Encountering Film as Technology

Abstract

This paper discusses an encounter with the video ^[1] work Blind Spot (2003), by American artist Gary Hill. One of the aims of the paper is to develop a deeper understanding of the notion of encounter from the perspective of phenomenology. Provisionally, I consider encounter as an occasion that constitutes its own particular character in time and, as such, I approach my reading of Hill’s work from a position of distance from his original installation setting. My encounter with Blind Spot, therefore, constitutes its own particular ‘truth’ at the time of my encounter. In raising questions concerned with encountering film as technology, I explore film theorist Vivian Sobchack’s approach to the phenomenological organisation of what she terms ‘instrument-mediated perception’. Further to this, and in contrast, I build a questioning of encounter via Heidegger’s thinking around being-in-the-world in relation to the essence of technology, and ask how film encounter might open up an occasion for thinking about technology, being and Heidegger’s understanding of ‘poiesis’. In this way, this paper applies what I term a transmodal approach that explores encounter as a way of revealing, engaging the discursive fields of art, philosophy, and science.