Digital Deleuze: Is the Digital Special Effect a New Form of Time-Image?

William John Robert Campbell Brown

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaper

Abstract

In his second book on cinema, Gilles Deleuze outlines several forms of time-image, including the time-image that is created when the virtual cannot be distinguished from the actual. Images featuring digital special effects involve not only the actual (actors and other profilmic elements that were placed in front of the camera), but also the virtual (often digital explosions or creatures, which have no physical existence). Given the photorealism of the virtual elements of the digital special effect, it becomes indistinguishable from the actual, with the two often interacting as if part of a single, continuous reality (as opposed to belonging to two distinct realms of the virtual and the actual). For this reason, this paper will propose that the digital special effect is by its very nature a new form of time-image, one that forces us to re-evaluate various aspects of Deleuze’s initial definitions of the time-image. This re-evaluation must take place not least because most digital special effects take place in a cinema that is often thought to be dominated by action and the movement-image: contemporary Hollywood.
Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2008

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