Between the Screen-Sediment and the Shattered Window: The Deconstruction of the Screens Limits and Frames in Moving Image Installations

Abstract

In the view of the continuous transformations in the structures of production, distribution and consumption of images, concepts such as expanded cinema or cinema of exhibition enlarged the spectrum of cinema to the contemporary art, which has also become a space to meditate about the fate of the cinematographic device. From a trans-historical and interdisciplinary approach – going from the pictorial perspectiva artificiallis to the pre-cinematographic instruments, cinema, and contemporary art – this paper seeks to reflect, by using the historical metaphor of the window, on the volatility and multiplicity of contemporary screens and their influence on today’s modes of vision. The paper also addresses the changes undergone in the image’s frames and the consequent paradigm shift in how the viewer physically relates with these images, summoning the work of the Portuguese artist Alexandre Estrela to consider the perceptive, cognitive and topological reconfigurations in the moving-image exhibition formats in museums and art galleries.