论电影作为技术的意义

On the Significance of Film as Technology

像其他学科一样,电影和媒体研究中关于技术的争论,也在技术决定论和社会建构主义之间摇摆。对于技术决定论者来说,技术及其发展推动着媒体的历史变迁,而对于社会建构主义者来说,技术只能通过产生和塑造它们的社会力量和动力来理解。这些争论应该被理解为柏拉图的不确定性原理的两个方面。柏拉图关于洞穴的寓言说明,在我们对技术的理解中有一种基本的不确定性。你既可以关注技术的(社会)意义,也可以关注它的结构,但这两个方面似乎是相互排斥的。电影作为技术的理论需要解决这个问题。文章概括了电影研究是如何从电影的技术史和经济史方面解决技术问题的,然后讨论电影机器理论和基特勒媒介理论面临的不确定性,进而试图提出解决这一悖论的技术哲学路径,并从电影作为技术的角度出发,指出电影作为技术的意义在于,它塑造了使我们所说的人类成为可能的方式。

The debate about technology in film and media studies,as in other disciplines,oscillates between techno-deter⁃minism and social constructivism.For techno-determinists,technology and its development drive the history of media,while for social constructivists,technology can only be understood by way of the social forces and dynamics that produce and shape them.This contribution argues that these alternatives should be understood as two facets of what we might call Plato’s uncertainty princi⁃ple.Plato’s allegory of the cave illustrates,among other things,a basic indeterminacy in our understanding of technology.You can either focus on the(social)meaning of technology,or on its structure,but the two aspects seem to be mutually exclusive.This contribution argues that a theory of cinema as technology needs to come to terms with this problem.