Digital Production in the
Century
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by a different sort of experience altogether. IMAX films and other large-format
image storage and retrieval systems mimic reality, but in the future, holographic
laser displays, in which seemingly three dimensional characters hold forth from a
phantom staging area, may well become the preferred medium of presentation,
signaling a return to the proscenium arch, but in this case, a staging space with
infinite possibilities for transformation. Powered by high-intensity lasers, this
technology could present performances by artists who would no longer have to
physically tour to present their faces and voices to the public.
The future of the moving image is both infinite and paradoxical, remov
ing us further and further from our corporeal reality, even as it becomes ever more
tangible, and seductive. The films, videotapes, and production systems discussed
here represent only a small fraction of contemporary moving image practice, but
they point the direction to work that will be accomplished in the next century. Far
from dying, the cinema is constantly being reborn, in new configurations, capture
system, and modes of display. While the need to be entertained, enlightened and/
or lulled into momentary escape will always remain a human constant, the cinema
as we know it today will continue to undergo unceasing growth and change. Al
ways the same, yet constantly revising itself, the moving image in the 21 st century
promises to fulfill both our most deeply held dreams, while simultaneously sub
mitting us to a zone of hypersurveillance that will make monitoring devices of the
present day seem naive and remote. Yet no matter what new genres may arise as a
result of these new technologies, and no matter what audiences the moving images
of the next century address, we will continue to be enthralled by the mesmeric
embrace of the phantom zone of absent signification, in which the copy increas
ingly approaches the verisimilitude of the original.
Although Hollywood will seek to retain its dominance over the global
presentation of fictive entertainment constructs, a new vision of international ac
cess, a democracy of images, will finally inform the future structu