Call for papers: L’Atalante 35

Title: Immersive Cinema: Devices, Stories, and Virtual Worlds

Acceptance of submissions for the Notebook section: 10 January 2022 to 24 April 2022

Date of publication: January 2023

Coordinators: Àngel Quintana, Daniel Pérez, Teresa Sorolla

Thanks to the new digital technologies, much contemporary representation is based on virtual reality (Rodowick, 2007). Computer, television, and film images are the product of mathematical expressions that transform all signs into something equivalent to the medium they came from. As Pierre Lévy suggests, we are witnessing a “general movement of virtualization [that] has begun to affect not only the fields of information and communication but also our physical presence and economic activities, as well as the collective framework of sensibility and the exercise of intelligence. The process of virtualization has even affected our modalities of being together, the constitution of a collective ‘we’ in the form of virtual communities, virtual corporations, virtual democracy…” (Lévy, 1998: 15).

In spite of this process, photographic realism continues to be the Holy Grail of the digital image. But this kind of realism, which is celebrated in many of the discourses on the new media, has nothing to do with the need to capture and document events; rather, it is associated with the possibility of building new worlds with the same guarantees once offered by the analogue image. In other words, the digital image, drawing on mathematical algorithms, explores the possibility of creating a multi-layered three-dimensional space that is heavily marked by simulation. This is why, in the process of capturing images, the contemporary world gives way to the virtual world. Nevertheless, in view of the debate over the persistence of cultural series (Gaudreault, 2008), where the concepts of continuity and singularity are disputed, it is worth questioning whether this photographic realism of the digital age is really new. We should be able to identify its essence in the mythical story of Zeuxis and Parrhasius (Gubern, 2005), or in ideas like that of a “total cinema” capable of creating other worlds, described by René Barjavel in the 1940s.

The digitalisation of cinema, in the context of a broader process of virtualisation, has positioned the medium in a new realm of creation of virtual worlds that needs to be defined, studied, and analysed. However, to be able to tease out its implications, it is also necessary to revisit that moment when photography and analytical computation first began to explore new directions (Manovich, 2001). The first 3D films and the subsequent development of stereoscopic images explored new three-dimensional forms of depth of field in a manner similar to Hale’s Tours of the World, the Mareorama, and even the panoramas of the late-18^th century, to offer immersive aesthetic experiences not so different from the cinematic experience. While the first screening of a 3D film took place on 10 June 1915 at the Astor Theatre in New York City (Barnier and Kitsopanidou, 2015), featuring footage shot by Edwin S. Porter, today the 4DX format offers a viewing experience on a huge IMAX screen, with Dolby Atmos surround sound enhanced by seat movements and other sensory effects (rain, fog, wind) that bring the spectator closer to the action. To map a genealogy of the cinematic experience, to situate it in its historical context and place it in relation to other cultural phenomena of its time, is just as important as investigating how film narratives are conditioned by these different approaches to the relationship between spectator and film.

Immersion in the virtual worlds of cinema raises a theoretical problem that involves the concepts of virtual reality, augmented realities, and (especially) photorealism. All these variations on the notion of reality point to the idea that cybernetic realism has never contradicted the principle of classical cinema that associates the film image with figurative realism. In all cases, what these variations offer is not a realism of the represented, but a realism of the representation (Quintana, 2011). The objective of this kind of realism is to conquer an imaginary: its intention is not to imitate the coordinates of the real world, but to bring dreams to life, to create a limited, realistic and internally consistent world.

The aim of this monograph is to explore different facets of the immersive capacity that cinema has possessed and continues to possess, through studies examining the relationship between aesthetics and film narrative and the devices that make that relationship possible. In this sense, rather than exploring immersion and virtual experience in cinema from a merely technological point of view, the intention of this issue is to investigate how they influence cinematic enunciation and spectator reception.

