L I T E R AT U R E R E V I E W A S S I G N M E N T TA S K 2
COMM2627 Research Methods for Design and Digital Media
Marsha Berry MINH HA - 3350509 This document is submission for Research Methods for Design and Digital Media COMM2627, Master of Media
RESEARCH QUESTION What is the role of Virtual Reality technology in transforming the cross-industry relationship between architecture and filmmaking?
INTRODUCTION Venturing into the media industry as an architecture graduate, I often find my past educational background significantly supportive for me in accomplishing new challenges as a media-maker, especially with the skills of creative problem-solving and critical thinking. Joseph Kosinsky, the director of ‘TRON: Legacy’ (2010), shared his similar experience after making the same career shift, breaking into the mainstream with the sci-fi debut (Petrunia 2014). These findings have pointed me to look inwards to my past profession in order to identify and articulate my architectural learnings as an instrument in my future media career. Despite being seemingly different in terms of end products, these two professions share numerous similarities at the cores of their practices, especially in how they both evolve with technological advancements, their creative natures, and their direct cultural impacts on society. Moreover, there have also been instances that the two professions cross-over and coordinate, pushing the creative boundaries of both filmmakers and architects. Architecture plays an important role in films, just as how films have inspired generations of architects. With the recent emergence of Virtual Reality technology, would this be an opportunity for architecture and filmmaking to collaborate in an ultimate immersive experience? This literature review would discuss and analyse professional perspectives about the relationship between architecture and filmmaking, as well as speculating the opportunities of how the two professions would respond to and evolve with the development of Virtual Reality.
THE SIMILARITIES Storytelling (time) and architecture (space) are believed by the philosopher Nelson Goodman to be fundamental forms of what referred to be “world-making” (1978), which essentially underlined the similarity in nature that both fields share. Both industries are based on coherent structures, generating imaginations, lives, and events. “Plans of buildings are like plots of stories”, the equivalence was claimed by Emmons in his book ‘Confabulation: Storytelling in Architecture’ (2017). Furthermore, they both have undeniably profound impacts on cultural perception, argued by Froehlich (2018). While architecture has progressively transformed itself in the last centuries, changing the way we see our cities. Revolutionary films such as ‘Fight Club’ (1999) and ‘V for Vendetta’ (2005) opened up conversations and ideas that define our today’s pop culture (Englehardt 2017). While sharing the similarly “creative” energy as artists, the roles of architects and filmmakers have a lot in common. Kosinsky, one of the few “risk-takers” that experienced the two professions, reveals his personal reflection of both requiring development of an idea, and communication to the ones who contribute to achieving it (Petrunia 2014). In a Ted Talk in 2009, Bjarke Ingels, one of the most influential architects in the 21st Century, tells the stories of his designs as “natural evolutions”, demonstrating the narrative capabilities of the architectural design process. Furthermore, technology plays a crucial role in the rapid evolution of both professions in recent years, along with its rise to dominance in the Industry 4.0 (Froehlich 2018). Modernly developed tools, such as online channels and generative design software, have facilitated the evolutions of filmmaking and architecture respectively today.
THE CROSSOVERS The integration of motion pictures in architectural design is rooted as far back as the 1920s, when the influential modernist architect Le Cobusier designed the La Villa Savoye with an intention for it to be perceived and experienced through a continuous itinerary of the space (McGloin 2014). In the book ‘Manifesto for a cinematic architecture’ (2006), Pascal Schoening defined ‘cinematic architecture’ as a study methodology of architecture reflecting on the “fluid processes over time”, rather than static physical objects (McGloin 2014). However, the instances of ‘cinematic architecture’ are not the only illustrations of the interdependency of the two professions. The term ‘architectural films’ refers to the filmmaking practices that employ means of architectural space, structure, and order as the power to drive the narrative (Froehlich 2018). Examples of ‘architectural films’ are cult films that depicted their own speculative representation of future urbanism, that is ‘Metropolis’ (1927) or ‘Blade Runner’ (1982). For decades, these futuristic films have uncovered potential issues regarding the over-industrialization of our society, motivating visionary urbanist professionals to seek for solutions. On the other hand, the role of architecture in films is much more definitive than being the occasional themes. Architecture in a cinematic setting usually represents more than just inhabitable spaces, but also works with the story as an expressive tool to convey a certain mood of the narrative (Baratto 2017). Moreover, architectural spaces often add a more realistic layer of depth to the narrative, in how they depict a character’s personalities and ways of living. This utilization is illustrated by how Modernism is usually associated with evil villains in the 20th Century, due to its symbolism of rebellious and abnormal lifestyles in classic thriller/gangster movies (Froehlich 2018). Nevertheless, in his book “The Arts of Cinema” (2018), Martin Seel emphasizes the importance of architecture in cinema, being closely linked with the audience’s augmented imagination of the story world.
