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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Kaleidoscopic Perception. The Multiplication of Surfaces and Screens in Media and Culture
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2006-10-01
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2006-10-01
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Cinéma & Cie
Malte Hagener
2006/10/01
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
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Kaleidoscopic Perception. The Multiplication of Surfaces and Screens in Media and Culture
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6
KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION
THE MULTIPLICATION OF SURFACES AND SCREENS
IN MEDIA AND CULTURE
Male Hagener, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena




  The following essay is exploratory and geared towards investigating a phenomenon
tentatively labelled a "multiplication of surfaces and screens" in different media, and
also, in the culture at large. This tendency towards the fragmented and multiplied sur
face can be found in many cultural fields: the return of the split-screen in contempo-
rary films, both mainstream and experimental, the proliferation of multi-channel
installations in video art as well as the ubiquity of the fragmented screen space in tel-
evision, music videos, videogames and computer graphic interfaces. Even mediatised
urban spaces, architectural ensembles and entertainment areas such as sports arenas,
shopping malls and theme parks exhibit similar tendencies.? There are different ways
to analyse this multiplicity of screens, this mise-en-abyme of frames within frames,
this proliferation of the split-screen: one could try to find cultural, economic or tech-
nological reasons for this appearance across different fields. One could emphasise the
differences between, to give one example, the poetics of installation art and the func-
tional use of split-screen in a TV news show. Alternatively, one could stress the con-
vergence of different media in the digital which results in a shift from the photo-
graphic image indexically bound up with the pro-filmic to the graphic image indexi-
cally independent from the pro-filmic.3 In order to delineate this wide field I will pro-
vide here a historical flashback, a sort of genealogy of the multiplied screen, and some
remarks towards the poetics of the split-screen from which the title "kaleidoscopic
perception" is borrowed. I will also be touching upon issues of installation and video
art, TV and music videos, and yet the focus of this essay is the cinematic employment
of the split screen.4
  Before starting an inquiry it is useful to circumscribe and define the field of exami
nation. So, what is the split-screen technique? Most dictionary entries identify the
central tenet as the screen being visibly divided into two or more frames instead of
having a seamless overall filmic image.5 Thus, in its most basic sense split-screen
divides a whole (the screen or image) into parts while a multi-channel installation or
a multimedia environment made up of several screens creates a whole out of parts.
Yet again, the split-screen and multi-screen environments are related in several ways
they create similar effects in the viewer, they share the same genealogy in the archae-
ology of the multi-image environment, and they sometimes even appear as variations
on the same topic. The central question addressed in this paper then, is what hap
pens when an apparently seamless image is broken up and divided into visibly dif
ferent parts as in the structure of Russian dolls or Chinese boxes of frames within
frames.


CINEMA & Cie, no. 8, Fall 2006                                                        37
MALTE HAGENER


The Classical Split-screen and Its Genealogy

 Let us start by recapitulating what film history has to say about the multiple image.?
The traditional conception of split-screen is that of an effect popular in upmarket
thrillers, horror films and comedies from the late 195os to the mid-197os; cinephiles
will add Brian de Palma as the only auteur who has constantly, from Sisters (1973) to
Femme Fatale (2002), made use of this technique.8 Yet, recent historiographical stud.
is on the industrial and aesthetic development of Hollywood in the past couple of
decades rarely mention split-screen. Often, the technique is considered to be a devia.
tion from the norm, a fancy technique used for experimental purposes which van-
ished in the mid-rgos, that is, very soon after it appeared around 196o at a time when
Hollywood was desperately searching for a new formula to entice audiences back into
the movie theater. From this perspective of the self-organisation of the film industry,
split-screen can be seen as part of Hollywood's attempt to master its crisis that had
become obvious by the late 196os. The reaction of the studios to dropping revenues
was to allow young executives and filmmakers to experiment in order to recapture lost
markets. The innovative wave of the New Hollywood, to which split-screen would be
a rather freakish outgrowth in this model, is thus not seen as a creative outburst of a
couple of individuals, but rather a controlled laboratory for finding a new success for
mula in which the artists functioned as the proverbial laboratory rats who had to find
solutions to complicated problems. I Therefore, by the time that Jaws (S. Spielberg,
1975) and Star Wars (G. Lucas, I977) were released, both with many technical tricks
and special effects, albeit not always visible or obvious (like split-screen is), the time of
the multiplied image was over. Or so it seemed until its unexpected return in the late
19gos. The resurgence of the split-screen in contemporary film refutes the assumption
that this particular technique is tied to a specific experimental moment in film histo
ry. One either has to reconsider the reasons given for the earlier uses or to diagnose a
similar moment  of upheaval for today's film culture if one wants to stick to the crisis
version of history.
  Another approach would provide an archaeology of multi-screen experiments and
locate a convergence of mainstream filmmaking with at least two different strands in
the late Ig6os: popular exhibition culture and the avant-garde impetus to depart from
the traditional cinematic apparatus. Beatriz Colomina has traced the genealogy of the
multiplied screen back into the history of large thematic exhibitions. In 1959 the
"American National Exhibition" was staged in Moscow which - at the peak of the Cold
War - was meant to showcase the "American way of life" to the people of the Soviet
Union. A complementary exhibition presenting Soviet achievements to US citizens
took place simultaneously at the New York Coliseum at Columbus Circle. In Moscow,
the main attraction turned out to be a huge geodetic dome constructed by Buckminster
Fuller which provided the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union with Glimpses of
the USA. This title was taken from the seven-screen installation piece by the designer
couple Charles and Ray Eames, which mixed still and moving images to condense a typ
ical working day and a typical weekend day in twelve minutes. Glimpses of the USA
was very much in the tradition of the city symphony of the 19205 and 19305. Yet,
 Eameses were also heavily influenced by information theory wh
 military circles during the Second World War. The key guestion turned out
 to transfer information economically from a sender to a receiver as prefigured in
                                                                   KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION


