Cyberspace: New Digital Media and the Future of Cinema
A lot of people resent the onslaught of digital technology that has sprouted up over the last decade or two. When it comes to video games and social media, people worry about the decline of real, human interaction. Is social media digressing humanity into a pit of socially-impaired freaks, or is it really enhancing the way in which we communicate with each other?
Our current existence lies in the familiar realm of the “real world,” but what does that mean? “Real” is a tricky word. Does it refer to the city we live in? Or could it, perhaps, refer to anything not tangible with our flesh? There alo seems to be different realities: virtual reality, augmented reality, etc. Essentially, how do we know that our current reality is actually real?
To attempt to answer all of these questions, let’s first take a look at where we are now. Our current technology consists of touch-screen cell phones and tablets that connect its user to the Internet where she or he can roam free. The Internet consists of several popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. All of these things have to do with communication. We are building platforms in which we can communicate with each other far and wide. Even gaming systems have implemented a social aspect with Xbox Live and other similar services.
Before these digital technologies were invented, communicating with multiple people, interactively, at one time was very difficult, if possible. Now that we have the technologies in our pockets and hands at all times, we can communicate with our friends, family, and even people across the globe in moments.
Interactivity is an important aspect to these technologies as well. From the early to mid 1900s, film, television, and radio ruled the mass communication world. You may argue that these mediums were just as effective in communicating with large numbers of people at once, however none of these media were interactive. You couldn’t respond — it was intransitive, as Jean Baudrillard would have put it. The interactivity of digital technology like smartphones and social media is what propels mass communication forward.
As an illustration, I’ll use the medium of cinema. What is cinema and where will its place be in the digital world? In the past, cinema has been a moving picture story that people pay money to see at a theater. Now it is something that people watch on their cell phones. With interactivity increasing with new media, will cinema die or conform by becoming interactive? I would argue neither will happen, because cinema is a presentation of a story, or content, not a choose-your-own-story book.
Art has always been a way for artists to express their world-views and address social issues, among other things. Although this can be done in interactive video games, the artist is less present in the video game. The gamer is able to make decisions and make their own story, essentially. However in film, the story is what it is and you can interpret it as you want. How could the impact of an Ingmar Bergman film or a John Cassavetes film be replicated in video games? I just don’t see how it could be done. Video games will live on to connect people around the globe and may surpass film in
Cinema will live on because society needs that component of the definite story, and cinema won’t conform because then it would no longer be cinema — it would be a video game.
All in all, human connection is not being hindered by new media — by cyberspace. It is being enhanced and progressing because of it. Once we begin to accept that being on our phones and playing video games is okay, we can begin to move forward — perhaps to Human 2.0?
