Media Arts Suspensions and Deviations - Paz dos Reis between Cinema and Photography

Abstract

Media have non-linear evolutions. This means that new media failures or retractions can highlight overlooked features of old media. The very early history of Portuguese Cinema is one of those moments: the new and promising cinema technologies were first experimented and then discarded by Aurélio da Paz dos Reis, the pioneer of Portuguese cinema. Instead, he intensely explored in photography a solution for covering current affairs. The creation of the ‘Portuguese Stereoscope’, a commercial stereoscopic card series that depicted political events such as the agitated republic rallies, the social life of the bourgeoisie and the daily life in the streets of Porto, was an international innovation: it consisted of the very first photojournalism in 3D. This research project will investigate this historical fact by checking in the press the events covered by Paz dos Reis and by creating an online media art installation that will allow the matching of these materials with his stereos to understand how these 3D news materials relate to current VR 360º new videos. This digital curation will be developed as an artistic research method which will also allow to experiment with film materials: photograph the original Aurelio’s camera kept by the Portuguese Cinematheque (ANIM) to create a 3d object, and a documentary film focused on some of his most symbolic photographs. It is expected that this research project will lead to a new approach towards the work of Paz dos Reis.