Grabbe Lars Christian - Cyborgian images: the moving image between apparatus and body

Lars C. Grabbe, Patrick Rupert-Kruse & Norbert M. Schmitz

The interdisciplinary perspective of an autonomous image science is not only influenced by the inflation and power of digital images, but also by the fact, that modern images are often moving images. The Yearbook of Moving Image Studies (YoMIS) wants to provide an international discussion forum for the representatives that are working on the topic of images and visual culture.

The basic idea of the Yearbook reaches back to 2011 and is closely connected with the founding of the Research Group Moving Image Science (RGMIS) in Kiel (Germany). Founded at the Christian-Albrechts-University as a doctoral seminar, the RGMIS worked on all topics of modern media theory, focussing on the essential role of the visual contents and structures of media in a multimodal context. The interdisciplinary research of the group includes media and film studies, image science, philosophy of media and mind, art history, aesthetics, game studies, theories of perception and psychology and other research areas related to the moving image. The academic engagement lead to a series of conferences termed Moving Images, which intend to discuss the static concept of images used in traditional image sciences (in terms of static pictures or images), in a modern perspective according to new media technologies and their moving images. The fundamental consideration of founding YoMIS is the connection of German, European and international research to improve the academic exchange of ideas. Therefore YoMIS is conducted as electronic publication to enhance the range of impact and to facilitate the production process. The Yearbook is based on an extraordinary scientific cooperation of the University of Applied Sciences Kiel and the Muthesius Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Kiel and is published by Dr. Lars C. Grabbe, Prof. Dr. Patrick Rupert-Kruse and Prof. Dr. Norbert M. Schmitz.

The first issue of the double-blind peer-reviewed Yearbook explores Cyborgian Images: The Moving Image between Apparatus and Body . The focus lies on modern and interdisciplinary perspectives on the structure of moving images. Modern images (movies, TV, displays etc.) are often depending on multifaceted media systems and poly-sensual apparatuses, which exemplify multimodal and intermodal mechanisms. These multimodal media systems interact in specific ways with the sensory system of the recipient and generate various levels of perceptual states with different intensities of comprehension and bodily experience. In this perspective neither media systems (systems of the moving image) nor the subjective states of reception are passive processes: it is instead a highly interactive and inter-systemic media relation.

Movement, temporal dynamics, spatiality and additional modalities (speech, sound, music, colour, font, scripture, texture etc.) interact with the sense modalities, memories and process of mental anticipation and create a complex and hybrid structure of medium, recipient and sensory stimulus processing. This refers to the fact, that on the one hand the technological structure of displays and interfaces are relevant, and that on the other hand the role of the lived-body and mind is crucial for an understanding of the effects of the moving image. It is the interaction of image, apparatus and recipient that activates the images and their specific pictorial (and often multimodal) representation and unfolds its semantic and semiotic content. This remarks are clear in the context of proto-cinematographic art and cinematographic apparatuses but become more obvious in the context of recent evolution in media technologies and digital art: new displays, interfaces and poly-sensual media systems like Oculus Rift (OculusVR), Kinect (Microsoft), Second Life (Linden Lab) or Aireal and 3D Tactile Rendering (Disney) promote the progressive embodiment of the recipient or user, and, in doing so, they force the amalgamation of the recipient with the materiality and content of moving images.

Therefore Cyborgian Images addresses the broad field of the relationship between the technological dimension of the medium, its aesthetic and structural impact on the representational or mental status of the moving image and the effect on the body of the recipient, including affective and somatic reactions. With the term Cyborg we want to address the feedback processes between the recipient and the medium as technology as well as content or image. Additionally we want to shine a light on the fusion of mind, body and media, on extension through and incorporation of images, and how this melting affects our bodily reactions and mental processes. So, the concept of the Cyborg in connection to the concept of modern images increases the range of analytical data and, hopefully, will compile a useful interdisciplinary focus of modern moving image studies.