writings of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver. I The Eameses followed up their
Moscow presentation with a I4-screen film for IBM's "Think"-Pavilion at the 1964 New
York World Fair. Whereas Glimpses of the USA in Moscow, in its conscious use of the
city symphony, points back to the first cinematic avant-garde of the 192s, the IBM
pavilion already anticipates the Iggos convergence with the realm of the digital. Both
these specifically designed spaces for multi-screen experiments proved to be immense-
ly successful. On the basis of this success, the idea of the multiplied image was adopted
by Hollywood, most notably in Grand Prix (J. Frankenheimer, I966). Further multi-
screen experiments took place at the International Exposition in Montreal in 1967, a
moment that was, in retrospect, possibly the climax of this development. 12 The main-
stream use of multi-screen can be traced to such innovative examples as The Boston
Strangler (R. Fleischer, I968), The Thomas Crown Affair (N. Jewison, I968) or
Woodstock (M. Wadleigh, 1970), all of which represent the first major wave of multi-
frame experiments in mainstream filmmaking. 13
  This anchoring of split-screen in the genealogy of 1950s and I96os exhibition culture
opens up an avenue in film history that leads us back to the turn of the century. As his-
torians of early cinema have reminded us, the world exhibitions, gigantic trade fairs
and thematic exhibitions that showcased the positivist belief in progress and advances
in science and technology around 1900 were a climate well-suited for novel entertain-
ment media such as the cinema.I4 Along with the circus and the fairground, the vaude-
ville and the variety theatre the gigantic expositions gathered developments of differ-
ent kinds into a format that was able to attract and fascinate a large audience. If we
anchor the multi-screen installation and the split-screen in the history of this large the-
matic exposition, then this technique demonstrates its proximity to a cinema not root-
ed in narrative integration and rather inclined towards a poetics of spectacle, obvious-
ness and self-reference, as it can be seen in the avant-garde as well as in popular enter-
tainment forms. I5 The archaeology of the multi-screen environment then illustrates
how the multiplied surface and screen never sought the contemplation and immersion
in the diegesis typical of Classical Hollywood Cinema. The split-screen self-consciously
displays the limit of the frame, it exhibits the finite nature of the medial image, the ulti-
mately fragmentary and constructed character of the moving image.
  The second important strand, besides the influence from thematic exhibitions, is the
movement within the avant-garde known as "expanded cinema", to use a phrase
coined by Gene Youngblood. I6 Not coincidentally, Youngblood's book boasts a preface
by architectural guru Buckminster Fuller who in turn was instrumental in designing
some of the geodetic domes in which multi-channel experiments were being exhibit-
ed. This strand can be followed back to earlier experiments of the Eameses, as well as
to experiments within the first wave of the avant-garde, most famously of course Abel
Gance's triptych projections for his Napoléon (I925-27). In addition, the phenomenon
was apparent in various events realised within the framework of the Bauhaus. These
experiments with alternative screening set-ups, were self-consciously designed to
reconsider the cinematic apparatus as the basis of the spectator's involvement in the
film. In fact, the thematic exhibitions and the avant-garde are intertwined in even
more (complex) ways. Both these approaches, from the perspective of the self-con-
tained logic of Hollywood and that of the historical context of modernity and avant-
garde offer potential explanatory models for the proliferation of split screen in main-
stream films.
                                                                                         39
  1 Bat can we learn from this brief archaeological sketch of the multi-screen image
in the cinema? When seen from the perspective of the avant-garde, the influence of
the "erpanded cinema" of the igbos, as well as of Andy Warhol's experiments with
doublescreen in The Chelsea Girls (1966), are crucial for the mainstream break-
through of the split-screen. Since the avant-garde considered itself as a pathfinder and
minesweeper, it seemed reasonable to assume that commercial filmmaking picked
up on ideas from the fringes.17 From the logic of technological rivalry, multiple
screens answered to the cinema's inferiority complex vis-a-vis television. But the list
of explanatory models can still be extended: when considering the ramifications of
almost all media in military technology, the multiple screen could refer to the war
control room with many monitors updating data (radar, interactive maps, control
panels and so on) in real time. So maybe, instead of claiming the origin of this partic-
ular technique to one historical incident one should acknowledge that - very much
like the cinema itself with its roots in many different fields - the genealogy of the
split screen links it to very diverse backgrounds. Yet again, one feature seems to be
characteristic of the split-screen: the explosion of a single viewpoint that offers a priv.
ileged perspective on the film. A split-screen film, an experimental installation, or a
multi-screen set-up used in an exhibition - all these instances require a reception
stance different from classical cinema which is different from the classical cinema's
provision of a seamless image which encourages a coherent viewing position, to
smooth over the rupture of the cut.



