Thematic Section

Techniques and Poetics of the Submarine in Film: A Pretext for an Archeology of Immersion

Author(s)
Keywords
  • Water
  • Underwater cinema
  • Aquarium
  • Virtual reality
  • Hydrohumanities
Abstract

Water, whether surface or depths, recurrently appears in cinema as a motif and a material. The great symbolic importance this recurrence of the aquatic bears within film leads to calling its different uses into question, especially when it comes to the subaquatic. Addressing the question of the submarine allows going beyond water as a simple surface, and thus to move towards a real habitability of water. Making a history of underwater cinema that includes precinematic devices such as the public aquariums of the late 19th century enables the identification of an aesthetic community, as well as that of a common desire to stage a totalizing perceptive experience of the aquatic element and, in that way, of the image materiality. In line with the various cinematic underwater devices conceived to that end during the 20th century, virtual reality, as a total experience generator, also resorts to the subaquatic as a pretext to immerse the user in the work of art. The recurring fascination for the subaquatic throughout the ages, even more so with the rise of new media, demonstrates how water is a central feature to better define and archeologize the concept of immersion.

References
  1. Bachelard, G., L’eau et les rêves, essai sur l’imagination de la matière (Paris: José Corti, 1942).
  2. Bachelard, G., L’air et les songes, essai sur l’imagination du mouvement (Paris: José Corti, 1943).
  3. Balsom, E., An Oceanic Feeling: Cinema and the Sea (New Plymouth: Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, 2018).
  4. Brugidou, J., Clouette, F., “Habiter les abysses? D’une architecture du confinement à la co-création de mondes,” Techniques & Culture 75 (2021): 198-201, https://doi.org/10.4000/tc.15690.
  5. Brugidou, J., Vers une écologie de l’apparition: bioluminescence et cinéma (Paris: Mimesis, 2022).
  6. Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales, “Immerger”, https://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/immerger, accessed July 25, 2023.
  7. Crary, J., Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1990).
  8. Crylen, J., The Cinematic Aquarium: A History of Undersea Film (Iowa: University of Iowa, 2015).
  9. Davies, C., “Landscape, Earth, Body, Being, Space and Time in the Immersive Virtual Environments Osmose and Ephemere,” in J. Mallory, ed., Women, Art, and Technology (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003): 322-337.
  10. Demarck, M-P., Frémond, D., eds., Jules Vernes, le roman de la mer (Paris: Seuil, 2005).
  11. Didi-Huberman, G., Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde (Paris: Minuit, 1992).
  12. Ferenczi, S., Thalassa, psychanalyse des origines de la vie sexuelle suivi de Masculin et féminin (1932), (Paris: Payot, 1962).
  13. Flusser, V., Vampyrotheutis Infernalis (New York-Dresden: Atropos Press, 2011).
  14. Grammatikopoulou, C., “Breathing Art Art as an Encompassing and Participatory Experience,” in. C. Van den Akker, S. Legêne, eds., Museums in a Digital Culture (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2016): 41-56.
  15. Grau, O., Virtual Art: From Illusion to Immersion (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2003).
  16. Huhtamo, E., “Elements of Screenology: Toward an Archeology of the Screen,” Navigationen-Zeitschrift für Medien-und Kulturwissenschaften 6.2 (2006): 31-64, https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/1958.
  17. Ivakhiv, A.J., Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect, Nature (Waterloo: Wilfried Laurier University Press, 2013).
  18. Jue, M., Wild Blue Media: Thinking Through Seawater (Durham-London: Duke University Press, 2020).
  19. Le Gall, G., “Dioramas aquatiques: Théophile Gauthier visite l’aquarium du jardin d’Acclimatation,” Culture & Musées 32 (2018): 81-106, https://doi.org/10.4000/culturemusees.2370.
  20. Le Gall, G., Aquariorama: histoire d´un dispositif (Paris: Mimesis, 2022).
