Moving Images

Moving images are so pervasive in our lives today that it is hard to imagine a time when people did without them. They've become an essential element in the way we communicate, the way we think. I dare say they even permeate our dreams. They've certainly influenced every other art form in some way. The reproduction of image, along with the reproduction of sound, has radically changed the world. If we stop for a moment and recognize that less than two centuries ago - an infinitesimal span in comparison to the length of human history - none of this existed, it is even more astounding. The idea of recorded sound is enough to give one pause. A concert, for instance, was a special occasion once. To hear Beethoven's Ninth, you couldn't pop a CD into your player. You probably heard it only a few times in your life, if at all. Such observations may seem obvious when stated, but familiarity has all but erased the oddity of it all. And familiarity breeds contempt too, as the old saying goes - one can grow tired of Beethoven's Ninth if you've heard it hundreds of times. In the same way the barrage of sensory input we experience every day can dull our senses and coarsen our taste while we take it all for granted.
When photography was invented in 1839, many artists were repulsed by the new phenomenon. The visual arts of painting and sculpture had reigned for millennia. A painting wasn't just a reproduction - it transformed the objective reality which it portrayed into something new, a result which contained a mysterious quality that, for lack of a better phrase, was a part of the artist's soul. The new invention, which reflected reality back to us through a mechanical device, seemed cold and frightening. But despite resistance, there was something about the industrial age itself which made the development of this trend inevitable. Once the reproduction of the image in still form was established, it became an obsession with many different minds, in different parts of the