1. Holographic Cinema: PRACTICUM
Unified Syllabus for Second Year Students
David Bychkov, Università dell’ Immagine, 2004
Course Description and Introduction:
Since the late 1910s, cinema has steadily evolved into its own branch of psychology.
Such early brain experts as Nikolai Bernstein and Alexander Luria relied on cinema as both a
tool and as a model for explaining human behavior. Pudovkin, Vertov, Kuleshov and
Eisenstein, the first Soviet filmmakers of global renown, found that film propoganda
required an understanding of psycho-physiology, perception and cognition. Students of
their work are acutely sensitive to cinema’s power to persuade, shock, and physically change
spectators.
Indeed, THX, IMAX and even sound-synchronization would not be possible
without the contributions of such film perception scientists as Blumlein and Holman. As we
will see, it is due to the very existence of cinema that the brain is understood in terms of the
mathematical principles of holograms. Holograms, as neuropsychologist Karl Pribram
argues, are multi-dimensional images containing information otherwise spread out over the
universe. Ideas, intentions and perceptions of such external stimuli as cinema are all
stored like holograms within the brain. This new perspective on our ability to absorb our
surroundings into memories requires a more responsible, spectator-conscious approach to
filmmaking. “Holographic Cinema,” therefore, involves controlling the way our images
behave once they enter the body—not unlike the way a doctor monitors the results of his
patients’ treatments.
Rather than simply studying how to produce and edit digital video for its own sake,
our mission as a film class is to carefully reshape and reconcile the images within our
spectators. Before we are able to embark on this investigation, it is important that each of us
decide:
• Who is our spectator?
• How do we want to change him/her?
• Why do we want to change him/her?
Towards this end, we will consider cinema in light of media ethics and philosophy, cognitive
psychology and film theory. Stay alert: the fruit of this line of inquiry may be surprising.
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2. Course Objective:
My goal is to teach UI students how to control the behavior of their images. Each
student will be expected to create a multi-media installation (video, 16mm, game) for a
spectator chosen at random from a Milanese telephone book. Students will have to contact
and develop a working relationship with their spectator. This will include preparing a
strategy to fundamentally change this spectator’s behavior with images. Each student will be
required, as a result, to define a method to measure human emotional response to images.
Class Format:
Each class will begin with a 5-question, 15 minute written test. These tests serve as a
way of measuring student participation, alertness and ability to verbalize ideas. During the
course of these tests, I will inspect the agendas of each student (a calendar-book for
holographic cinema projects). I expect to see notes on progress made on the telephone-
book spectator assignment on a week-by-week basis. All agendas and tests will be formally
analyzed and submitted to the administration. Tests will be followed by lectures and group
presentations. It is essential that students take the initiative to ask questions about things
they do not understand, regardless of language barriers. I will make any and every effort
possible to accommodate UI students who do not speak Italian.
Decorum:
It is expected that students will refrain from talking, eating, performing surgery,
making love and going to the bathroom during classroom hours. Because of the complexity
of this course, it is very important that you allow me and interested students to concentrate.
Late students must wait until the break to enter the classroom. Repeat offenders will
be asked to throw themselves down a staircase.
Mandatory Cineforum Screenings for 2nd
Year Students:
• Short works by Bill Viola
• Collected works by Chantal Akerman, Claire Denis
• The General Line by Sergei Eisenstein
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3. Suggested Readings:
• “Interest in Films as Measured by Subjective and Behavioral Ratings and
Topographic EEG” by David Alan Kaiser
• “The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes”* edited by Ken Wilbur
• “Brain and Perception” by Karl Pribram
• “Languages of the Brain” by Karl Pribram
• “The Cinema of Attractions” by Tom Gunning
• “Film Form”* by Sergei Eisenstein, see pages on “Overtonal Montage”
• “Kino-Eye”* edited writings of Dziga Vertov
• “The Coordination and Regulation of Movements” by N.A. Bernstein
Mandatory Course Projects:
Exact telephone-book spectator assignments will be posted by Anna Piovesan on
Dec. 1st
, 2003. Progress reports and copious notations must be made in your agenda books
at least once a week. Additionally, a full progress report based on my template (see next
page) received on or before February 1st
, 2003 and a second one on or before March 15th
,
2003. Based on the specificity of these reports, I will grant students access to video,
computer and psycho-physiology technology. Students who abuse my patience and/or
Università resources will be dismissed from this course. A copy of each project must
be submitted to me in CD-ROM format no later than June 1st.
Contact Info:
My deadlines are not negotiable—medical emergencies and other excuses will be
judged with Soviet-style severity. For anything related to this course, please write to me at:
• davidbychkov@hotmail.com for simple messages
• holocinema@earthlink.net for progress reports, video files, etc.
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4. EXAMPLE OF PROGRESS REPORT
David Bychkov
Jan. 1, 2004
Holographic Cinema: PRACTICUM
Spectator Name: Gianni Mascarpone, Viale Anna Barbara 17, Milano 3
Spectator CV: Gianni, an unmarried postino in Milano 3, suffers from a fear of elevators.
Gianni is able to lead an otherwise normal life, except he is overweight, sexually frustrated
and overly attached to his mother. The movies he tends to watch are violent, and feature
breasts and asses prominently. When Gianni goes to the bathroom, he often reads car
magazines, ecc, ecc. He spends most of his disposable income on pornography and
marijuana.
Objective: To add variability to Gianni’s physical activities, primarily to help reduce stress,
reduce dependence on masturbation and encourage him to take on new challenges… like
getting into elevators.
Strategy: To reprogram his television, computer and radio to turn off everytime his blood
rushes to the lower half of his body. This will require him to spend less of his free time
sitting, standing, ecc, ecc.
Progress: Over the last few weeks, Gianni has grown very frustrated with the results of my
method. I will try a slightly different way, ecc, ecc.
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