  21. Lorenzi, C., “L’engouement pour l’aquarium en France (1855-1870),” Sociétés & Représentations 2, no. 28 (2009): 253-271, https://doi.org/10.3917/sr.028.0253.
  22. Martinez, A., “‘A Souvenir of Undersea Landscapes’: Underwater Photography and the Limits of Photographic Visibility, 1890-1910,” História Ciências Saúde-Manguinhos 3 (2014): 1-18, https://doi.org/10.1590/S0104-59702014000300013.
  23. Michaud, P-A., “Aquarium ou le cinéma liquide,” in F. Bovier, A. Mey, eds., Cinéma exposé (Lausanne: les Auteurs, 2014): 57-65.
  24. Neimanis, A., Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017).
  25. Oxford Learner’s Dictionnary, “Immerse,” https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definit
  26. ion/english/immerse, accessed July 25, 2023.
  27. Parfait, F., Vidéo: un art contemporain (Paris: Éditions du Regard, 2001).
  28. Pinotti, A., “Towards An-Iconology: The Image as Environment,” Screen 61, no. 4 (2020): 594-603, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjaa060.
  29. Ramos, F., ed., Flows – Bodies of Water: A Reader (Paris: Les presses du réel, 2021).
  30. RIBOCA, “Astrida Neimanis ‘We Are All at Sea’,” Youtube (2020). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp1wo1irkQA&ab_channel=RIBOCA, accessed July 31, 2023.
  31. Rogers, A., “Taking the Plunge: The New Immersive Screens,” in C. Buckley, R. Campe, F. Casetti, eds., Screen Genealogies: from Optical Devices to Environmental Medium (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019): 135-158.
  32. Roubaix, P., “Le milieu subaquatique et le cinéma scientifique français,” in A. Martinet, ed., Le cinéma et la science (Paris: CNRS, 1994): 149-165.
  33. Shell, H.R., “Things Under Water: Étienne-Jules Marey’s Aquarium Laboratory and Cinema’s Assembly,” in B. Latour, P. Weibel, eds., Dingpolitik: Atmospheres of Democracy (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2005): 327-331.
  34. Somaini, A., “The Atmospheric Screen: Turner, Hazlitt, Ruskin,” in C. Buckley, R. Campe, F. Casetti, eds., Screen Genealogies: From Optical Devices to Environmental Medium (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019): 159-185.
  35. Starosielski, N., “Beyond Fluidity: A Cultural History of Cinema Underwater,” in S. Rust, S. Monani, S. Cubitt, eds., Ecocinema: Theory and Practice (London-New York: Routledge, 2012): 149-168.
  36. Taves, B., “A Pioneer Under the Sea,” Library of Congress Information Bulletin 55, no. 15 (1996), https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9615/sea.html, accessed by 06/01/2022.
  37. Thouvenel, E., Les images de l’eau dans le cinéma français des années 20 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010).
  38. Youngblood, G., Expanded Cinema (New York: P. Dutton & Co, 1970).
  39. White, D., “Mapping Expanded Cinema,” Vertigo 4, no. 2 (2009), https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/vertigo_magazine/volume-4-issue-2-winter-spring20091/ expanded-cinema/, accessed February 28, 2023.
  40. Vaughan, H., “Toward a Natural Screen Philosophy,” in C. Rawls, D. Neiva, S.S. Gouveia, eds., Philosophy and Film (London-New York: Routledge, 2019): 342-355.
  41. Viewing, P., ed., Jean Painlevé: les pieds dans l’eau (Paris: Jeu de Paume, 2022).
  42. Vigo, L., Jean Vigo, une vie engagée dans le cinéma (Paris: Cahiers du cinéma, 2002).
  43. Wall, J., “Photographie et intelligence liquid,” in Essais et entretiens. 1984-2001 (Paris: École des Beaux-Arts, 2001): 175-178.
  44. Williamson, J.E., Gregory, C.L., “Submarine Photography,” in Transactions of the Society of Motion Pictures Engineers (New York: Society of Motion Pictures Engineers, 1921): 149-158.
Read Article
Published

29 December 2023

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19529
How to Cite
Jouhannet, E. (2023). Techniques and Poetics of the Submarine in Film: A Pretext for an Archeology of Immersion. AN-ICON. Studies in Environmental Images [ISSN 2785-7433], 2(II). https://doi.org/10.54103/ai/19529
Copy

Issue
Vol. 2 No. II (2023): Immersions and Dives: From the Environment to Virtual Reality

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...
License
Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.