Database Economy and Transnational Cinema

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Cubitt, Sean. 2009. Database Economy and Transnational Cinema. Studies in Australasian Cinema, 3(2), pp. 155-166. ISSN 1750-3175 [Article]

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Official URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/sac.3.2...

Abstract or Description

Digital or electronic cinemas are dependent on a global regime of standards covering such features as aspect ratios, colour gamuts, screen resolution and compression-decompression algorithms. These standards are worked out by a variety of intersecting organizations representing a variety of interests. This article argues that such standardization is isomorphic with the convergence of biopolitical and commodity forms in an emergent political economy that can be described as a database economy. This infrastructure of standards and ordering principles constitutes an actually existing transnational public sphere. The article discusses the possibilities for developing an alter-globalizing public sphere in digital cinemas, testing three possible avenues: cinemas of the silent majority, new modes of distribution and content-driven approaches. It concludes by asking whether vanguard practices of building new forms of cinema apparatus may be essential to the construction of alter-globalizing transnational cinemas.

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Article

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https://doi.org/10.1386/sac.3.2.155/1