A Study on the Presence of Spectator in Post Cinematic Environment

This study defines the diversified media environment of contemporary visual art as a post-cinema environment and analyzes how the spatial expansion of the screen and the conceptual transformation of the camera have occurred within it. By examining the altered methods of image production, mediation, and reception, the research reveals the presence of the spectator as a noncorporeal subject in the visual field of image experience. The changes in the screen and the audience have been driven by the transition to multi-screen and multimedia environments, leading to a transformation in visual perception through physical environments that interact with images in expanded spaces. Additionally, the post-cinema camera, as a non-human agency, has broadened the scope of image production and mediation through computer imaging processes and digital technologies. It not only intervenes between the unexperienced realities beyond human cognition and the audience as the experiencing subject, but also produces and mediates images for machines as machine vision, facilitating the process of converting representation into information. Furthermore, this study argues that the issue of spectator presence in the visual field can be understood through the paradox of absence and presence in the technological context of 21st-century media. It asserts that the spectator emerges as an “electronic body” that transcends the physical body in the image reception environment. The concept of the audience's electronic body introduces perspectives on the coding and informatization of the body due to technological interventions by computers and media, as well as the hybrid sensations resulting from the interaction between bodies and devices, proposing a new notion of corporeality for non-corporeal subjects in the new media environment.