Presence and representation

Essay

Apparently, film and architecture are polar opposites in the arts. Nothing could be more different than the massive, material presence of an architectural object in space in relation to the representation in time of a movie, regardless of genre.
And yet, the two arts have many common or antagonistic characteristics. There are films in which architecture is present not only as scenery, there are films about architecture, architects or remarkable achievements, just as there are brilliant examples of places of filmic spectacle, cinemas or "film fortresses".
Their existence, their manifestation is traditionally made possible by the absence of the other. When the movie begins, the surrounding architecture disappears. When you experience architecture, no other simultaneous artistic act is possible, as is film.
What is fascinating about the two arts is their complementarity. They didn't come into being for this purpose, but they have evolved in this direction, mainly driven by the fantastic technological transformation of the last three decades.
The explanation is simple. It is the way the two arts relate to the space-time binomial. If a film lives, is present and is represented in the time it takes to traverse a space of any kind (real, fictional, utopian, animated, etc.), architecture is a presence that imposes and represents spaces that can be traversed in a given amount of time.
If in film, the path is the same for each viewing (representation), in architecture the path can be modified, with different representations within the same presence.

Therefore, we can consider architecture as a living film and film as a structure - construction - composition - architecture frozen in a fixed formula. As a filmmaker, I hope that each representation is identical to the previous one, without modification. As an architectural filmmaker, I hope that each time I walk through the constructed object, I have new experiences and new images, a different movie of the walk through or other, new representations. A movie remains the same no matter when I see it, at dawn, at noon, at dusk, at night, an architectural object does not.
A movie is conceived as a succession of sequences in time, in which information is added as conflicts and characters, data and situations accumulate. The method of organizing and composing the film is montage as a tool that gave artistic specificity to the phenomenon at the end of the 19th century. Through montage, the film can be just as credible as a unity of time and space in which the action takes place in a single place and time, but equally credible, through the absence of an immediate, on-the-spot presence, is the use of montage of filmed sequences, each in totally different places. Moving from one 'camera' (film sequence) to the next by means of montage does not involve physically joining them. In real architectural space this is impossible.
In film, the spatial-temporal continuity may or may not be respected. In architecture, this continuity conditions the spatial composition.
Neither film nor architecture can be understood without at least a complete traversal.
The presence of the film as an artistic product and of the architectural object as a work of art affirms an interior, a background, a content expressed through representation, exteriorization, form, multiple viewing.
As a spectator of them, you cannot be in several places at the same time, neither of the movie nor of the architecture. You are subject to the moment of representation in which you find yourself.
As their author, as their maker, in both film and architecture, the situation changes completely.
You have to be able to be, in relation to your own creation, at the same time anytime and anywhere in the unique position of generator of presence and representation.
This may be one of the reasons why many great directors and film-makers have had architectural studies as their basis, or vice versa, why famous architects have offered their best creations to be filmed, represented and understood through film.
Recently there have been attempts to bring the two arts even closer together. On the one hand, the projection of images, movies or virtual art sequences on famous facades; on the other hand, presentation films in 3D simulations in architectural competitions, etc.
Next comes interactivity. There are already movies that propose alternatives through decisions at key moments in the action. There is already the possibility that any 3D fantasy can be materialized.
The new real-virtual continuity can transform the relationship between presence and representation to the point of annulment and establish another (perhaps unique) form of artistic expression, understanding and use of space and time.
Merging. Perhaps the example of the smart telephone, which has brought together and merged in a fantastic concentration all the great inventions of the last century and a half, can give us an example of this.
Perhaps it is time to re-read Jules Verne more carefully.

ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE SUMMARY, NR.1/2019
Architecture. Film. Cinema