Modulating the Classical Continuity System: The Boston Strangler

   Let me turn to one paradigmatic example of multiple frames in mainstream fiction
film, The Boston Strangler. The film tells the story of a serial killer, and is made thirty.
seven years after M (F. Lang, 1931) and twenty-three years before The Silence of the
Lambs (J. Demme, 1991). The Boston Strangler charts the history of the "Boston stran-
gler", a serial killer who murdered thirteen women in Boston between June 1962 and
 January 1964. Tony Curtis plays the alleged serial killer Albert DeSalvo (he was self-con-
 fessed and never acquitted because he was killed in jail before he went on trial) and
 Henry Fonda performs the investigating detective, yet the most striking feature in the
 film is the numerous split-screen scenes. This is somewhat surprising since the film
 otherwise exhibits a rather rough, direct, realistic and documentary style of the detec-
 tive film. The film often dwells on scenes detailing the investigative work of the police.
 The divided screen is employed in an almost encyclopedic fashion in this film, exper
 imenting with different uses over the course of the film. Sometimes the film utilises
 split-screen to enhance suspense when it doubles perspectives: in one scene the film
  shows the dead body of a murder victim lying in the dark in one frame while the other
  frame shows two unsuspecting neighbours knocking to ask why their housemate is not
  picking up her mail On opening the unlocked door the two shots partly overlap: in one
 frame, a wide shot, we see the corpse as well as the two shocked neighbours, in the other
 we have a close-up of the faces. The split-screen in this film is employed in the plac
 what wou'd normally be a cut in to a closer view. All through the film, split scree
 esed as a substitute for traditional editing techniques such as montag
 reverse shots patters, egeline matches and others. Indeed, the
                                                                 KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION


manual for presenting how the split-screen can be fitted into the continuity and
decoupage system of classical Hollywood cinema. Indeed, in a contemporary article
director Richard Fleischer, visual designer Fred Harpman, cameraman Richard H. Kline,
editor Marion Rothman, and visual effects specialist L.B. Abbott all stress how split-
screen was used in order to enhance suspense or to create a more complete impression
of the city being terrorised by the lurking murderer. 18
  Yet, in one memorable sequence the film also accomplishes something else with
this technique: it brings the competition between cinema and television to the fore.
The sequence illustrates in a quick succession of scenes presented in split-screen the
frantic police search for the killer. The sequence is introduced by a multiplication of
TV screens. Over the face of the strangler's last victim we hear a voice announcing the
names of the murdered women until the appearance of a TV screen in a panel on the
left of the screen locates the origin of the spoken words as the voice of a newscaster.
The film foregrounds the viewing situation of television, showing the television set
as a rather bulky and unwieldy piece of furniture decorated with flowers. In another
frame, two women (potential victims?) intently observe the newscast over a meal.
The TV images shown with some surroundings multiply and we see up to four
images at the same time. Meanwhile, the TV shown without surroundings on the left-
hand side of the screen functions as a kind of anchor. After the brief flashes of "ambi-
ent television"I9 the panels on the right of the screen disappear to disclose that the TV
monitor on the left shown all through the scene is, in fact, located at the police head-
quarters, tucked in one far corner of the room. Self-consciously, the film contrasts the
small black-and-white TV images with the large colourful canvas of the film that we
are watching. The spectators now discover that, all the while, the TV on the left of the
frame had been watched by policemen who are, in turn, subsequently briefed about
detaining every sexual offender in the city. In the following montage, television, as a
medium of multiplication, is contrasted with film which is able to encompass and
contain these multiple screens and views in a single image. As if to offer a direct com-
parison, we see a cinematic image of a western projected on the big screen (is it John
Ford's Stagecoach?) in which "normal" and "acceptable" viewing behaviour is con-
fronted with "transgressive" and "deviant" conduct. A man directs his flashlight at
the legs of a woman sitting next to him instead of watching the screen. Immediately,
a policeman shows up and arrests the man: while TV is a medium that is watched at
the side, the cinema demands undivided attention; any deviation will be punished
immediately.
  In conclusion we could say that the split screen of the gos partly answers to the
challenge of television and the demographic shifts in Hollywood's audience. It is as if
the film self-consciously stages a confrontation between the two media in such a way
that the cinema emerges as the clear winner. This example from The Boston Strangler
demonstrates, to use a term coined by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, that not
only new media remediate old media, but also that old media remediate new media:20
in this case, cinema deliberately includes television as a frame within a frame to show
off its superior size and dimensions. Moreover, by including split-screen the cinema
requires the spectator to divide his/her attention between the different sub-images
included within the overall frame. It is this interruption to concentration that 1 consid.
er to be crucial to an understanding of the reception process that is not limited to the
cinema but also encompasses other media.
MALTE HAGENER