TECHNOLOGY The expeditious development of modern technology in the 21st Century has made significant impacts on the collaborations of architects and filmmakers. Nowadays, the rise in the use of computer-generated story worlds replacing traditional film sets has become a major change of mainstream productions, allowing creations of imaginative films such as ‘The Avengers’ (2012) (Feinberg 2013) or ‘TRON: Legacy’ (2010). The adaption of virtual story worlds in films has brought filmmakers and architects to work closely together while challenging the rationality of space with imaginative perceptions (Froehlich 2018). While its concept has been discussed and developed for decades, in 2012, the Oculus Rift prototype was developed, provoking conversations of Virtual Reality and its utilization in modern media as a strive towards a greater level of immersion (Bucher 2017). According to theorists, this technological affordance and its remediation process integrated into the ongoing development of media will come to define digital media and transform the way contents are created and engaged with prospective opportunities (Bucher 2017). In mainstream media, Virtual Reality content productions have increased in recent years following the popularization of the emerging technology. This new development has added to digital media a deeper level of audience interaction, allowing them to freely observe the surrounding environments and encouraging choice-making narratives, and is described as “the sweet spot in the middle” of traditional media and video games (Dooley 2017). On the other hand, the technology has been described as a “game changer” in the architecture industry (McManamy 2017). The immersive experience offered by Virtual Reality has been adopted to be a highly advanced representation of architectural designs, marking a tremendous step from 3-dimensional visualizations from the last decades. Furthermore, recent developments of the technology even allow architects to design and construct their creations within the virtual space and spark up speculations of it changing the way architects design in the future (Mairs 2016).
While still being progressively developed, Virtual Reality technology has already made its phenomenal impacts on digital media and architecture in recent years. It opens up new opportunities for filmmakers and architects, at the same time shows an enormous potential to evolve and complete itself. However, whether the technology would commence further cross-overs experimentation of the two professions is up to our adventurous imaginations. Following the opening of New Academic Street at RMIT University, a 360-degree documentary film is created by students to promote the project, demonstrating the capabilities of using Virtual Reality technology in an architecturallyfocused narrative (Kennedy 2017). Would Virtual Reality change the way we perceive and experience cinematic architecture or the way we participate and interact with architectural films? Would Virtual Reality fuse the roles of architect and filmmaker into a collaborative profession? The answers lie ahead.
CONCLUSION In conclusion, architecture and filmmaking are similarly creative-based professions that inspire and grow with each other ever since they co-existed. This literature review has analytically transpired the similarities of the two professions, the history of their interdependence, and the emerging relevance of architects and filmmakers in a technology-driven society. Along with the rapid advancement of technology, there has been new tools, mediums and platforms that are researched, developed and designed with the aspiration of enhancing human’s experiences, such as Virtual Reality. While the technology has drawn significant interests from professionals, it is still one step away from global acceptance, with the drawbacks regarding its expense, public perception, and diversity of contents (Nowak 2017). In this context, it is up to the creative minds to use this technological opportunity as a leverage and optimize it to evolve architecture and filmmaking as professions. Imaginative story worlds visualized by architectural designers with the technological affordance of the cyberspace would bring architects and filmmakers together for collaborative content generations. While the technology is still confronted with unresolved challenges, its potential for public usage promises a unification of virtual world-designers and storytellers into an ultimate virtual “world-making� profession. (1450 words)
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