"The lives and loves of images, it seems clear, cannot be assessed without some rechoning with the media in which they appear. The difference between an image and a pictures, for instance, is precisely a question of the medium. An image only appears in some medium or other - in paint, stone, words or numbers. What what about media? How do they appear, make themselves manifest and understandable? It is temprting to settle on a rigorously materialist answer to this question, and to identify the medium as simply the material support in or on which the image appears. But this answer seems unsatifactory on the gace of it. A medium is more than the materials of which it is composed It is, as Raymond Williams wisely insisted, a material social practice, a set of skills, abits, techniques, tools, codes and conventions." Pg. 203
Mitchell, W. J. T. What Do Pictures Want?: The Lives and Loves of Images. University Of Chicago Press, 2006.
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What is the medium of modern cinema? It is obviously not restricted to the recording mechanism - since there are countless iterations and varieties, it is not the mode of projection, it is not the types or quality of the images, it is not even the plot, which is as free form as can be nowadays. To me, the medium of the cinema is the mode of experience.
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