The Spatialisation of Art and Media

  If we turn to audiovisual culture and media in general, there are more instances of
split-screen over the last couple of years than is possible to discuss here. Even when
thinking about the uses in different media one ends up with an endless list. In TV, news
shows with clocks, bars and other devices come to mind, as well as interview situation
with the shot-reverse-shot pattern substituted by juxtaposed screens. More obviously
divided screens are to be found in TV drama such as the critically acclaimed post 9-11
paranoia series 24 (2001); sport shows tend to use the split-screen format for action
replays and alternative angles; economy with biz bars, exchange rates and share prices
updated in real time; advertisements during a game show or car race are momentarily
scaled down into a small frame in the corner of the screen; music television with SMS
messages and flash forwards to the next clip while new models of large flat screen TVs
often allow the spectator to watch at least two channels simultaneously. Moreover,
architectural environments come to mind: shopping malls and theme parks, fair-
grounds, train stations and airports, as well as the multi-channel installations in the
gallery and in the museum all use split or multi-screen images.21 What could be the
reason for this astounding convergence of different fields? If the phenomenon is
noticed at all one standard explanation is that split-screen is easily created with today's
computer technology. True, back in the late Igos and early Igos split screen was a
complicated process which took weeks and months to create while today any college
kid can do it on his/her laptop. The intricacies of masking the image and optical print-
ing has given way to the AVID editing software which provides the same effect with a
mouse click. Yet again, there are so many things easily done on a computer an
a small fraction of these ever become successful. Thus, the argument of availability and
access might be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient to explain the popularity
of the device in contemporary art and media.
  First of all, what appears typical of multi-screen projections or multi-frame environ-
ments is the fundamentally non-linear structure of the formation. The traditional fea-
ture film, as well as the novel or the musical piece, are determined by temporally con-
secutive and successive images: one element follows another in a pre-determined order
that the recipient has to follow. The multiple screens radically break with this concept
as they give way to coexistence and simultaneity. This concomitance also shatters fun-
damental beliefs of film studies. In montage theory, the meaning of an image is deter-
mined by the preceding and the following shots, whereas in split-screen, an image also
has an opposing image that enjoys a much stronger connection to the simultaneous
image than consecutive images ever do. Harun Farocki, a filmmaker-cum-installation
 artist, has coined the phrase of "transversal influences" for this kind of interaction
 between images appearing simultaneous in different frames or on different screens.
 Yet, for Farocki transversal influences are not necessarily limited to the literal kind of
 montage that multiple frames allow, but these relations also extend to a kind of lateral
 or transversal thinking that tries to overcome traditional divisions and disciplines.22
 The multiple juxtapositions and diverse relationships offered by multiple frames lends
 itself to more open narrative and argumentative forms and thus also to repeat viewings
 and multiple meanings.
  As a result of the simultaneity and transversality of split-screen devices and multi-
 screen environments one can observe a tendency towards the spatialisation of the rela-
                                                                   KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION


