page views

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

Accessibility Information