Expressing Duration with Digital Micromanipulations: Digital Experimental Documentaries of James Benning, Sharon Lockhart, and Thom Andersen

초록

Countering Babette Mangolte's and D. N. Rodowick's assertion that it is difficult to express duration in digital cinema, this article argues that an array of micro-level manipulations of the lens-based image with digital technology-color correction, digital dissolve, and extreme slow motion, all of which I call "digital micromanipulations"-are capable of deepening the presentation and exploration of cinematic duration and temporality. Drawing on the recent digital films of James Benning, Sharon Lockhart, and Thom Andersen, I demonstrate that the directors' different uses of digital micromanipulations should be viewed as extending their experimental approaches to documentary time and aesthetics in the celluloid-based cinema.