tionship between the images in media traditionally based on temporal succession. The
multi-channel installation in the gallery or in the museum underlines this point as
they emphasise the category of space by downplaying the temporal dimension specta
tors can enter and leave whenever they want. Alternatively, they can also mill around
in the installation space. The audiovisual material is often shown as a loop, any part of
which might be watched by a spectator. Thus, unlike in the traditional cinematic appa-
ratus with fixed starting time and a predetermined running time of a programme, the
spectator can determine the length of reception, she can enter at any given moment as
well as decide upon and change the distance and angle from which to view the work of
art.23 In constructed environments such as theme parks or shopping malls this is even
more obvious because architectural ensembles are defined by variable paths, the possi-
bility to stroll around, linger or turn back.
  Installation art also explodes the notion of a privileged spectator position. Traditional
image production was for a long time governed by the regime of the single point of
view; all the way from Alberti, the Renaissance perspective provided a box-like space
with a single vanishing point at which all lines converged. While modern art from
Impressionism onwards eroded the privilege to a single viewpoint when representing
reality,24 the construction of photographic lenses tied the optomechanical media to
this tradition. The split-screen and the multi-channel environment can be credited with
offering an alternative to this construction because they offer two or more images at the
same time in the same field of perception. This contributes to a spatialisation since the
actual, that is, the spectator's physical position, which is regulated and fixed in the cin-
ema, all of a sudden becomes flexible. These factors sketched require a different frame
of perception for the spectator that one could label, following Scott Bukhatman, "kalei-
doscopic perception". 25 This is the dialectic contrast of fragmented perception and
immersion, of contemplation and distraction, of stasis and kinesis typical of the split-
screen that has become a model of media spectatorship in the past decade.


The Return of Split-screen in the Cinema

  Let me illustrate this diagnosis of the spatialisation and of the kaleidoscopic percep-
tion with the example of Mike Figgis' experimental Time Code (1999), a film centred
a casting taking place at the fictive film production company "Red Mullet" (which
shares the name with Figgis' own production company). The scene is filmed with four
cameras in one unbroken take each in real time and presented as four simultaneous
images on the four quarters of a screen split. A large part of the pleasure of watching the
film derives from trying to figure out the intricate layout of the building and the com-
plicated manoeuvres of the cameramen in overlapping shots while following th
ferent characters around. Over the course of the film the spectator gets acquainted with
the office building, the reception area and toilets, the screening room and the cubicle
offices; sometimes two cameras show the same action at the same time from different
angles, so we can figure out the floor plan of the building. The basic idea of the film lit-
eralises the multiplication of different perspectives and points of view becau
spectators, always have to decide which of the four images we want to watch. Our atten
tion constantly wanders from one split-screen to another and the experience is at t
same time immersive (in the story world) and fragmented (in the way the centre of

                                                                                        43
MALTE HAGENER



attention shifts). Despite the constant break-up of the image into four sub-frames Time
Code nevertheless strongly guides the viewer's attention through the soundtrack. In
Time Code sound creates its own world, an additional frame (to the four visual frames)
that shifts the perception to relevant story information. Sound is not any longer subor-
dinated to the image as in classical cinema because there is no longer a single image or
action to which the sound could be subjugated. In the "master version" of Time Code,
that is the version released theatrically, the elaborate sound design continually alter-
nates the foreground and background noise, mixing the four different audio tracks
from the four cameras with non-diegetic music, thus guiding the spectator through the
experience of having to watch four frames at the same time without missing salient
story information. Yet, the DVD opens up the idea of multiplied perspectives more
widely since it allows free switching between the master version with strong sound
cues, the four different soundtracks of the respective images, an "unbiased mix" (all at
the same level) and a commentary track by the director. Mike Figgis has even performed
several live mixes of the four separate soundtracks with his own music and effec
cinemas and film festivals.26 With this film, the multiplicity of cameras translates into
a multiplicity of versions of the same film that only really comes into its own with tech-
nology such as DVD because in cinema one is still presented with the master version.
  Gilles Deleuze has diagnosed a multiplication of the image and a spatialisation of the
time-based art cinema along similar lines in his concluding remarks of the second vol
ume of the Cinema-book. Deleuze anticipates new electronic images that "can emerge
from any point of the preceding image". The "organisation of space", he concedes, "l
 its privileged direction" and it is transformed into a new "omnidirectional space" that
 constantly changes angles and coordinates. This new spatial relationship in the trian-
 gle screen, image and spectator is most radically realised in installation art to which the
 term "omnidirectional space" appears adequate. The screen which does not any longer
 refer to the position of the spectator, changes from an image or a frame into an opaque
 surface on which data are registered.27 This transformation, as diagnosed by Deleuze,
 therefore, can be conceptualised as a shift from the screen as window or frame, a
 (semi)transparent membrane opening onto a world that the spectator can watch safely
 from a distance (as theorised by André Bazin), 28 to the screen as dashboard or informa-
 tion panel. The spectator no longer observes the unfolding of a coherent time and space
 within the frame of the screen from a privileged position.
   The emergence of a new "omnidirectional space" is made abundantly clear in Hulk
 (A. Lee, 2002) which illustrates its story of a genetically modified body that grows and
 transforms in grotesque ways by images that in similar ways seem to grow organically
 out of each other. Frames appear, grow, shrink and disappear at any instance, some-
 times they even turn literally as if the image we are watching were part of a dice that
 was turning. The idea of the control room and the screen as a surface for the registration
 of data plays on three levels in this film: first, the characters are diegetically more often
  than not in the control room as they watch an experiment unfold or as the military
  commander observes the flight of Hulk; second, the film inscribes a regime of surveil
  lance, control and observation that is quite typical of split-screen technique (as can be
   found for instance in almost all of Brian de Palma's film, the specialist for split-screen).
   Split-screen scenes very often deal with instances of observation and expectation, so
   that the doubling of the visual material in the additional frame often refers to an obser-
   vation of the second order.29 Third, the film, not only foregrounds the split-screen as a
                                                                 KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION


