On Finishing Machines

How do we know when something is finishing? In everyday life there are no clips, cuts or frames that demarcate the boundaries between one moment and the next. Yet we are able to order the continual flow of our experience and this ability guides our reading, memory and planning of actions. With cinema conceived of as creating a simulation of reality, editing may be taken as an 'analogue for real-world shifts in attention’ (Munsterberg, 1916). According to some studies in cognitive science understanding these shifts in attention is also key to understanding how people’s perception of events differ. Studies of event structure perception have involved videotape playback of daily activities where a participant will tap a key “whenever, in [their] judgment, one unit ends and another begins”(Newtson, 1973). Playing what, for those unfamiliar to the process could be considered, at least in part, the role of the editor. In these experiments it was found that identifying with a role or goal led participant to spontaneously adjust their level of segmentation.

In this paper I will discuss the epistemological exchange between cognitive science and cinema, screen and user, artist and technology. Focusing on original editing strategies that extend our perception and conception of unfolding audiovisual continua, I will look at the work of Hollis Frampton and Peter Greenaway. Both filmmakers who have teleological opinions with regards to the cinematic apparatus, each attributing the introduction of a specific technology (the radar and the remote control respectively) as representing a catalyst for the demise of their art. Reflecting upon these inventions in relation to spontaneous adjustment of event segmentation, I will suggest how the art of editing can provide strong insight into the nature of creative and mechanical thinking, contrasting the techniques of cognitive science and film studies with the innovations of new media and the avant garde.