Stereo revolution: Acoustic science and cinematic spaces in socialist China (1949–1966)

Abstract

This article examines how the development of acoustic science changed the spatial configuration of movie theaters in China during the period between 1949 and 1966. The application of new acoustic technology not only caused a dramatic restructuring of movie theaters from the building’s material composition to the physical shapes of its walls and ceiling but also made crucial impacts on the conception of spectatorship and the discourse of cinematic realism. Taking the renovation project of Capital Theatre as an example, I show how the new cinematic space produced an immobile and individualized mode of spectatorship through the technological redistribution and management of individual bodies. Moreover, the growing technological capacity enabled technicians and recordists to imagine a different notion of cinematic realism, one that defined the verisimilitude of sonic ‘reality’ not in terms of its proximity to the empirical sound, but as the techno-perceptual effects within the sensory space of the movie theater. Drawing on sources from industry journal articles, construction reports, and academic papers by recordists, engineers, architects, acoustic technicians, etc., this article attempts to raise new problematics on the level of media infrastructure of socialist film and to promote meaningful dialogues with aesthetic, artistic and ideological issues.