device, but also "images that turn" as if they were spatially arranged beyond the screen.
These images move into and out of the traditional filmic space, which, in turn, itself
becomes a three-dimensional structure, yet not one that opens up privileged access to a
complete world beyond the screen. Rather, the space is generated from digital data on
the (computer) screen. In a way, the film behaves like a three-dimensional database that
we can access and with every viewing our attention shifts in different ways between the
diverse split-screens. Unlike "classical split-screen" films such as The Boston Strangler
or The Thomas Crown Affair where the fragmented screen space could be theoretically
re-translated into a classical decoupage, the recent use of split-screen creates a spatial
system that is not imaginable in any other way than as it is presented.


The Fold

  If we follow Deleuze's diagnosis that the transformation of the traditional indexical
image into the electronic and digital image results in a loosening of the rigid spatial
structure of the cinema, in a movement towards "omnidirectional space", then the
installation can be conceptualised as the logical successor to the cinema. In the instal-
lation space, the clear and stable relationship between spectator, screen and image
breaks down and opens up towards a multiplicity of possible relations, it opens up to
micro-relations of space and time. One could say that what distinguishes installation
art from cinema, but also from other art forms is the simultaneity of the different
frames for moving images, the coexistence of diverse regimes of time and space - the
then and there of the images - within the same time and space - the here and now of
the installation. I believe that a useful concept in theorising these phenomena is the
fold as developed in Gilles Deleuze's book on Leibniz's philosophy and Baroque culture.
The fold as the symbol and symptom of the Baroque is extended into infinity in spatial
as well as temporal terms. One could imagine it as an endless ribbon or strip without
beginning or end, without inside or outside, much like the paradoxical Mobius strip
or the double helix holding the genetic code or, to turn to another example closer to
home, similar to the film strip running through the projector from one reel to the other.
The fold encloses space and time; this embedding of different temporal and spatial
regimes is one of the hallmarks of today's media culture. The fascination of contempo-
rary media-based entertainment such as the cinema and television, mobile appliances
and internet games, and also sporting events and theme parks, relies to a good degree
on this enfolding and unfolding of time and space. The spectator enjoys the pleasure of
being able to watch, control or experience more than one place and time at once. This
imaginary power of ubiquity can be found in many of today's media practices: the fas-
cination of jumbled-time narratives in the wake of Pulp Fiction (Q. Tarantino, I994), the
constant play and replay of images in sports arenas, and also, on television, the loops
and circuits of avant-garde film and cinematographic installations in the gallery, or the
strange logic of media warfare.
  Most installation pieces exhibit a similar tendency towards offering multiple perspec-
tives and several time frames simultaneously. A rather arbitrarily chosen example
would be Amos Gitai's reworking of his own 25-year project of a series of films charting
the development of a house in West-Jerusalem. The house was abandoned by its
Palestine owner in the 1948 war, then requisitioned by the Israeli government, rented

                                                                                       45
MALTE MAGENER



out to a Jewish-Algerian immigrant and sold to a university professor in 1980 who, in
turn, transformed it into a three-storey house. The simultaneous presence of nineteen
monitors in a half-darkened rooms offers the possibility, once one gets accustomed to
this multiplication of images and sound, to catch glimpses of the same space at different
times. Gitaï's project News from House News from Home charts the development of a
house as a material witness to the political, social and cultural upheavals in one of the
most conflict-ridden places of the world.30 As a spectator one is sometimes capable of
watching the same place - the staircase, the façade, a certain room - at the same time in
two films shot years apart and playing on different monitors. Sometimes, construction
work seen on one monitor is contrasted by destruction on another, sometimes the
weather is consistent between the two monitors, sometimes it is in contrast. The possi
ble combinations are endless. Different layers of time and different aspects of space con-
verge in the installation on different monitors that provide glimpses of an omnidirec-
tonal time and space. Thus, the installation offers the virtual dimension of time up for
consideration (the images from different films) condensed in a single time and in a sin-
gle space (the installation). Similar observations could be made for many other instances
such as the stark juxtaposition in Shirin Neshat's multi-channel installations as
Turbulent (I998), Rapture (1999), and Fervor (2000)31 or in Eija-Lisa Ahtila's tryptichs.


