Page 215 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 215
summary
the Balkan countries, otherwise known for its rich cinema in the context of
its middle European cultural position, is a statement of the inner strength
and a potential scope of the small cinematographies of the Balkans.
The last part of the book is focused on cinema and the process, which
suggest the coming structural changes in the way cinema is about to “tran-
scend its existence” as well as its aesthetic codes and social relevance. It
would probably be an almost impossible task today to classify all mean-
ings and uses of the notions of identity, especially considering all the con-
troversies and contributions of the many broad debates within the context
of post-modernity. Within the more practical realm of social events, differ-
ent perceptions of identity, and the uncontrollable interplay of all symbolic
signifiers that have come with them, indicate sometimes grave conflicts, es-
pecially with regard to an ethnic identity. As the bourgeois class society de-
veloped new forms of representation of a socially constructed reality, and a
special place and role for aesthetic practices (usually known as art) in this
reality, identity became a denominator of a lot of different uses and mean-
ings. On the other hand, the term itself lost its “innocence” due to complex
impacts of new forms of representation, which (as a necessary intellectu-
al addition) contributed to the reproduction of the public. The role of pho-
tography and film in this sense was immense. Maybe we could say today
that film after a period of developing different formats in different registers
reached a point, when we could almost determine subjectivity (in a psycho-
logical or sociological sense) in the social reality as a kind of “representa-
tion of representation”, meaning that the “real subjectivity” represents an
imagined or a conceptual representation of subjectivity. In any case, in the
age of television and digitalisation, images, gestures, recognition patterns,
representations of bodies and so on, are all bringing us closer to such con-
sequences. However, as much as such suppositions seem intellectually at-
tractive, they should not be taken too far, but they should serve as an indi-
cation of some of the complex effects of audio-visual production, which is
woven in the fabric of society. Here we are talking, of course, about sym-
bolic exchanges within any society. Therefore, there is no doubt that the
identity in the framework of culture by and large functions as a recognition
scheme, within which the audio-visual production provides many particu-
lar views, angles, objects, gazes, suggestions and so forth, which modify
ways of seeing things and also ways of “being seen”. It should be added that
the instance of “being seen” involves the being as such, which is the catego-
ry of existence and of the existentialist philosophy.
213
the Balkan countries, otherwise known for its rich cinema in the context of
its middle European cultural position, is a statement of the inner strength
and a potential scope of the small cinematographies of the Balkans.
The last part of the book is focused on cinema and the process, which
suggest the coming structural changes in the way cinema is about to “tran-
scend its existence” as well as its aesthetic codes and social relevance. It
would probably be an almost impossible task today to classify all mean-
ings and uses of the notions of identity, especially considering all the con-
troversies and contributions of the many broad debates within the context
of post-modernity. Within the more practical realm of social events, differ-
ent perceptions of identity, and the uncontrollable interplay of all symbolic
signifiers that have come with them, indicate sometimes grave conflicts, es-
pecially with regard to an ethnic identity. As the bourgeois class society de-
veloped new forms of representation of a socially constructed reality, and a
special place and role for aesthetic practices (usually known as art) in this
reality, identity became a denominator of a lot of different uses and mean-
ings. On the other hand, the term itself lost its “innocence” due to complex
impacts of new forms of representation, which (as a necessary intellectu-
al addition) contributed to the reproduction of the public. The role of pho-
tography and film in this sense was immense. Maybe we could say today
that film after a period of developing different formats in different registers
reached a point, when we could almost determine subjectivity (in a psycho-
logical or sociological sense) in the social reality as a kind of “representa-
tion of representation”, meaning that the “real subjectivity” represents an
imagined or a conceptual representation of subjectivity. In any case, in the
age of television and digitalisation, images, gestures, recognition patterns,
representations of bodies and so on, are all bringing us closer to such con-
sequences. However, as much as such suppositions seem intellectually at-
tractive, they should not be taken too far, but they should serve as an indi-
cation of some of the complex effects of audio-visual production, which is
woven in the fabric of society. Here we are talking, of course, about sym-
bolic exchanges within any society. Therefore, there is no doubt that the
identity in the framework of culture by and large functions as a recognition
scheme, within which the audio-visual production provides many particu-
lar views, angles, objects, gazes, suggestions and so forth, which modify
ways of seeing things and also ways of “being seen”. It should be added that
the instance of “being seen” involves the being as such, which is the catego-
ry of existence and of the existentialist philosophy.
213
