Contemporary 3-D Cinema: Space in the Digital Age

This project investigates the manner in which 3-D cinema represents space. It redresses the absence of sustained critical work on this topic, and shows how contemporary digital 3-D creates a unique form of cinematic space: a digitally-rendered virtual world which relates in complex ways to ideas of spatial representation and agency in the digital age. It uses critical social geographer Henri Lefebvre’s theories of space to reveal how 3-D space is a manifestation of social practices and cultural values, not just an inert container or background. It will show that digital 3-D’s aesthetics are more particular than has so far been recognised, and that digital 3-D has gained more traction than previous cinematic deployments of the technology thanks to its productive links with other digital productions of space, among them computer games, cyberspace and surveillance technologies. The project will conclusively articulate digital 3-D’s place in contemporary visual culture as a ‘symbolic form’: a perceptual schema linking privileged social, technical and cognitive attitudes to space.