Conclusion


  The split-screen appears to be a marginal instance when considering traditional film
histories as a self-contained discipline. I have outlined several explanatory models that
compete and can claim to give a coherent explanation for the appearance of this tech-
nique in the 196os. Yet again, if viewed from today's media culture in which the multi-
plied frame has become a ubiquitous device, these forerunners have a higher signifi-
cance. In conclusion, let me stress three crucial features of the multiplied surface. First,
the multi-screen devices point towards a radical spatialisation of art and media.32 The
non-linear dimension of the split-screen and the spatial extension of the installation sig.
nals a shift towards an omnidirectional space which loses the single viewpoint logic of
classical painting and classical cinema. At the same time, this spatiality often realises
itself as a series of opaque surfaces instead of a single window filling the spectator's field
of vision and opening up onto a vista towards a diegetic universe that can be observed
from a safe distance. Second, the aesthetics of the phenomenon can be likened to the con-
trol room with the multiplication of screens reminiscent of multiple monitors, control
panels and surveillance images in scientific laboratories, war rooms or airport towers. In
this view, the frame is not any more a transparent and ultimately invisible division, but
it becomes a surface on which data and information is inscribed. And third, these multi-
ple frames realise Deleuzian folds as they enfold and unfold time and space, space as it is
compressed in these new environments, art works and media artefacts. Here, I would
argue, lies the pleasurable nature of contemporary media culture, from the event culture
of sports arenas to the elitist high art of the installation piece: to experience multiple
 temporal and spatial dimensions at the same time, to be here and to be there, to be now
and to be then. These folds require a kaleidoscopic perception, oscillating between
immersion and distanciation, between contemplation and distraction, between move-
ment and stillness, that is the hallmark of the multi-screen environment.
                                                                         KALEIDOSCOPIC PERCEPTION


* Thanks to the participants of the Gradisca Spring School for their feedback on an earlier ver-
  sion of this paper. I am deeply grateful to Hans-\. Wulff (Kiel) and Jonathan Thonon (Lille)
  who generously shared their unpublished material and exchanged ideas. I am also indebted
  to the participants of my seminar on split-screen for stimulating discussion and presenta-
  tions.
2 For similar observation filed under the rubric of neo-baroque see A. Ndalianis, Neo-Baroque
  Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
3 See L.. Manovich, The Language of New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).
4 As this is the launching pad of a larger project I will be re-visiting some of the issues men-
  tioned in the introduction, but not explored in this text, at a later date.
§   "Split screen is the visible division of the screen, traditionally in half, but also in several
    simultaneous images", "Split screen", Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia,
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_screen_%28film %29 (February 22, 2006). "Schon
    während der Stummfilmzeit Mitte der Ig1oe Jahre wurde die Leinwand in verschiedene
    Sektoren aufgeteilt, um räumlich getrennte, aber gleichzeitig stattfindende Handlungen
    darzustellen", "Split screen", Benderverlag Lexikon der Filmbegriffe, http://lexikon.bender-
    verlag.de/suche.php (November 8, 2005). James Monaco approaches the phenomenon who-
    ly from the production side: "Mehrere Bilder werden in der optischen Bank gleichzeitig
    nebeneinander auf einen Filmstreifen kopiert, .B. eine Aktion von mehreren
    Kamerastandpunkten aus gesehen", J. Monaco, "Entry Mehrfachbild", Film und neue
  Medien. Lexikon der Fachbegriffe (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2000), p. 105. "An effect
  shot in which two or more different images appear on the same frame", E. Katz, The Film
  Encyclopedia. The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume
  (New York: HarperCollins, I994), P. I285.
6 Harun Farocki for example provides of some of his art works single-channel (one monitor,
  similar to "traditional" video art) and multi-channel versions (more than one screen).
7 I am deliberately leaving out avant-garde and experimental filmmaking like Abel Gance's
  multivision and experiments conducted within the framework of the Bauhaus.
8 See for example the website devoted to "Brian de Palma's split world", http://members.for-
  tunecity.it/gpuccio/depalmae.htm.
9 David A. Cook's overview of 197s cinema, Lost Illusions, a voluminous contribution to the
   massive History of the American Cinema-project, lists only two references to this technique,
    both side remarks. The first one is predictably to de Palma (in a section on auteur cinema), the
    second one is to be found in a throw-away remark by director Randal Kleiser that "all the '7os
    film techniques [.), like split screen" were used on Grease. See D. A. Cook, Lost Illusions.
    American Cinema in the Shadow of Watergate and Vietnam 1970-1979 (Berkeley: University
   of California Press, 2000), pp. I51 and 216.
10 For this perspective see some of the essays in Th. Elsaesser, A. Horwath, N. King, The Last
    Great American Picture Show. New Hollywood in the 19705 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam
    University Press 2004).
11 See B. Colomina, "Die Multimedia-Architektur der Eames," in G. Koch, R. Curtis, M. Glöde
   (eds.), Umwidmungen. Architektonische und kinematographische Räume (Berlin: Vorwerk
    8, 2005), pp. 22-35 and B. Colomina, "Enclosed by Images. The Eameses Multimedia
    Architecture," Grey Room, no. 2 (Winter 2001), pp. 6-29. For a contemporary account tracing
    already similar outlines see B. Day, "Beyond the Frame," Sight & Sound, Vol. 37, no. a (Spring
    1968), pp. 80-85.
12 For some contemporary reports from this crucial event see J. Shatnoff, "Expo 67: A Multiple