Areas that submissions could consider include:

1. Media archaeology: the analysis and study of technologies that developed prior to and during the age of cinema, which can serve to contextualise film history within a much broader process, focusing on the evolution of visual devices, such as screens, projectors, and audio systems.
2. Immersive experiences in early cinema: research analysing films from the early years of cinema in order to identify traces of new sensory forms in such works.
3. Theoretical reflections on immersive technologies: hermeneutic approaches to the concept of “immersion” related to the audiovisual devices and spectacles of the early years.
4. Immersive spectacles and virtualisation: exploring different types of immersive experiences in connection with the film spectacle, also from a historiographic perspective.
5. The role of the actor and virtual worlds: the development of the actor’s work in the context of new virtualisation processes.
6. Mise-en-scène and immersive environments: studying the development and associated use of immersive spaces, such as those offered by 4DX technology, also in relation to other attempts to create immersive experiences in the past, such as Hale’s Tours of the World, the Mareorama, or the panoramas of the late 18^th century.
7. Relationships between the virtual worlds of early cinema and contemporary cinema: a revision of the past from the perspective of a dual logic based, on the one hand, on an analysis of the reuse of pre-existing technologies, and on the other, on an aesthetic reflection on the modes of virtuality of the present in connection with the aesthetic achievements of the past.
8. Relationships between virtual worlds and film narrative: reflections on case studies that consider how technological developments condition film narrative, i.e., that posit a discursive relationship between the mode of presenting a particular story in images and the devices that make it possible.
9. Relationships between virtual worlds and film aesthetics: approaches to the creation of visual imaginaries that emerge or have emerged in relation to the virtual worlds of different eras, either within the film world itself or imported from other worlds, such as the binary language of the digital world or of video games.

References

Barnier, M. & Kitsopanidou, K. (2015). Le cinema 3-D. Histoire, économie, technique, esthétique. Paris: Armand Collin.

Gaudreault, A. (2008). Cinéma et attraction. Pour une nouvelle histoire du cinématographe. Paris: CNRS.

Gubern, R. (2005). Del bisonte a la realidad virtual: La escena y el laberinto. Madrid: Anagrama.

Lévy, P. (1998). Becoming Virtual: Reality in the Digital Age. New York: Plenum Press.[MB1]

Manovich, L. (2001). El lenguaje de los nuevos medios de comunicación: la imagen en la nueva era digital. Barcelona: Paidós.

Quintana, A. (2011). Después del cine. Imagen y realidad en la era digital. Barcelona: Acantilado.

Rodowick, D.N. (2007). The Virtual Life of Film. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Below are a few aspects to keep in mind:

• Submissions must be original and must conform to the submission guidelines of the journal and to the standards and scientific rigour expected of an academic publication.
• Submissions will be evaluated for the originality of the topic explored, especially if it relates to an issue not previously addressed in the publication. Submissions dealing with topics previously addressed in the journal may be rejected. The content of the issues published to date can be consulted on the journal's website.
• All submissions will undergo an external peer review process that will respect the anonymity of both authors and reviewers (double blind peer review) in an effort to prevent any possibility of bias. In the event of a very high number of submissions, the Editorial Board will make a prior selection of the articles to be peer reviewed, choosing the articles deemed the most appropriate for the issue. Failure to observe the submission guidelines and/or standards of originality and academic rigour will result in rejection of the submission by the Editorial Board without external review.
• Articles (which should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words including all sections) must be submitted via the website of the journal as .odt or .docx files, using the template provided for this purpose. A blind version of the article will be provided. A complete version of the article and any images (.jpg, .png) must be uploaded to the website as complementary files. A detailed version of the submission guidelines can be found at the following link. Any articles that fail to meet these requirements will be rejected automatically.
• The selected articles will be published in a bilingual edition (Spanish and English). The authors of the texts accepted for publication must pay the costs that result from the translation or revision - in the case of providing, along with the original, a translated version - of their article.
• If the original manuscript is in English, the authors of the accepted papers must provide a professional translation to Spanish. The Executive Editorial Board may also require a revision by the translator recommended by the journal for Non-English speaking authors.
• If the original manuscript is in Spanish, the authors of the accepted papers for publication must pay the costs that result from the translation to English or revision—in the case of providing, along with the original, a translated version—of their article. In all cases, and in order to guarantee the quality of the translations and the unity of linguistic criteria, the text must be translated or proofread by the translator recommended by the journal, a freelance professional specialised in Film Studies. His work will be paid in advance and via credit card, bank transfer or Paypal by the authors.
• L'Atalante does not offer any compensation for published articles. For more information: info@revistaatalante.com