Crisis of the Pseudoreal

This article discusses the history of film ontology and advocates to shift from traditional film interpretations to understanding all images as pseudoreal. Historically, film and images have been understood with an inherent connection to pro-filmic reality: the captured image represented what was in front of the camera at some point in time. While theories of how to retain a sense of film realism have evolved as the processes for capturing and altering images have improved, a proclivity towards the real has been maintained throughout most image interpretation techniques. Due to technological advancements in creating and altering images, the distinction between real and artificial within images has vanished; audiences cannot distinguish what is real or artificial within images. Consequently, the film-image will now be considered pseudoreal; images must be interpreted as completely severed from a relationship with pro-filmic reality. All images must now be understood with deference to the possibility that any or all of the image could be artificial. The first impulse to understanding images in the modern world should be to acknowledge that there is no inherent connection between an image and the real.