                                                                                                47
MALTE HAGENER



     Vision," Film Quarterly, Vol. 31, no. 1 (Fall 1967), pp. 2-13 and E. Patalas, "Montreal oder Die
     Fülle von fünf Tagen," Filmkritik, no. 10 (I967), pp. 588-594.
13 I am leaving aside here some of the earlier Hollywood examples which were inspired by
  Pillow Talk (N. Jewison, 1959), but which were strictly limited to telephone situations when
     employing split-screen. For the specific bond between split-screen and the telephone conver-
     sation see H.-J. Wulff, "Ikonographie, Szenentransition, Narration: Zur Analyse der
     Beziehungen zwischen filmischer Form und filmischem Telefonat," in B. Debatin, H.-J. Wulff
   (eds.), Telefon und Kultur: Das Telefon im Spielfilm (Berlin: Spiess, 1991), pp. I27-165.
14 See for example the essays collected in L. Charney, V.R. Schwartz (eds.), Cinema and the
   Invention of Modern Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, I996).
IS The classical (and obvious) example for this argument about the cross-relation between the
     avant-garde and early cinema is T. Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions," Wide
     n° 3-4 (I983), pp. 4-15. Reprinted in Th. Elsaesser (ed.), Early Cinema. Sp
     (London: BFI, I990), pp. 56-60.
16 G. Youngblood, Expanded Cinema (New York: P. Dutto, 1970).
17 For these metaphors in relation to the avant-garde see my forthcoming Moving Fo
     Looking Back. The European Avant-garde and the Invention of Film Culture (Amsterdam
     Amsterdam University Press, 2006).
18 See Anon., "Multiple-Image Technique for The Boston Strangler'," American Cinematographer,
     Vol. 50, no. 2 (February 1969), pp. 202-205, 228, 238-241, 245.
19 A. MacCarthy, Ambient Television. Visual Culture and Public Space (Durham: Duke
     University Press, 2001).
20 J.D. Bolter, R. Grusin, Remediation. Understanding New Media (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
21 See for a collection of examples the article by Julie Talen, "24': Split screen's big comeback",
     http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/feature/200z/05/14/24_split/print.html (July 16, 2006). Se
   the website devoted to split screen across different media www.splitscreen.us.
22 See H. Farocki, "Influences transversales," Trafic, no. 43 (Automne 2002), pp. 19-24.
23 See]. Rebentisch, Asthetik der Installation (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 2003), pp. 179-207.
24 See P. Francastel, "Die Zerstörung des plastischen Bildraums," in Peter Bürger (ed.), Seminar:
     Literatur- und Kunstsoziologie (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 1978), pp. 371-393.
25 S. Bukatman, "Zooming Out: The End of Offscreen Space," in J. Lewis (ed.), The New
     American Cinema (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), pp. 248-272, especially 255€.
26 See for example http://www.splicedonline.com/oofeatures/figgis.html.
27 See G. Deleuze, Kino Il: Das Zeit-Bild (Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 199I), pp. 339-341.
28 See A. Bazin, "Kino und Malerei," in Was ist Film?, edited by R. Fischer (Berlin: Alexander,
     2004), PP. 224-230.
29 "Observation of the second order" ("beobachtung zweiter Ordnung"), is a term theorised by
   Niklas Luhmann (who in turn adapted it from Charles Spencer Brown). It can be found across
   Luhmann's oeuvre, but see for example N. Luhmann, Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Frankfurt/
     M: Suhrkamp, 1995), pp. 92-I64.
30 See A. Franke, A. Ehmann, S. Schulte-Strathaus (eds.), Amos Gitai. News from Home (Berlin:
   Verlag der Buchhandlung König, 2006).
31 See B. Schmitz, B.E. Stammer (eds.), Shirin Neshat (Berlin: Steidl, 2005).
32 See also E. Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London-New
     York: Verso, 1991).




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