HIGH DEFINITION IMAGING: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ACTUAL, THE VIRTUAL AND THE HYPER REAL
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Bristol
Department Name: School of Arts
Abstract
Digital technology is everywhere, from the cinema to the living room, from the classroom to the shopping precinct. Our children want digital phones with cameras attached, and iPods that can store their school calendars so that they can listen to their music, anywhere, anytime whilst finishing their homework. Shopping precincts and underground stations, airport lounges and urinals all now carry methods of display to bring the digital world home to us - wherever we are. These technologies are now central to how we live our lives.
Large media corporations, whose success depends on introducing new commodities into the world, have begun to unveil a new range of high resolution equipment which is the vanguard of much higher levels of resolution. This current technology has fundamentally four to five times the resolution of preceding broadcast technology which means that a viewer can no longer see the line structure inherent in the video image when projected on a cinema screen. This apparently simple, and apparently inevitable, technological development makes the gold standard of feature film production / 35mm film / far more widely available than ever before. It also brings in its wake image resolution which is finer than the eye can perceive. Thus the context and the nature of moving image making has the potential to change fundamentally.
We are already witnessing the beginnings of a sea change in the nature of film production on one hand but also the beginnings of the change of domestic production in which more and more people are enabled to produce and circulate very high quality images.
The aim of this project is to investigate - in practice and in theory - what is happening for the artist and the audience as these new technologies spread over the next three years. This investigation will proceed through the production of a series of digital installation pieces which test various production platforms, the collection of best practice data from leading practitioners and the production of a series of articles that will eventuate in a book for the Leonardo series on Art, Science and Technology with the MiT press.
Large media corporations, whose success depends on introducing new commodities into the world, have begun to unveil a new range of high resolution equipment which is the vanguard of much higher levels of resolution. This current technology has fundamentally four to five times the resolution of preceding broadcast technology which means that a viewer can no longer see the line structure inherent in the video image when projected on a cinema screen. This apparently simple, and apparently inevitable, technological development makes the gold standard of feature film production / 35mm film / far more widely available than ever before. It also brings in its wake image resolution which is finer than the eye can perceive. Thus the context and the nature of moving image making has the potential to change fundamentally.
We are already witnessing the beginnings of a sea change in the nature of film production on one hand but also the beginnings of the change of domestic production in which more and more people are enabled to produce and circulate very high quality images.
The aim of this project is to investigate - in practice and in theory - what is happening for the artist and the audience as these new technologies spread over the next three years. This investigation will proceed through the production of a series of digital installation pieces which test various production platforms, the collection of best practice data from leading practitioners and the production of a series of articles that will eventuate in a book for the Leonardo series on Art, Science and Technology with the MiT press.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Terry Flaxton (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Terence Flaxton (Author)
Lighting a Jacobean Tradgedy
Terence Flaxton (Author)
Time and Resolution: Experiments in High Definition Image Making
Terence Flaxton (Author)
Notes Towards the Theory and Practice of Innovation in Theatre, Film and Television Education
Terence Flaxton (Author)
The Technologies, Aesthetics, Philosophy and Politics of High Definition Video
Terence Flaxton (Author)
Feeding the World
Title | 25 exhibitions - PLEASE SEE ATTACHMENTS |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | A Moving Image Portrait of the Poet Elisabeth Beech |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | A Moving Image Portrait of the artist Charlotte Humpston |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | A Moving Image Portrait of the window cleaner Alfred Glasspole |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Autumn Dusk Cafe Scene |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Dance Floor |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | In Other People's Skins |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | In Re Ansel Adams |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Portraits of Christchurch Spitalfields, 2010 |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Title | Portraits of Downtown New York |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Portraits of Glastonbury Tor |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Portraits of the Arrow Tower Beijing |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Portraits of the Somerset Carnivals |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Portraits of the University of Bristol's Centenary |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Ritratti di Cannaregio |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | The American Dream, 3 minutes, single screen work |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Title | The Dinner Party |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | The Divine Being |
Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
Title | The Sum of Hands, 2 minute test for projection on to seven tanks of white commodities |
Type Of Art | Artwork |
Title | The Unfurling |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Un Tempo Una Volta |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Until I'm Gone |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Title | Water table |
Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
Description | Please Refer to my Journal of Media Practice article where I look at the purpose and outcomes of my Creative Fellowship award Time and Resolution: Experiments in High Resolution Moving Image Making |
Exploitation Route | Can be read by industry professionals and academics - My original Senior Creative Research Fellowship developed into an additional Senior Research Knowledge Exchange Fellowship. I then became a Senior Research Fellow in Engineering (as opposed to humanities and the arts). I was then offered the directorship of a research centre in the subject area and a professorship. We've had many successes and amongst those I count being invited to speak on our Higher Dynamic Range discoveries to the Science and Technology Committee at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences as the apogee (so far) of my academic career. |
Sectors | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Electronics,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Retail |
URL | http://www.cmiresearch.org.uk |
Description | This award then lead to the subsequent Knowledge Transfer Award AH/H038116/1 (2010 - 2012) and both lead to my appointment as a Senior Research Fellow at University of Bristol within Faculty of Engineering for 3 months. This then lead to a Professorship at University of the West of England and also a Directorship of the Centre for Moving Image Research. http://www.cmiresearch.org.uk CMIR now is a leading research centre in the UK and we have affiliations with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science in Los Angeles, the American Society of Cinematographers, the British Society of Cinematographers and IMAGO which is the international federation of cinematographic societies worldwide. We now hold a yearly Bristol Festival of Cinematography which exports UK excellence in the subject area - plus holds research innovation laboratories across related disciplines. http://www.cinefest.co.uk/ |
First Year Of Impact | 2010 |
Sector | Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections,Other |