Page 83 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report 2016

So, if the revolution has already taken place... What will become of the audiovisual world? Photochemical imaging and the technical, industrial and economic systems that underpinned it have died out, or slid into an irreversible decline at the least; they can no longer be considered current technology but part of the history of technology.6 It is important to realise that we are not merely talking about a change in support, but that the advent of digital imaging has a ected the whole audiovisual process. Though it should also be remembered that the concept of ‘image in motion’ remains alive.The advent of digital imaging has a ected the whole audiovisual process. The digitisation of the world, coupled with widespread Internet use, has changed reality.Everything is data, represented in the form of images on various interfaces. It is even outmoded to talk of screens, as the types of surface for reproducing them have become greatly diversi ed.There is a further factor in the equation: the emergence of the Internet and its widespread adoption as a non-place that is nonetheless a space for communication.There is something else that people don’t entirely realise either, and therefore nor have its ultimate consequences been envisaged: the Web isn’t a medium, it’s much more!Virtual is a part of our lives, and on/o is no longer a dichotomy.The digitisation of the world (not just audiovisual), coupled with widespread Internet use, has changed our outlook forever; it has transformed what we used to call ‘reality’. Nowadays we can make lms without having to record anything in front of a camera7 and synthetic images have achieved a level ofhyperrealism that surpasses natural settings in quality.A nal point that needs to be made is a direct consequence of the foregoing: the media are not what they used to be or, to put it another way, the convergence Jenkins predicted has already occurred.8We still talk of television, cinema, radio, the press... even though the technology that gave shape to those media has been replaced in all its phases by another type, digital, which simulates it, but can reinterpret it to its liking in any guise. As I said, it’s not just a change of support; it’s a full-blown mutation. I shall illustrate this with an example familiar to anyone: we can listen to digitised music (that is, converted into data) in the form of sound (imitating the original melody) or reproduce it in the form of animated graphics, or even both at once; even the simplest PCs come with a programme (software) that makes this possible.2. Technology, language and storytellingEverything has changed, but this shouldn’t frighten us: life itself is change, and audiovisual was born precisely of innovation, of the application of new techniques and inventions that led to the creation of the cinema.A quick glance at the history of motion pictures shows that changes have been unstoppable: from silent to sound, from black and white to colour, from photographic lm to TV signals and videotapes ...Cinema was the rst art which needed machinery to exist and therefore technology is part of its very nature.Let’s get this straight: what is frightening is not the evolution of the media, but the decline of an established way of operating. And this is whereAC/E DIGITAL CULTURE ANNUAL REPORT 201683Smart Culture: Impact of the Internet on Artistic Creation