Marina Hassapopoulou, "Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)
Jan 10, 2025
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Marina Hassapopoulou, an Assistant Professor at NYU and founder of several collaborative initiatives, takes listeners on a deep dive into the world of interactive cinema. She discusses how innovative storytelling confronts traditional filmmaking ethics. Exploring topics like 'viewser' roles, procedural spectatorship, and sensory engagement, she examines audience participation's impact on narratives. Additionally, she reflects on the hybrid methodologies needed for film studies in the digital age, encouraging creativity and innovation in this evolving landscape.
The podcast explores how interactive cinema redefines audience roles, transforming passive viewers into active participants within narratives.
It emphasizes the significance of context in understanding forgotten media forms, shedding light on their historical impact and accessibility issues.
Deep dives
Streamlining Healthcare Access
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Interactive Cinema and Audience Engagement
The concept of interactive cinema is explored through Professor Marina Hassapopolo's new book, which delves into the ethics of media participation. This genre invites audiences to actively engage in the narrative, changing their role from passive viewers to contributors. The podcast discusses historical and theoretical aspects of interactive cinema, highlighting various unique and ephemeral projects that involve audience participation. These works aim to expand the understanding of both interactivity and cinema itself in the context of social and political change.
The Journey of Archival Research
The research into forgotten and marginalized media forms is likened to a scavenger hunt, unveiling significant yet overlooked works that challenge traditional narratives. The study of projects like Kino Automat reveals the impact of context in which they were created and exhibited, often highlighting a disconnection in documentation and accessibility. By actively piecing together digital traces and exploring unconventional storage locations, researchers can bring attention to these ephemeral histories. This approach not only preserves but also enriches the discourse surrounding interactive cinema.
Rethinking Interactivity and Spectatorship
The discussion outlines a nuanced understanding of interactivity in film, emphasizing that it is not a new phenomenon, but rather an evolving concept. The podcast introduces terms such as 'viewser' and 'prosumer,' blending visual and participatory elements that challenge traditional roles in media consumption. It highlights the necessity to move beyond binary perspectives on interactivity, allowing for a richer exploration of audience dynamics and participation. This fresh perspective serves to engage audiences more fully and reflects ongoing shifts in both technology and cultural consumption.
Interactive Cinema: The Ambiguous Ethics of Media Participation(University of Minnesota Press, 2024) engages with a multitude of unconventional approaches throughout the history of motion pictures to offer insight into a range of largely ephemeral and site-specific projects that consciously assimilate viewers into their production. Through an exploration of radically inventive approaches to the medium, many of which emerged out of socio-political crises and periods of historical transition, Interactive Cinema works to by considering it in both technological and phenomenological terms.
Author Marina Hassapopoulou is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies, at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is also the interim director of NYU’s Moving Image Archiving and Preservation program. She is the founder of open-source and collaborative initiatives including: Interactive Media Archive, ExpressiveAI.net, and Weird Wave Archive.