1. Manufacturing Illusion
Computers & English
Matt Barton

2. _illusionism: passé
“In the twentieth century, art has largely rejected the goal of illusionism, the goal that was important to it before; as a consequence, it has lost much of its popular support.” (177)

3. _photography
“In the twentieth century, a particular kind of image created by still photography and cinematography came to dominate modern visual culture.” (179)
Linear perspective, depth of field effect, particular tonal and color range, motion blur

4. _computer graphics
“Computer imaging was mostly abstract because it was algorithm-driven and the technologies for inputting photographs into a computer were not easily accessible.” (179)

5. _computer realism
What computer graphics have (almost) achieved is not realism, but rather only photorealism—the ability to fake not our perceptual and bodily experience of reality but only its photographic image. (200)

6. _cinematic realism

7. _the visual culture of our age
“The visual culture of a computer age is cinematographic in its appearance, digital on the level of its material, and computational in its logic.” (180)

8. _cinematic realism Bazin: “Idealist, evolutionary”
The modern technology of cinema is a realization of the ancient myth of mimesis.”
Comolli: “Materialist, non-linear”
Cinema works endlessly to reduplicate the visible, thus sustaining the illusion that it is the phenomenal forms that constitute the social “real” rather than the invisible relations of productions.
Bordwell, Staiger: “Industrial”
Realism is rational and pragmatic tool in industrial competition

9. _effective religion?
“If our civilization has any equivalent to medieval cathedrals, it is special effects Hollywood films.” (201)

10. _concept of an image
“New media change our concept of what an image is—because they turn a viewer into an active user.” (183)
An illusionistic image is no longer something a subject simply looks at. The new media image is something the user actively goes into.”

11. _cathedrals

12. _brain cam
“Cinematographic images are very efficient for cultural communication. Because they share many qualities with natural perception, they are easily processed by the brain.” (180)