ABSTRACT

Efforts to lend cinema-going a sense of liveness and cinematic projections a bodily presence are in vogue today. The recent rise of phenomena like ‘augmented cinema’ or ‘event cinema’ has largely been framed as responses to digitalization, home media consumption, and an experience economy in the digital age. However, they possess a long genealogy. This article examines the German Kino-Variété of the years 1913–1914, which conceptualized cinema not as a two-dimensional virtual window but as a multi-media embodied performance. Combining film and live performance, Kino-Variété productions sought to intensify filmic images through texture, depth, and various combinations of virtual and physical attractions. While the transitional era of film history has received attention primarily as a period of narrative integration, the Kino-Variété testifies to opposing tendencies gaining traction as well. The years before World War I set the course for cinema’s future: Should the medium become a feature-length form of bourgeois fiction or remain a physical, sensual, and diverse realm of short-subject variety? Although the Kino-Variété can be seen as a failed response to the specific challenges of its time, it was not merely an empirical phenomenon, but embodied an idea of cinema, an imagined future for a kaleidoscopic medium with unanticipated prescience for our own era of cinema events.

摘要

为电影带来活力感和电影放映的身体存在感的努力在今天很流行。最近兴起的“增强影院”或“事件影院”等现象在很大程度上被视为对数字化、家庭媒体消费和数字时代体验经济的回应。然而，他们拥有悠久的家谱。本文考察了 1913 年至 1914 年间的德国 Kino-Variété，它将电影概念化为不是一个二维的虚拟窗口，而是一种多媒体体现的表演。结合电影和现场表演，Kino-Variété 作品试图通过纹理、深度以及虚拟和物理吸引力的各种组合来强化电影图像。虽然电影史的过渡时期主要作为叙事整合时期而受到关注，Kino-Variété 证明了相反的趋势也获得了牵引力。第一次世界大战前的几年为电影的未来设定了方向：这种媒体应该成为资产阶级小说的长篇形式，还是仍然是一个物理的、感性的、多样化的短题材领域？尽管 Kino-Variété 可以被视为对其时代特定挑战的失败回应，但它不仅是一种经验现象，而且体现了一种电影理念，一种对万花筒媒介的想象未来，对我们自己的时代具有出人意料的先见之明。电影活动。短学科的多样性和多样化的境界？尽管 Kino-Variété 可以被视为对其时代特定挑战的失败回应，但它不仅是一种经验现象，而且体现了一种电影理念，一种对万花筒媒介的想象未来，对我们自己的时代具有出人意料的先见之明。电影活动。短学科的多样性和多样化的境界？尽管 Kino-Variété 可以被视为对其时代特定挑战的失败回应，但它不仅是一种经验现象，而且体现了一种电影理念，一种对万花筒媒介的想象未来，对我们自己的时代具有出人意料的先见之明。电影活动。